Analyzing Online Journalism

Course focus and approach:
This is a course that focuses on the ongoing changes on media business and journalism practices due to digititzation. It also emphasizes the social changes the adoption of online journalism is operating in society: news consumption and avoidance, trust in media, and so on.emphasizes the contemporary times from a historical point of view with an approach belonging to urban geography within the framework of cultural studies

Course description:
The nature of technology and journalism is in permanent change. Digitalization has not changed the core principles that underlie journalism, yet it has allowed a terrific shift in terms of habits, capacities and expectations of news production and news consumption –and of course of business models–, but also major changes in news avoidance, inequality in accessing quality news (and its impact on democracy and participation), and trust in media and in news. In this course, which is intended mainly in a practical way, is aimed at understanding the birth and evolution of online journalism, its characteristics, and at assessing the quality of digital media on the Internet. Theoretical content is also provided in order to build practice on it. Hence, students will look for the best practices in international news coverage online through three main levels: company, messages, and user interaction.

Learning objectives:

• Understanding the characteristics of the digital language and its application to online communication and journalism.
•  Ability to assess the journalistic quality of online media outlets o Ability to define criteria for analyzing journalistic content and to critically apply these criteria to media coverage
•  Recognition of cultural diversity and international journalistic traditions.
• Being able to develop a proper informative project.

Course workload:
Lectures offered by the instructor are important, alongside with tutorial session, individually or in small groups, but readings and discussion based on them are equally important. There will be no exam, but a continuous evaluation. A final paper may be required.

Teaching methodology:
There will be some theoretical sessions to explain both concepts, such as multimediality, interactivity of multimediality, and tools to design and evaluate project and their quality. Readings will be provided to strengthen this part, and students are expected and encouraged to deliver a short paper every week, during the first part of the course, so to check that their understanding of them is high (20% of the final assessment). Case studies are contemplated as well as a teaching strategy. Tutorial sessions are of high importance, since it is through this personalized sessions that a proper project can be designed and conducted.

Assessment criteria:
An informative project, proposed by students in groups of three people, will be the main outcome of this course and its principal way of assessment an evaluation. Students will be encouraged to design, present and defend an informative project of their own, after discussion with the instructor and their colleagues about the appropriateness of the topic and approach proposed. Using the most common platforms (e.g. WordPress, Wix, etc.) students will really place their product on the Internet. A memorandum will be delivered at the beginning of the term, a follow-up approach through tutorial sessions will be developed during the term and tools to evaluate their own project will be provided during the course. So, students will evaluate, alongside with the instructor, their own project. Shared discussions in plenarial sessions will be held as well, so the whole group will be able to propose improvements to their colleagues’ projectes as well (10% of the final grade). During the first weeks of the course, students are encouraged to read and discuss some papers related to the main concepts and tools, and a short paper of their own may be evaluated as well (20%). Class participation is mandatory (10% of the final grade). The rest of the assessment is due to the project: 60%.