Community Building and Citizen Journalism Course at UM

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