Class Journalism and Online Communities

Journalism and Online Communities is a theoretical-practical discipline that aims to teach journalism for the online communities, focusing on practice, but also on theoretical and ethical reflection on a new reality that challenges the profession to redefine itself. Through this course, students will have access to good practices as well as the most pressing challenges facing journalism as a social and professional activity in the face of social networks and online communities.

• Online Communities
  • Identity, genre and content
  • Types of participation, motivations and values
  • Examples of thriving communities
• Journalism for online communities
  • Journalism vs content production
  • Journalism for social networks
  • Viral content and new narratives
  • Social Network Management
  • Impact monitoring
• The online community's contribution to journalism¿
  • Crowdsourcing: involve the community in journalism
  • Metajournalism, comments and scrutiny

In this UC, students receive an exhibition focused on the topic of online communities, in order to develop critical thinking about the issues they raise in journalism. They will also be exposed to practical development and will have contact with the available tools. Classes will be theoretical-practical. During the first weeks they will be predominantly theoretical, with the material being presented, illustrated with examples. As the semester progresses, they will become more and more practical. Participation in exercises in class will be assessed and will be worth 10% of the final grade. Students will be encouraged to discuss important issues in class and will need to be familiar with the main concepts and terms. The remaining 90% of the grade is reserved for the various works that will be developed individually.

• Alejandro, J. (2010). Journalism in the age of social media. Reuters Institute Fellowship Paper , 5 (1-47), 1.
• Bacon, J. (2012). The art of community: Building the new age of participation. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
• Bor, S. E. (2014). Teaching Social Media Journalism. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 69(3).
• Canavilhas, J., & Satuf, I. (Eds.). (2015). Jornalismo para dispositivos móveis. Covilhã: UBI - Labcom.
• Cardoso, G., & Lamy, C. (2011). Redes sociais: comunicação e mudança. JANUS.NET - e-journal of International Relations, 2(1), 70¿92.
• Deuze, M. (2004). What is multimedia journalism? Journalism Studies, 5(2), 139-152.
• Mosco, V. (2005). The digital sublime: Myth, power, and cyberspace. Mit Press.
• Vázquez-Herrero, J., Direito-Rebollal, S., & López-García, X. (2019). Ephemeral journalism: News distribution through Instagram stories. Social media+ society, 5(4), 2056305119888657