Multimedia Journalism: Authoring for interactive media

Digital Media, Culture and Communication,
Charalampos Dimoulas Anastasia Katsounidou

DIM 111 Multimedia Journalism: Authoring for interactive media

Elective
Semester:
A + B
ECTS:
10

About This Course

Course Description

Nowadays, there is a continuous evolution of contemporary Digital Journalism genres and associated informing services. Among others, Multimedia Journalism attempts to offer appealing storytelling through user-friendly interfaces that offer rich media experience, aiming at engaging the audience. The course aims at providing students the essential theoretical
knowledge and technical skills on multimedia projects implementation and management, using state of the art production, editing and authoring techniques. Starting from the conception of a creative idea until the formulation of a technical project plan, basic terms and definitions along with production methodologies and development models are deployed.
Emphasis is given to the specific characteristics and also to the medium that is suitable for each content type. The students work hands-on individually and in groups in the laboratory, with practical exercises that include animated material and interactive multimedia content and make it available through various technologies. These utilities may include the creation of user interfaces and interactive prototypes (mockups on Balsamiq Studios, InVision, Axure etc.), web design services (WordPress, Wix, etc.), interactive video authoring and publishing (YouTube, h5p.org, etc.), social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) and others

Course Objectives

  • Explain the technological evolution by analysing content and application specifications.
  • Examine the similarities and the differences along with the content production-distribution-consumption chain between traditional media, electronic mass communication (both analog and digital) and New Media Services (Web 2.0 and beyond).
  • Analyse, understand and exploit new digital content production collaborative models in both freelancers and media organizations.

Learning Outcomes

  • Comprehend multimedia content production, pre- and post-processing tools, multimedia authoring and media assets integration.
  • Understand multimedia application packaging and distribution strategies.
  • Understanding the role of multimodal digital content and its metadata in the New Media landscape towards the transition to the Semantic Web (Web 3.0 and beyond).
  • Acquire the demanded technological know-how and skills in order to fully exploit the potentials of New Media in digital content production, authoring, sharing, accessing and interacting, including augmented documentation through semantic tagging.
  • Comprehend and adapt with the new digital content production roles in both media organizations and UGC models.

Class/Learning activities

Lectures, tools and services presentations, laboratory exercises and demos, multimedia production projects.

Workload

Type of work Description Hours
Lectures thirteen 1-hour lectures 13
Laboratory exercises thirteen 2-hour exercises 26
Laboratory preparation Study of material related to tools and services 26-39
Section projects 2 section projects: 1) Designing & Prototyping, and 2) Media assets production / selection 40-50
Final multimedia production project Integrated multimedia production project, including authoring, publishing and dissemination 150-160
Total workload 255-288

Assessment

Type of assessment Learning outcome Impact on final grade Date of assessment
Participation in group discussion 10% 1st-12rd week
Laboratory exercises 20% 2nd – 9th week
Section projects 30% 4th, 7th, 10th week
Final project 40% 13th week

Recommended Bibliography

  • Axure [highly interactive HTML prototype creation] Retrieved on 15 January 2021 from https://docs.axure.com/axure-rp/reference/getting-started-video/
  • Balsamiq [low-fidelity UI wireframing] Retrieved on 15 January 2021 from: https://balsamiq.com/learn/
    InVision Studio [interactive prototyping tool] (N.D.). Master the power of InVision Studio. Retrieved on Feb. 1, 2020, from https://www.invisionapp.com/studio/learn
  • Vaughan, T. (2014). Multimedia: making it work. 9th Ed., McGraw-Hill Osborne Media.
  • Wix [web building /CMS platform] (N.D.). Wix help center. Retrieved on Feb. 1, 2017, from
    https://support.wix.com/en/