UM CVJ 596 — Social Media for collaboration, community building and citizen journalism

I’m hon­ored to have been invited to teach at the Uni­ver­sity of Miami as an adjunct pro­fes­sor this fall term. I fig­ure I’ll be busier than ever — what with work at startup Scrap­blog and not infre­quent travel — but I’m con­fi­dent that teach­ing will be a hugely sat­is­fy­ing expe­ri­ence and I very much look for­ward to it. The begin­ning of the semes­ter is fast approach­ing and the first class will be this Thurs­day. I had pre­pared a syl­labus a few months ago, but recently revised it since some things had already changed in the ‘social media’ space. Here is the revised cur­ricu­lum, with dates. This may move to a class blog or wiki within the next week.

School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion

Uni­ver­sity of Miami

Web 2.0: Social Media for col­lab­o­ra­tion, com­mu­nity build­ing and cit­i­zen journalism

UM CVJ 596

Fall Semes­ter 2007

Alex de Carvalho

Office loca­tion: 2013, please request appointment

SYLLABUS

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE:

In a few short years, the Web 2.0 has pro­foundly changed the com­mu­ni­ca­tion land­scape. With the advent of new social media tools, more and more peo­ple are par­tic­i­pat­ing and engag­ing in the con­ver­sa­tion online. As for­mer mem­bers of the audi­ence become the new cre­ators of con­tent, cor­po­ra­tions, insti­tu­tions and media orga­ni­za­tions increas­ingly lose con­trol of the mes­sage. After an overview of how and why we got here, this course will guide you through social net­works, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, media shar­ing, lifestreams, tag­ging and other social media tools. Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion requires using these tools. Since these ser­vices are so new and con­tin­u­ally chang­ing, stu­dents’ prior knowl­edge about the inter­net is not relevant.

The course will explore the new media land­scape in terms of online expres­sion, social net­work­ing, iden­tity man­age­ment, com­mu­nity build­ing and cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism. We will learn from case stud­ies and invited speak­ers, new effec­tive strate­gies and appli­ca­tions of social media tools. Required read­ings expose stu­dents to cur­rent read­ings in social media and pro­vide a base from which to explore their inter­ests. Lec­tures by the instruc­tor resi­t­u­ate these read­ings in terms of broader con­cerns, with spe­cific exam­ples and case-studies of emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and media.

COURSE PREREQUISITES:

The class is open to all and there are no pre­req­ui­sites for this class.

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.

ASSIGNMENTS/COURSEWORK: 

Weblog — 25% of final grade

Stu­dents will start and main­tain indi­vid­ual blogs with a min­i­mum of four post­ings per week, whether text, video or audio or some com­bi­na­tion, for the dura­tion of the course.

Con­tent: com­men­tary about a media web­site. Stu­dents will be expected to post com­ments on each oth­ers’ blogs. The blog will be eval­u­ated on

• the qual­ity of engage­ment with themes of the class
• clar­ity of expression
• cul­ti­va­tion of com­mu­nity through reg­u­lar posts and comments.

Instruc­tion in cre­at­ing blogs and in the prac­tice of blog­ging will be provided.

Pseu­do­ny­mous blog­ging is permitted.

Wiki– 10% of final grade

Each stu­dent will edit an entry in Wikipedia and con­tribute mate­ri­ally to an exist­ing wiki.

Instruc­tion in cre­at­ing wikis and edit­ing Wikipedia will be provided.

Pseu­do­ny­mous Wikipedia edit­ing is permitted.

Social Book­mark­ing – 10% of final grade

Each stu­dent will write start and main­tain an indi­vid­ual social book­mark­ing ser­vice on either del.icio.us, ma.gnolia.com or tum­blr, with a min­i­mum of four post­ings per week.

Instruc­tion in edit­ing social book­mark­ing ser­vices will be provided.

Pseu­do­ny­mous social book­mark­ing is permitted.

Lifestreams – 10% of final grade

Each stu­dent will write start and main­tain a “lifestream” or “microblog” ser­vice for the dura­tion of the course on either Twit­ter, Jaiku or both, with a min­i­mum of four post­ings per week.

Instruc­tion in edit­ing Twit­ter and Jaiku will be provided.

Pseu­do­ny­mous lifestream­ing is permitted.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion — 25% of final grade

Stu­dents are expected to do all the required read­ings for the course, to attend classes reg­u­larly, to have com­pleted the read­ing in advance of classes and to par­tic­i­pate actively in dis­cus­sion. Recog­ni­tion will be given to those who demon­strate con­sis­tent improve­ment over the course of the term.

Pre­sen­ta­tion — 20% of final grade

Stu­dents will choose two read­ings and present the con­tent of the mate­ri­als to class in a pre­sen­ta­tion (10–15 min­utes). These pre­sen­ta­tions will sum­ma­rize the mate­r­ial and then develop addi­tional themes for fur­ther dis­cus­sion. Stu­dents will be graded on the clar­ity of pre­sen­ta­tion and the level of under­stand­ing of the read­ings under discussion.

Due Date: end of term

TEXTS:

Read­ings will be as cur­rent as pos­si­ble and the instruc­tor will reg­u­larly assign mate­ri­als. In addi­tion, stu­dents will be respon­si­ble for keep­ing up to date with the course’s blogroll which will be pre­sented in the begin­ning of the semes­ter. Hand­outs may be pro­vided in addi­tion, in the class and stu­dents are respon­si­ble for read­ing assigned mate­ri­als and the blogroll prior to each class.

COURSE TOPICS OUTLINE

Week of August 20^th, class ses­sion August 23rd

Course intro­duc­tion, overview and objec­tives. What has changed online, how and why we got here and what it means for the media, for cor­po­ra­tions – and for you.

Week of August 27^th, class ses­sion August 28th

The read – write web: from con­sum­ing media to cre­at­ing con­tent. Blog­ging basics, RSS feeds and fee­dread­ers. What infor­ma­tion over­load? Intro­duc­ing microblog­ging and lifestream­ing. Cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing a blog. Word­Press, Type­pad, Technorati.

Week of August 27^th, class ses­sion August 30th

What are wikis and how do they work. Wiki basics and wiki edit­ing. Case stu­ides and exam­ples of wiki use for ref­er­ence, for non­prof­its and for the media. Wikipedia overview and discussion.

Week of Sep­tem­ber 3rd, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 4th

Lifestreams overview and dis­cus­sion. Periph­eral vision, pres­ence and intro­duc­tion to object-centered sociality.

Week of Sep­tem­ber 3rd, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 6th

Media-sharing overview and dis­cus­sion. How and why YouTube and Flickr got so pop­u­lar. Case stud­ies, con­tro­ver­sies and future direc­tions. What is Pownce and will peo­ple use it?

Week of Sep­tem­ber 10th, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 11^th

Social Book­mark­ing overview and basic notions. The role of Fire­fox and open source exten­sions. Cre­at­ing a del.icio.us or tum­blr account. Dis­cus­sion on crowd­sourc­ing and how and why peo­ple collaborate.

Week of Sep­tem­ber 10th, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 13^th

Social Net­work­ing overview and dis­cus­sion. The Social Graph and social net­work porta­bil­ity. Mini-feeds. LinkedIn, Face­book, MySpace, Orkut, Flickr. Future directions.

Week of Sep­tem­ber 17th, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 18^th

The F8 devel­oper plat­form and Face­book applications.

Week of Sep­tem­ber 17th, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 20^th

Other forms of online col­lab­o­ra­tion. IM, SMS, VoIP, shared doc­u­ments and mobile social soft­ware. Online Iden­tity, rep­u­ta­tion, pseudonim­ity and pri­vacy dis­cus­sion. OpenID, ClaimID, Ziki. Social net­work porta­bil­ity revisited.

Week of Sep­tem­ber 24th, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 25^th

The rise and rise of Social Media and what it means for cor­po­ra­tions, insti­tu­tions and the main­stream media.

Week of Sep­tem­ber 24th, class ses­sion Sep­tem­ber 27^th

Com­mu­nity build­ing online: case stud­ies from indi­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies and the media.

Week of Octo­ber 1st, class ses­sion Octo­ber 2^nd

Social Objects and object-centered social­ity. What is Social Object? What makes for a good social object and how to cre­ate social­ity around objects.

Week of Octo­ber 1st, class ses­sion Octo­ber 4^th

Com­mu­nity build­ing: is this the new, new mar­ket­ing? What is com­mu­nity man­age­ment? Why is com­mu­nity man­age­ment impor­tant … or can we do with­out it? Case studies.

Week of Octo­ber 8th, class ses­sion Octo­ber 9^th

Com­mu­nity build­ing: social media tools for build­ing bet­ter and more engaged local com­mu­ni­ties. Social web tools and ser­vices for non-profits, for dis­as­ter relief and for local news reporting.

Week of Octo­ber 8th, class ses­sion Octo­ber 11^th

The new world of media: is online the future or is it already here? What are the cur­rent win­ning mod­els? How is main­stream media affected by the social web?

Week of Octo­ber 15th, class ses­sion Octo­ber 16^th

The new world of media: case stud­ies from new ini­tia­tives as well as from the main­stream media

Week of Octo­ber 15th, class ses­sion Octo­ber 18^th

The new world of media: best prac­tices, resources, col­lab­o­ra­tion and ethics in online jour­nal­ism. Mashups and Open Source.

Week of Octo­ber 22nd, class ses­sion Octo­ber 23^rd

The new world of media: ini­tia­tives in cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism. Case stud­ies on Now Pub­lic, Newsvine, OhMyNews and other sites.

Week of Octo­ber 22nd, class ses­sion Octo­ber 25^th

The new world of media: opin­ion lead­ers and influ­encers. Other ini­tia­tives in cit­i­zen journalism.

Week of Octo­ber 29th, class ses­sion Octo­ber 30^th

The new world of media: online col­lab­o­ra­tion in gam­ing and mmorpgs. What lessons can be applied to the world of work.

Week of Octo­ber 29th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 1^st

The new world of media: case stud­ies in mobile ser­vices and tools for cit­i­zen journalism.

Week of Novem­ber 5th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 6^th

The new world of media: open dis­cus­sion on cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism. What does the news orga­ni­za­tion of the future look like? Is there a role for cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists? How can social media tools be used more effectively? 

Week of Novem­ber 5th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 8^th

The new world of media: con­tin­ued open dis­cus­sion on cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism. What does the news orga­ni­za­tion of the future look like? Is there a role for cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists? How can social media tools be used more effectively? 

Week of Novem­ber 12th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 13^th

The new world of media: con­tin­ued open dis­cus­sion on cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism. What does the news orga­ni­za­tion of the future look like? Is there a role for cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists? How can social media tools be used more effectively? 

Week of Novem­ber 12th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 15^th

The new world of media: con­tin­ued open dis­cus­sion on cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism. What does the news orga­ni­za­tion of the future look like? Is there a role for cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists? How can social media tools be used more effectively? 

Week of Novem­ber 19th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 20^th

Stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions and class discussion

Week of Novem­ber 26th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 27^th

Stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions and class discussion

Week of Novem­ber 26th, class ses­sion Novem­ber 29^th

Stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions and class discussion

FINAL EXAM PERIOD:  Thurs­day Decem­ber 6^th 8:00–10:30pm