I have been asked to pre­pare a course on Social Media for the Uni­ver­sity of Miami and have devel­oped the fol­low­ing outline.

Enroll­ment is now open, please let me know if you have any ques­tions or top­ics you would like to see cov­ered. I may be reached at alex [at] decar­valho [dot] net. If you know some­one who would be inter­ested in this class, please let them know about it or con­tact me.

School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Uni­ver­sity of Miami Course CVJ 596 — Fall Semes­ter 2007

The Web, Take 2: online expres­sion, com­mu­nity build­ing and cit­i­zen journalism

Course Descrip­tion and Pur­pose

This course cov­ers the impli­ca­tions of new media tech­nolo­gies on com­mu­ni­ties and on the media. Through the prac­tice of online pub­lish­ing, the course will explore the social and cul­tural dimen­sions of the new media land­scape includ­ing online expres­sion, social net­work­ing, iden­tity man­age­ment, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism and community-building.

Com­mu­ni­ties thrive through the pas­sion and shared inter­est of their mem­bers, and we will learn from case stud­ies and invited speak­ers, new effec­tive strate­gies and appli­ca­tions that help fos­ter these inter­ests. Stu­dents will crit­i­cally engage con­tem­po­rary writ­ings in social, cul­tural and online stud­ies. Required read­ings expose stu­dents to cur­rent read­ings in cyber­space schol­ar­ship, and pro­vide a base from which to explore their own interests.

Lec­tures by the instruc­tor resi­t­u­ate these read­ings in terms of broader soci­o­log­i­cal con­cerns and spe­cific exam­ples and case-studies of emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and media.

Course Pre­req­ui­sites

The class is open to stu­dents from all schools at UM and there are no pre­req­ui­sites for this class. Pref­er­ence will be given to stu­dents with an inter­est in media development.

Mate­ri­als Fees

Stu­dents will not be required to pur­chase any mate­ri­als or books and all required read­ing will either be handed out or avail­able online for free. We want to keep read­ings as cur­rent as pos­si­ble and will reg­u­larly assign mate­ri­als that are not listed on the syllabus.

Stu­dents will be respon­si­ble for keep­ing up to date with the course’s blogroll. Hand­outs will be pro­vided in the class and stu­dents are respon­si­ble for read­ing assigned mate­ri­als and the blogroll prior to each class.

 Course Top­ics Out­line (to be revised)

 

1. Course intro­duc­tion and overview. Blog­ging basics, RSS feeds and fee­dread­ers.
 

2. Wikipedia overview and dis­cus­sion. Wikipedia edit­ing basics.
 

3. Social Book­mark­ing overview and dis­cus­sions. Social Book­mark­ing basics.
 

4. Lifestreams overview and dis­cus­sion. Lifestream basics.
 

5. Media shar­ing overview and dis­cus­sion. YouTube; Flickr.
 

6. Social Net­work­ing overview and dis­cus­sion. LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Flickr.
 

7. Other forms of online col­lab­o­ra­tion, includ­ing IM, SMS, VoIP, shared doc­u­ments.
 

8. Online Iden­tity, pseudonim­ity and pri­vacy dis­cus­sion. OpenID, ClaimID, Ziki.
 

9. Online rep­u­ta­tion sys­tems. Ebay, iKarma, The­Gorb, the blogosphere.

10. The inter­net, Take 2: the rise and rise of the social web

11. Com­mu­nity build­ing online: case studies

12. Com­mu­nity build­ing online: cre­at­ing and cul­ti­vat­ing social objects

13. Com­mu­nity build­ing: the new, new marketing

14. Com­mu­nity build­ing: using online tools for bet­ter local communities

15. The new world of media: is online the future

16. The new world of media: how media is adapting

17. The new world of media: best practices

18. The new world of media: cit­i­zen journalism

19. The new world of media: ethics

20. The new world of media: mashups

21. Dig­i­tal Storytelling

22. Stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions and class discussion

23. Stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions and class discussion

24. Stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions and class discussion

Tech­no­rati Tags: um, uni­veristy of miami, course, social media, fall 2007, cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism, com­mu­nity building

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