Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

Students undertaking MCH3079 should ideally first study MCH1037. Anyone wishing to take this module without this grounding may require upskilling in terms of online newsgathering and news-writing techniques, so please enquire with module leader.

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

This module aims:
- To introduce key theoretical concepts in the study of modern journalism and social media, and to test these theories in practice.
- To instil an understanding of convention and best practice in the distribution of online journalism.
- To assist students in developing skills in audience engagement and to learn strategies in growing online audiences for their online journalism.
- To encourage students to consider the processes that take place within the journalist–medium–audience nexus, that inform the distribution of multimedia journalism.
- To install skills in the editing, publication and maintenance of journalistic standards in the coverage of live news events.

This part-theory-part-practice module will introduce students to those key skills in the identification, publication, distribution, maintenance and curation of multimedia news.

You will be introduced to key theoretical considerations in the intersection of journalism and social media, and you will learn how to apply these theories and concepts to your praxis.

Outline Of Syllabus

This module is aimed at students who wish to explore the nexus between journalism and the theoretical and practical contexts of social media.

The lecture topics covered may therefore include, but are not limited to:

Theories of the Information Society
Social media, participation and convergence
Social media and the law
Sociologies of online news
Political economy of social media
Fake news and information disorder
Social media, privacy and surveillance
The digital public sphere
Social media effects and audiences
The future of social media
Essay-writing, and key concepts round-up

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

Students successfully completing this module should have knowledge of:
1. Key concepts and theories that have arisen in order to explain practice in the distribution of journalism via social media.
2. The contexts (social, economic, technological, political) in which these concepts and theories arose, and their development through various iterations and normative accounts, from the emergence of the internet to the present day.
3. How to apply methods in academic argumentation and theory in order to explain multimedia journalism practice and its outputs in social media.

Intended Skill Outcomes

Students successfully completing the module should have skills in:
1. How to develop an online audience (audience engagement), and how to understand online metrics in terms of maintaining and growing an audience for multimedia journalism
2. Identifying optimal form, content and distribution for live reporting in mobile journalism.
3. Methods and techniques for identifying and developing stories in data journalism and computer-assisted reporting.
4. Editing methods for online materials.
5. Reflection upon the application and outputs of academic thought to journalistic social media practice.
6. Employability
7. Communication skills.
8. Independent study.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Scheduled lectures for the full cohort will provide an opportunity to embed the learning introduced in the online materials. Lecture materials will allow students to explore the module’s key themes, while undertaking their own original research in various theoretical fields of online journalism studies (including, for example, interactivity, normative theories of data representation and histories of online journalism).

Small-group workshops will help students to develop their critical thinking and skills and understanding in the field within a collaborative approach to learning.

Small group teaching, in the form of 11 editorial meetings to discuss progress on practical work, and 3 workshops for seminar readings of key texts, will encourage students to iteratively improve their practical work, while reflecting in some depth upon the field's theoretical bounds, integrating theory into their practice, while maintaining a critical awareness of their own progress.

Guided Independent Study is a crucial component of this module; it is essential that students learn to critique 'best practice', from its origins at the dawn of the internet to the present day. Students will use this time to advance their skills and knowledge, develop as reflexive practitioners and prepare their assessments.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

These assessments allow students to develop a grounding in the theory and practice of multimedia journalism.

Assessment components one and two refer directly to key skills and practices in multimedia journalism: live reporting, professional mobile journalism, audience development and engagement in an online ‘beat’, and in niche areas such as data journalism.

Feedback to students during (formative) and on completion (summative) of each element will reinforce key learning outcomes.

Assessment three refers directly to the application of theory across a range of relevant domains. This assessment will help students to reflect upon their own praxis and develop as reflexive practitioners.

General Notes

N/A