The digital revolution is having a profound impact on the way stories are researched, reported, edited and distributed. As people turn to social media as a place to share ideas and connect to others, it is imperative that communicators know how to use online networking platforms effectively to find, create and promote their stories. This course is important because it will cover main industry trends so students master the best practices for social media storytelling. This course focuses on teaching communicators the qualitative skills regarding social media storytelling, including finding, making sense, verifying, assessing and creating stories for online networking platforms.
Learning Objectives
- Be familiar with the current scholarship on social media, news and information
- Identify the challenges brought by each unique social media platform
- Recognize the ways professional communicators are able to inform and engage the public via social media
- Master using social media as an awareness system to alert you about trending stories
- Learn how to cover breaking news via crowdsourcing
- Reflect on current conversations around issues of verification, misinformation, privacy and inequality
- Learn how to verify information from social media
- Learn how to defuse and debunk misinformation from social media
- Learn how to control and strategically plan your social media presence
