Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Here’s some skills and knowledge I hope you left this class with
1 History + Evolution of Social • 2 x lectures at start of term (History and Evolution, Core context for everything we’ve
+ Impact on Journalistic Practice) covered.
• Preso: Social Video (Week 2, 10/10) Everything from stats and growth of
platforms, through to the importance of
• Societal impact preso (Week 10) authenticity, telling stories differently
depending on the platform and being
• What’s next preso (Week 10) able to recognize what makes for good
content.
3 Use new apps/tools/platforms • Scavenger Hunt Most journalists are self-taught in social,
(going live, making GIFs and more) and have to be to stay up to date.
• Instagram Stories e.g. Canva, mojo, unfold, Chroma These assignments aimed to introduce
stories + others you to new tools, which you can
continue to learn + use in your own time.
• Hootsuite
4 Awareness of new • NewsWhip Important to understand the range of
apps/tools/platforms tools out there and how they can impact
• Crowdtangle on what you do + how and why you do it.
• TinEye (10/21)
6 Knowledge of – and • Analytics/Monitoring (Crowdtangle, NewsWhip) Knowing that you can talk about these
demonstratable use – of trends in job apps, interviews etc. and be
emerging skill areas • Social Media Management (Hootsuite) able to demonstrate your work in this
space and/or explain why they matter -
• Social Media planning (Ghosts of Highway 20) and how an organization might use these
tools and techniques – may give you an
• Instagram Stories (fastest growing format!) edge over other applicants.
• Use of Medium
9 Pitching + Discussing Ideas • Social Media-led story assignment You will do this every day with your
• Group presentations Editor and peers.
• Critiquing your IG Stories
• Northwestern + Des Moines Register
• Fox, MSNBC, Axios and BBC - impeachment
10 Critical Thinking • Weekly Twitter threads Being able to express what you like /
• Group exercise (Story of the Week) don’t like, what you would change + why.
• Group presos incl. recommendations
Ability to digest learning/reading.
• Discussions with guests speakers
• Observation Exercise (First Draft) You’ll do this in newsrooms and
• Digesting lessons from lectures/presos interviews, just as people will critique
• BuzzFeed AM2DM your work, you must be able to critique
• Social Video – esp. NBC Left Field theirs!
• Story of the Week (Impeachment, looking at Fox,
MSNBC, Axios and BBC News)
11 Working in Groups/Pairs • Scavenger Hunt (pairs) A lot of newsroom and agency work is
• Instagram Stories (pairs) collaborative. You have to work with
• Emerging Platform analysis different people and seldom get to
choose who.
13 Getting out of your comfort • Producing work in the field e.g. interviewing people Important for personal and professional
zone for Scavenger Hunt. development to be constantly pushing
yourself. Sometimes, you need a bit of a
• Working with new people. nudge. Other times, this will be self-
driven.
• Working with new apps/tools.