Over the last several years, we have witnessed the steady growth of social media – so much so, it is now sometimes difficult to find a major website that isn’t using social media in some capacity or another. While online communities and user-generated content are not a new phenomenon, the rise of tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has marked the biggest evolution of the Internet since the start of the World Wide Web nearly 20 years ago.

 

Social media now impacts all aspects of online life, and journalism is no exception. News organizations around the world are grappling with appropriate ways to use social media. Some focus on social media as a way of promoting their content, while others use it to tap into the knowledge base of their users. These practices are still relatively new, so there is still no universally-accepted playbook of how to employ social media in journalism. Nonetheless, we have reached a point where there is a critical mass of skills and techniques that can be greatly beneficial to journalists. And a growing number of news outlets are now expecting their journalists to master them.

 

In this course, we will explore the rise of social media, its impact on journalism and strategies for employing it in your reporting. Students will explore the evolving relationship between journalists and the people formerly known as the audience – and learn methods for cultivating sources, identifying experts/eyewitnesses and enlisting them in your reporting. We will analyze case studies of existing social media journalism projects and study the strategies of news organizations for using social media.

 

 

1.      How journalists are using social media to collaborate with users.

2.      Social media essentials, from high-profile tools such as Twitter and Facebook to less prominent tools such as Tumblr.

3.      Strategies for using social media as research and sourcing tools.

4.      Case studies regarding how social media has been used in journalism

5.      How to enhance your own reporting through interactions with the public

 

Mastering social media is not something that can necessarily be attained in a single course. Additionally, cultivating online relationships via social media is something that will take place over the course of your journalistic career. Our goal, therefore, is to provide you with the theoretical and technical underpinnings to build your social media presence. You will gain some hands-on experience using several social tools in this course.