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Reporting and Producing Social Media Video

Reporting and Producing Social Media Video


This class is about the things in your social media timelines that move and make noise—the news clips, explainers and engaging video stories that populate the various social media platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter). But it's also about the trends, algorithms and business models behind those posts. In this course, we'll look at the top innovators of this genre—including AJ+, NowThis, NBC, Bloomberg, Vox and others—and learn the best practices for social media video reporting. And we’ll learn by creating work:

A key component of this course is to develop skills in the tools used to tell these stories - primarily by learning the applications in Adobe Creative Cloud, including PhotoShop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects.

The class is a combination of lecture/instruction, guests from major social media video news organizations, practice exercises and two story assignments. And it will also feature a short out-of-town trip to New York City (though the location may change) where we’ll meet innovators and producers doing work in the genre, and also do some practical field and reporting work. Bilingual reporting and storytelling This is a bilingual course that explores the history, current state and future of the English, Spanish and bilingual audiences and the media outlets that seek to reach them. Students will get to know Chicago’s vibrant and diverse LatinX communities and practice research and interviewing, reflection and story production in Spanish and in English. This class is for anyone who wants to better understand the role of media and journalists covering diverse communities. We will explore the complexity of language and culture, identity, race and ethnicity, nationality and class. Student will learn how to discover, report and share in a sensitive and compelling matter, the stories of people who identify as LatinX and/or have roots in Latin America, whether they live the United States or elsewhere. We produce stories in a variety of media. This class is a prerequisite for journalism residency placements in Argentina.