JOUR476

Prerequisite: Must have completed a university statistics course. Credit only granted for: JOUR479W or JOUR476. Formerly: JOUR479W. Students will examine developments billed as innovative in the current technology-laden news ecology -- such as social media, mobile reporting and virtual reality -- and the blurring of lines between hard news, informed opinion and advocacy. While questions about the future cannot be answered with any certainty, an exploration of the past allows us to see what happened when new technologies, information systems and practices appeared as possible tools for use by journalists and the communities they served. Students will learn to use resources for researching emerging media, including UMD library databases and open access sources. The course will include presentations by the instructor, discussions, field trips, in-class exercises and student presentations. Each student will engage in a research project to understand the experience of emerging media in a decade between 1820 and 1980. Students will also write an essay contemplating current trends and the future of emerging media.