Syllabus

Course Schedule: Tuesday 9.30 p.m. – 12.30 p.m.
Location: Room 104, School of Journalism

Instructors

Prof Paul Cubbon
Sauder School of Business, HA564
Contact: paul.cubbon AT sauder.ubc.ca

Prof Alfred Hermida
Graduate School of Journalism, Room 211
Contact: alfred.hermida AT ubc.ca

Course description

We are sharing more media from more sources with more people, more often and more quickly than ever before. Social media extends and enhances our ability to engage in dynamic, ongoing conversations and actively produce, as well as consume, content in every imaginable form. Social media is the new operating system for information. Information wants to be social. It wants to be shared, discussed, contested and corrected. The rise of social media has expanded our ability to influence what is published, changed the way we organise, challenged institutional control of information and transformed how companies reach customers. Citizens are no longer simply consumers of commercial messaging and formal news, but are creators, shapers, participants and sometimes consumers. This change has profound organizations for all institutions interested in communicating and influencing the public and who have been rapidly challenged to give up message control.

This course combines immersion in social media tools with a theoretical foundation to equip students with the knowledge and practical skills they need to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the evolving digital media ecosystem. The course simulates an interdisciplinary think tank environment. Students will identify research questions, develop applied projects and examine the impact of social media and social networking technologies on various aspects of society, business, culture, communication, web experience, and interface design.

There will be significant teamwork where business and journalism students collaborate on an applied social media project. There will be opportunity to learn from each other, and for individual students to pursue more advanced learning in specific areas of interest, such as sourcing and crafting stories using social media tools, or commercial monitoring and publishing tools like Hootsuite Pro.

Syllabus: Download as a Word doc.

Course Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, students will be expected to have:

  • Acquired an understanding of how digital technologies and media are reshaping political, business, social and cultural norms and practices
  • Be familiar with major concepts and theory about networked digital media
  • Be proficient with the best application of social media tools and practices in stakeholder communication, be it in marketing, business, NGO or journalism
  • Obtained experience in, and gained an understanding of, how to conduct a social media project from inception to completion
  • Be competent in the use of tools to assess and evaluate the performance of a social media initiative
  • Recognized the changes effected by social media in major aspects of Canada’s society, economy and culture, along with future implications and possibilities

For Commerce students this course builds on COMM464 eMarketing, and delves deeper into the tools and mechanics of social media, in the broader context of the journalist’s perspective on information reporting, effective communication and sharing.

For Journalism students this course builds on JRNL 515C iJournalism by further developing their ability to harness the potential of social media to find ideas and sources, track trends, connect with audiences and enhance their professional profile.

Course materials
We will be using UBC Blogs to host the course website. Details of the course, assignments, readings and additional material will be posted there.

Readings:
Weekly readings are posted on the UBC Blogs Decoding Social Media website

Assignments:
Detailed assignment sheets will be provided for each assignment.

HootSuite certification – 5%
Complete the HootSuite certification course and submit a screenshot of completion.
For students who have HS certification, please submit a short paper (800 words) with practical guidance of how HS can be used for their client in monitoring, publishing and analytics. Due Jan 28, 9.30 p.m.

By end of day Jan 8th please e-mail us to provide your name and e-mail address so that we can get you free access to Hootsuite Pro and HSU (this takes a few days), or confirm that you are already Hootsuite certified so that we know that you will be completing the paper instead.

Social media professional portfolio – 10%
Create and develop a professional portfolio. The portfolio must include, as a minimum, an up to date LinkedIn profile page. Due March 11, 9.30 a.m.

Social media in-class presentations – 15%
Students will work in pairs to prepare a one-page summary submitted in advance and an eight minute in-class presentation on the benefits and weaknesses of a social media tool/service, together with examples of best use in editorial projects. Weekly.

Applied client project: Content and community – 55%
Students will work in groups, bringing together Sauder and Journalism students, on a social media project for a client. This collaborative project is intended to be a practical, hands-on exploration and implementation of what we’ve covered throughout the course.
Details of our media partners are on the course blog.

Project breakdown:

  • Assessment of needs and proposal (including an assessment of suitable HS Pro plugins) – 10%. Due Jan 28 9.30 a.m.
  • Outline and scope of work (including evidence of significant research) – 10%. Due Feb 25, 9.30 a.m.
  • Social media strategic plan (including appendix with breakdown of who did what) – 25%. Due March 25, 9.30 a.m.
  • In-class presentation – 10%. Due April 1 from 9.30 a.m.

Reflection report: – 15%
A reflection on the course and project (600-800 words) – 15% Due April 8, 9.30 a.m.

Course policies

The due dates of all assignments are stated clearly – failure to submit an assignment by the due date, without a valid written reason beforehand, will result in the loss of 5% of the assignment’s value for each day beyond the due date and your paper will be returned to you much later than other papers. Reasonable requests for extensions may be granted, but requests must be made at least 24 hours before the assignment is due. For obvious reasons extensions cannot be granted for the presentations.

Please see the following websites on Academic Integrity and the writing of papers from the Faculty of Arts.

You are expected to attend every class. You should be professional in your approach which involves being punctual and coming prepared for discussion on the topics under discussion.

Should you have a religious observance that will prevent you from attending class, from completing an assignment on time, please be sure to let us know at least two weeks in advance so that alternate arrangements can be made.

Disability and Accommodation:
If you have an impairment that requires accommodation in this course, please speak to a member of faculty or provide them with documentation and recommendations from the Disability Resources Centre.

Course Schedule

Week 1 – Jan 7
From transmission to communication: Social media disruption in journalism and business, and the opportunities for students for careers in social media

Week 2 – Jan 14
Why we share, what we share, how we share, when we share, plus introduction to essential social media tools.
Workshop: Team dynamics

Week 3 – Jan 21
Designing a social media strategy: How to decide on audience, objectives, strategy and technologies / Introduction to Hootsuite
Guest speaker: Julio Viskovich, Hootsuite

Week 4 – Jan 28
Tell stories together: Aggregation and curation: Crowdsourcing and verification

Week 5 – Feb 4
Monitoring, conversing, engaging and analyzing social media trends and impact
The social media dashboard: What to measure, how to measure, how to report it

Week 6 – Feb 11
Developing your social media profile.
Guest speaker: Jay Rosen

Reading Week break – no class Feb 17

Week 8 – Feb 25
Client project workshop

Week 9 – Mar 4
Ethical issues of social media: Personal vs professional, public vs private information, public vs corporate spaces
Workshop: Professional social media portfolio

Week 10 – Mar 11
Designing and running tests on sharing: What works, what doesn’t

Week 11 – Mar 18
Elites and algorithms: Understanding how power plays out in a networked society
Social media as disruptor: How to understand and benefit from disruption in the media

Week 12 –Mar 25
The business of social media: Emerging models in paid, owned and earned media.
The social media editor: What employers want

Week 13 – April 1
Presentation of final projects – student led and run.

Week 14 – April 8
No class: Time allocated for project presentations to clients.