Fundamentals of Digital/Online MediaCourse Philosophy and Background

Cindy Royal, Ph.D.

croyal@txstate.edu

cindyroyal.com

Course origin

• First taught as Social Media at Work, Spring 2010

• Elective, converted to required course in 2011

• Usually taught as large lecture, but sometimes taught as smaller sections in summer, online, Round Rock, etc.

• Now, with your help, we are excited to provide more personalized instruction and support to students in FDOM. This is our fourth year of using this model.

Course rationale• Has been taught by Cindy Royal,

Jon Zmikly, Dale Blasingame, Salwa Khan and others

• Found that in many cases, students were having trouble gaining employment if they had not taken certain digitally focused electives

• Wanted to bring concepts from graduate Digital Issues course to undergraduates

• Wanted students to have digital foundation to bring to other classes across their majors

• Course is updated each semester to remain timely and relevant

Course rationale• Allow students to develop a digital footprint

and explore online presence

• Highlight the opportunities and pitfalls of an online social presence

• New course in Adv Social Media & Analytics added as a continuation

• Other digital courses in undergraduate curriculum Web Design, Multimedia Journalism, Visual Communication, Digital Storytelling, Coding and Data for Communicators, Digital Media Ethics, short course series on digitally focused topics

• Foundation for new Digital Media Innovation major and Media Innovation Lab.

Trends in Digital

• Range of storytelling methods to generate empathy

• SnapChat and Instagram videos and stories, now stories on WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger…

• VR and 360 video - Oculus, HTC Vive, Microsoft Hololens.

• Augmented Reality – virtual objects in real world. Be prepared for Apple’s move into ARKit

• Use of drones for video projects

Analytics trends

• Pageviews and traffic

• Shares, likes, comments – see Mozilla Coral Project

• Engagement actions

• Conversion and revenue

• Brand awareness

• Video and audio metrics – time and frequency

• Trend toward developing mechanisms to measure impact

• Platforms – Google Analytics, Chartbeat, Hootsuite

Other Trends• Hyperlocal and location-based campaigns – Uber/Foursquare

partnership

• Search becoming more visual

• User generated content campaigns

• Streaming – Netflix, Spotify

• Health/Fitness apps

• Food Delivery

• Clothing services

• Interactive/Live gaming

• Smart Home/Internet of Things

• Bots and sensors

Trends in media education • Data Journalism – Columbia University – new master’s

in data journalism

• Entrepreneurship - OU and CUNY

• Journalism + Design – New School

• Social Journalism programs - CUNY

• Partnerships with Google News Lab

• Code Camps – companies like General Assembly, MakerSquare and more; UT partnership with MakerSquare – but some have closed shop, like Austin’s Iron Yard

Key Acquisitions/Leadership Changes• Verizon/Yahoo acquisition going forward as Oath; includes Tumblr, AOL

• Marissa Mayer resigned as Yahoo CEO in June

• Amazon buying Whole Foods - $13.4B

• Google acquired Kaggle – a data science company

• Travis Kalanick removed from Uber as CEO, due to rampant sexism reported in company

• Expect more movement into artificial intelligence in future acquisitions

Cultural Issues• Google gender memo

• Fake News and other political effects of the Internet

The Next Generation

• Rise of Gen Z – born after 1995

Source: http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

# Active Users –Aug. 2017in millions

Tech news sources

• Fast Company

• TechCrunch

• TechMeme

• CNET

• Wired

• NYT Technology

• Statesman 512tech.com

• Follow on Twitter and Facebook

• Follow interesting people who share tech news from a variety of sources - @cindyroyal, @jonzmikly, @daleblasingame…

• SJMC Faculty Facebook group -https://www.facebook.com/groups/sjmcfaculty/

Ask to join!