COM 329: Digital Storytelling

SPRING 2009

MWF 11-11:50 a.m. | LAU 111, LAU 113 & other places


Professor: Dr. Brian Carroll
Office: LAU 100
Office hours:
MWF 10-11am; 3-5pm, Thur 10-11am |
by appt. | drop-ins welcome
on the phone: 706.368.6944
via email: bc at berry.edu
on the web: www.cubanxgiants.com
on the blogs: Wandering Rocks
iphone

Dog ate your syllabus? Download another one. Check discussion leadership here. Looking for a job? The Berry COM Job Bank

Check on a regular, frequent basis (or subscribe): The Media [are] Dying | The Medium blog

Note: This page will change; please refer to it frequently. Do not merely print it out the first week of class.

Go HEELS!
Monday
> Topics <
Wednesday
> Tools <
Friday
> Texts <
Week 1: Jan. 14

 Welcome back to the Bubble!

First day of class:
Introductions, syllabus, key course concepts
; the news media future

Sign up for NYTimes.com emailed headlines; begin reading Romenesko media blog, BC's blog and Online Journalism Review
Discussion about discussion, research projects/journalism practica

Budget meeting in Library Seminar Room (right side, second floor): Your hyperlocal story ideas

For funsies: Mojos: Kevin Sites, News-Press mojos | How to do hyperlocal | Las Vegas Sun re-launch | UMN's digital storytelling model

Week 2: Jan. 19 No class Monday: Martin Luther King, Jr., Day

Read: Rebecca Blood, weblogs: a history and perspective

Budget meeting 2: Story ideas and research/journalism projects (meet in the library seminar room)

Post your ideas to the wiki

For funsies: CurrentTV online | Inauguration TimeSpace for the interface | quarterlife.com social video network

Discussion: The Elements of Journalism, Intro & chs. 1-2; Goosing the Gray Lady (this is an excellent read)

quiz on the readings for the week

>>Discussion Roster

Week 3: Jan. 26

Introduction to convergence, multimedia, interactive

New West network
Politico.com

HuffingtonPost.com
TalkingPointsMemo.com
HometownHeadlines.com
Wikipedia.org
Smoking Gun
CNN's iReport
Soul of Athens (Ohio)

For funsies: France's gift to 18-yr-olds

Blog and CMS publishing formats; Introduction to Concrete5, Mac server

Discussion: The Elements of Journalism, chs. 3-5 (Minyeoung & Lindsay leading, meet in library seminar room)

For next Wednesday, take five related photos for a slideshow. Be sure to have collected enough information about whatever you shoot to write the cutlines. Bring these five photos on a thumb drive or CD.

Week 4: Feb. 2

More on convergence

Matt Thompson, co-creator of EPIC 2014 and EPIC 2015. His blog: Newsless blog | How do they do this? | New Media Index | Key news audiences | Pew Internet and American Life report on Adults and Social Networking Services | Online First reading | Google & stupidity | Online newspaper site traffic up (.pdf)

DUE: Blog post to WanderingRocks

Photo, audio, Soundslides

Example: Chicago Tribune's Hidden poor | WashingtonPost.com's South Africa | Post's prize-winning fair coverage | St. Louis Dispatch's Reporting for Duty great use of audio

Discussion: The Elements of Journalism, chs. 6-8 & be sure to browse New York Times Ethical Journalism Handbook (.pdf download) (Dustin leading)

quiz on the readings for this week

Meet in the library seminar room

Week 5: Feb. 9

Photo, audio, Soundslides

View sometime this week the FinalCut AND SLR 35-minute tutorials (two) in the DesignLab

DUE: Blog post to WanderingRocks

Podcasting

View sometime this week the FinalCut AND SLR 35-minute tutorials (two) in the DesignLab

New: Blogger acknowledged by Obama (not the New York Times); items new at BerryOnline | Gigapan follo

Discussion: The Elements of Journalism, chs. 9-11 (Kyler leading); New York Times business strategy; and view Walter Isaacson on The Daily Show

Reading quiz!

Week 6: Feb. 16

Video 1: Meet in the DesignLab

Camera aesthetics, basic shooting

DUE: Blog post to WanderingRocks

Video 2: Meet in the DesignLab

Writing for video, interviewing & research

Story updates | NYTimes's prototypes

Discussion: The Long Tail, Intro, chs. 1-3; The Hit Factory (from Wired magazine)

possible quiz on the readings

Week 7: Feb. 23

Video 3: Mac lab (LAU 111)

Editing aesthetics & philosophy

Discuss tomorrow's ARC board meeting

Video 4: Meet in the Mac lab

Looking at examples, deconstructing

Example: Spokesman Review's Video Journal

Discussion: Long Tail, chs. 4-6; plus Going Long, by John Cassidy

Week 8: March 2

Writing & Editing for Digital Media

Students fears about jobs on NPR

Writing for voice | Hyperlinking policy
Writing & Editing for Digital Media

How to hyperlink
Can bloggers fill the gap? no
Taking credit for the death of news

Discussion: The Long Tail, chs. 7-9, plus The Netflix Challenge

Wikipedia entry on The Long Tail

Week 9: March 9

Video 4, with Curt Hersey, in Design lab

Lab time (bring your video, raw or rough cut)

Writing for free! | "Click here!" | Write short!

Video 5, in Design lab

Lab time/production (bring your video)

Discussion: The Long Tail, chs. 10-12, Coda; plus Free! | Becoming Professional

Spring Break! March 14-22

beach balls

Week 10: March 23

Budget Meeting & Production: Meet in the Design Lab

Media Cloud

Production: Design Lab

New online community journalism model

Discussion: "As We May Think" and The Google Grid & Learning from the music industry

Week 11: March 30

Budget Meeting | Writing for voice | Mapping | Mapping 2 | Quikmaps.com

Bakersfield Californian maps
Salt Lake City Tribune news maps
AP news maps

Lecture notes and exercise directions, from BC's upcoming textbook

Production: Design Lab & Mac Lab

 

Discussion: Hyperlocality; Read Hyper-local Hero in FAST Company; J2.0 ch. 2; Rob's blog; Block-by-block news | Everyblock.com | Chicagocrime.org | AND:

  • MinnPost, which provides news and analysis, including video and audio, from experienced journalists primarily in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
  • voiceofsandiego.org, the only professionally-staffed, nonprofit online news site in California.
  • Chi-town Daily News, which uses citizen journalists and staff reporters to cover Chicago’s 75 neighborhoods.
  • St. Louis Beacon, which emphasizes local news on its site founded by veteran journalists, and partners with its local public TV station.
Week 12: April 6

In the DesignLab working on ARC

Blogging (subset of trend of personal publishing)

SecondLife newsroom | Swedish Net traffic way down

No class: Good Friday

 

Week 13: April 13

Thinking mobile | Backpackit.com

Twittering during Moldova riots

Monitoring twitter/tweets

Budget meeting/progress reports

Web site planning & design:
Web design walkthrough

Thinking social | The dangers of Facebook

For funsies: Facebook for journos | Buzz from Yahoo | WePlay.com (for youth sports) | Spokeo.com (for searching social networks) | New York Times's Facebook strat (Kristof's fan page) | Mashable; Listing of social networks with descriptions; Listing of consumer sharing sites w/ descrips

Crowdsourcing:
JFK and the Dallas Morning Herald
Kluster

Crowdsourced Oscar cutlines
Crowdsourcing blog

For discussion Friday, Social Media | John Cassidy, “The Online Life: Me Media, How hanging out on the Internet became big business,” New Yorker magazine (May 2006); view 60 Minutes -- Mark Zuckerberg; read about Facebook and Twitter; about the revolution of digital; and listen to a discussion about the (paperless) future of media

Sanna leading us

Week 14: April 20

Budget meeting | Previewing | De-bugging | Web page building

Revenue models

Louisville Courier Journal dbase whouse

Getting interactive, engaging the audience (Citizen Journalism Academy | NBC News teaching digital journalism)

Some presentation examples from Spring 08: Hannah on academic blogging, Amanda P. on Apple, Amanda D. on Bigfoot., Katie Landry on grieving

Week 15: April 27

The Future : Mobile, Personal, GPS-powered, Entertaining, Always-on, Open source, The Long Tail

Budget meeting

production

Gene Policinski, First Amendment Center >> Meet in the Library seminar room

Final exam period: We have the lab 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm, Wednesday, May 6, if we need it, for final production, page building.

 

Last day of class | Meet in LAU 113

Final exam due Friday, May 1, by 9 a.m.(typed up, printed out)

pepp patty
keep your eyes on the prize!

 >>Go Heels! Beat Dook!

>>consider multimedia & nationalism course this summer

>>how about legal issues

>>got advertising?

>>how about public relations?

Plagiarism on the Web (take the online quiz)

Course Description

Introduction to new media and strategies for effective communication through them. Students will analyze the technical and rhetorical possibilities of online environments, including interactivity, hyperlinking, spatial orientation and non-linear storytelling. PR-COM 301.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, my goal is for students to:

Stuff you need to know

Instructor: Dr. Brian Carroll, Laughlin 100
Office phone: 706.368.6944 (anytime)
E-mail: bc@berry.edu OR bc@unc.edu
Home page: http://www.cubanxgiants.com
Office hours:
MWF 10-11am; 3-5pm, Thur 10-11am | by appointment | walk-ins always welcome

What you will need (required)

• The Elements of Journalism, Kovach & Rosenstiel (Three Rivers Press)
• The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson (Hyperion)
• Neiman Reports: The Search for True North
Journalism 2.0, Knight Center (.pdf download)
• CD-R or memory stick/wand for saving your work

What you may want (recommended, not required)

• Rachel McAlpine, Web Word Wizardry: A Guide for Writing for Web & Intranet (Ten Speed Press)
• Irene Hammerich and Claire Harrison, Developing Online Content (Wiley)
• Lauren Kessler and Duncan McDonald, When Words Collide: A Journalist’s Guide to Grammar and Style (Norton)
• Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think (New Riders)
• Gunnar Liestol, Andrew Morrison and Terje Rasmussen, eds., Digital Media Revisited (MIT)
• Andrea Lunsford, The Everyday Writer (Bedford/St. Martin’s)
• Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide 2 (Yale University Press)
• Robin Williams and John Tollett, The Non-Designers Web Book (Peachpit Press)

Class format

This is a seminar course, so much is expected of students. Discussion and participation are key components, and students will serve as discussion leaders. Hands-on application also is an emphasis. We will learn how to create content specifically for presentation in digital environments and to publish that content to the Web. This means becoming familiar with Macromedia’s Dreamweaver Web publishing program and publishing to a blog, among other things. Generally, new topics will be introduced on Mondays. Elaboration on those topics and software instruction will be on Wednesdays. Discussions on the readings will take place on Fridays (Topics – Tools – Texts, or Delving – Doing – Discussing).

Policies

• Attendance: Attendance is a part of your grade. Be here every day on time, just as you would for a job, surgery or a haircut. Everyone gets one unexcused absence >> no questions asked. Stuff happens. After that, unexcused absences will result in deductions from the "professionalism and participation" portion of your grade -- one point for each unexcused absence or late arrival. What is excused is at the instructor's discretion, so you are best served by discussing situations and extraordinary circumstances prior to class whenever possible.
• Distractions: This instructor is easily distracted. Ringing cell phones, therefore, will be lobbed out of the classroom window. Chatter during lecture will result in "professionalism and participation" point deductions, as will Facebooking or other Internet use during lecture or topic presentations, particularly after warnings have been issued. If you have to arrive late or leave early, clear it with the instructor beforehand whenever possible. Basic civility is what is expected. If you are at all unclear as to what “basic civility” implies, the professor would be more than happy to elaborate.
• Focus: During class and lab sessions, no e-mail, Facebook, IM or Web surfing. These activities prevent you from getting the information you need and it is distracting to your classmates and to me.
• Preparation: Complete the assignments and be ready to tackle the activities of the day. Be ready to discuss and debate ideas, approaches and opinions.

How you will be graded

Projects, quizzes & blog posts 45%
Research Project & Presentations 25%
Leading Discussion 10%
Final Exam (take-home) 10%
Professionalism and participation 10%
Total   
100%

Viking Honor Code

It is not just policy. It is foundational to the academic environment we enjoy and in which scholarship thrives. It is in force in this classroom and during all lab sessions. For the complete Viking Code, please consult the student handbook. In short, each student is “expected to recognize constituted authority, to abide by the ordinary rules of good conduct, to be truthful, to respect the rights of others.” The College’s mission, in part, commits to a community of integrity and justice. During an era when ethics are sometimes suspect, there seems no higher goal toward which students ought to strive than that of personal honor.

Assignments

There are no exams in this course, although students may be quizzed from time to time. These will be no pop quizzes; students will be forewarned. Deadline pressure is an important dimension to the rigor of the course. Meet the deadline or take a penalty.

Assignment rules

While working in class, these parameters apply:

• In-class/in-lab assignments: You may use any and all reliable references, including stylebooks, dictionaries and online sources. Be careful with information found on the Web. When in doubt, cross-check and verify.
• Collaboration: I support collaboration, but any graded work must be the student’s own. In some cases, I will encourage feedback sought from one another. For other assignments, I may require solitary work. Generally, students should operate under the assumption that they are accountable for their own work. When in doubt, ask.

Deadlines

• When an in-class/in-lab assignment is due, it is due. This reflects the reality of many mass communication professions and work environments. Late in-class assignments will not be accepted unless permission for extension had been granted prior to deadline. Turn in whatever has been done by deadline.
• If we have out-of-class assignments, they will be accepted for up to one week after deadline, but late assignments will be penalized. Remember, penalized work is not necessarily the same as 0 (zero) points. Complete out-of-class assignments and learn from them, even if they are turned in late. Partial credit can be earned. After an assignment is more than a week late, however, that work is not eligible for points.
• Please note: If a student misses a class when an assignment is due and that student has a legitimate excuse, I will accept the late assignment without penalty at my discretion. I define what constitutes a legitimate excuse and reserve the right not to grant full credit for assignments turned in under these circumstances. The same holds true for exams.

Students with special needs

If you have special needs of any kind, including learning disabilities, please let me know. Come discuss it with me. I want to make sure on the front end that we prevent any problems associated with the course. From Martha Van Cise, director of the Academic Support Center: “Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodation in this course are encouraged to contact the Academic Support Center in Krannert Room 301 as soon as possible to ensure that such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion.”

Finally, I believe we are here for a good time, not a long time, so let’s have some fun.


questions or comments? bc at berry.edu
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