Online/Multimedia Journalism

ABOUT THE COURSE

More media houses are adding online/web to their print and/or broadcast offerings, and updating them regularly. In Multimedia, students learn solid reporting skills along with the technical skills needed for presenting news online. This “Convergence” programme combines print and broadcast into online with texts and images that are updated frequently. Students create their multimedia website, and do everything from gathering and writing content to publishing their work.

Students of Multimedia Journalism gain these skills through a blend of theoretical and practical courses and workshops. What you produce goes online at the end of every production day on The Softcopy.

The curriculum listed below offers, in addition to core courses, an array of elective courses from which you may choose to custom-design a program consistent with your areas of interest.  In addition, the Institute conducts workshops on specific areas of interest like Social Media Communication and Writing for the Wires. No other journalism college has comparable offerings of professional courses to prepare you adequately for an excellent career start. The stream you choose and the courses you select will give you a competitive edge over others in your job.

Web-publishing software is used to design, create and operate web publications as part of the course work. Lectures, seminars with guest speakers, individual assignments and workshops form part of the pedagogy.

In addition, students learn the basics of Print and Broadcast to ensure they are truly convergent and can work in any stream.

REQUIREMENTS

Core coursesArea of Specialisations (Choose one specialisation from the following list)
Electives (Choose four electives from the following list)

Reporting and Writing for Multimedia

The course designed for Multimedia students has three principal components: Beat reporting, deadline writing, and seminars. Each student is assigned a Bangalore city neighborhood as a beat and spends at least two days a week in that neighborhood. From this beat reporting news and feature stories evolve, tied to topics discussed in class. Students learn the rudiments of covering crime and courts, government and politics, social issues, health care, education and other subjects. Each week, students work on exercises under deadline conditions. In weekly sessions, instructors lead discussions on journalistic techniques and specific areas of content.

Students also learn to blog, maintain Facebook pages and twitter news content. They learn to participate in and moderate online discussion forums, with special focus on language used.

Tools of Multimedia
This course is a requirement for those concentrating in Multimedia Journalism. Students learn techniques not only of shooting with available hand-held devices, but also those of editing with popularly-used software. They also learn to use publishing tools and software. The use of computers as a design tool, applying the principles of graphics, design, and layout, will be a major focus, as will be uploading information on the web.
Ethical and Legal Issues in Journalism
This required course for all students explores the social role of journalism and the journalist from legal, ethical and economic perspectives. It examines the current and historic conflicts between journalists, government and the legal establishment. Issues such as libel, privacy, prior restraint against publishing the news, protection of sources, the right to gather news and national security are explored. Other issues include fairness in journalism and balanced reporting, and ethical considerations in the setting of the news agenda.
Convergence Across Media
In today’s world, a reporter could be asked to shoot and edit videos (traditionally a part of the broadcast medium), write a text-based article (for print or online) and bring these seemingly diverse aspects together online. This core course ensures that students learn to tell stories in multiple mediums through a single platform, never mind the stream they are specializing in.
Critical Thinking in Journalism
A journalist does not work independent of the society. While s/he reports on it, s/he is also a part of it. An ability to comprehend, analyze and evaluate unfamiliar material quickly, and think critically is as much a core journalism competency as the ability to identify the news and report on it. In order to be able to think critically, young journalists need background and context. This core course required for all students explains the political, economic and societal contexts in which journalists operate and provides an understanding of democratic functions. It also helps provide paradigms to help the young journalist understand the bigger picture behind the story. (This course is required for all students across both semesters.)

Remedial English
IIJNM offers Remedial English classes to help students improve their competency in the language. These classes are held several times each week throughout the year focusing on grammar, structure of sentences, organisation of content and other writing skills that are essential for English language journalists. An English language professor with journalism background conducts these classes exclusively. These sessions assist students in writing reports effectively in all other journalism classes.
Media Workshop
Designed for students who want a career in multimedia journalism, this course requires students to publish and maintain a website with multimedia content twice weekly during the semester. The workshop teaches the art and science of interactive storytelling using multimedia. Students learn to apply what they have learned in other courses–to report and create stories using multimedia tools and techniques. This is a required course for Multimedia students.
Capstone Project
Capstone Project may be executed in Broadcast, Print, or Multimedia. The student adviser helps select a topic and provides guidance throughout the project that runs through the entire year. There is no formal class session; each student works with the adviser constantly throughout the year. The project involves conducting research in a selected topic by collecting large amounts of information, which in turn is analyzed and presented clearly, fairly and interestingly. The project is meant to provide an intellectual challenge to students that goes beyond daily or weekly stories.


Business and Financial Reporting
This course covers business and financial reporting and broad issues and trends within it. The course stresses reporting and writing techniques on business news, and how to interpret and present business and economic events.
Development Journalism
This course covers key developmental issues such as evaluating the impact of policies and programs. Students are required to examine one or more recent developmental projects and use them as case studies for critically reporting.  These will include, but are not limited to issues in health and environment in the first semester and in rural problems in the second semester.
International News Coverage
This course deals with the techniques and difficulties of international news coverage. It teaches students to gain and report on international viewpoints, and balance with presentations by the national government.
Political Reporting
This course provides an in-depth analysis of the national and local political landscape. Topics include party politics, campaigns and elections, political propaganda, lobbying and special interests, and other areas.

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Digital Photography in Multimedia
This course teaches reporting with a camera. The class will learn photo-reporting for multimedia as well as the photo essay that explores one subject at length. The technology of transferring the digital photo for the Web will also be studied.
Television News Features
Students report and produce stories ranging in length from five to ten minutes, designed for news, magazine and documentary style programmes. Students work in small teams on feature stories, investigative reports and profiles.
Covering Science and Technology
Science and technology have become very much a part of our lives that the two are now inseparable. Information technology, for instance, has virtually taken over our daily tasks through devices such as personal computers, mobile phones and automated banking. The media recognizes the need to talk about technology in simple, layman terms so that the general public can understand even complex issues. Many newspapers have introduced technology pages, and more television channels have begun to devote more than a few hours a week to technology news. Some magazines have appointed Science and Technology correspondents. Bangalore is a hub of scientific research institutions and IT related-business activities. Apart from hardware and software, business processing and outsourcing have become a very important aspect of business. IIJNM students are expected to find informative stories from the technology and science sector. Students will study the impact of IT, as well as breakthroughs in bio-technology and medical technology, and learn to report on them in a simple, clear style.
Magazine Writing
Long-form narrative writings of the form that have appeared in major national and international magazines will be explored. What makes a magazine story different from newspaper reporting? Narrative energy, the story-telling voice, the shift from observation to insight and interviewing techniques are some of the discussion topics. All students with concentration in magazine publishing are required to take this course.
Investigative Reporting in Multimedia
Students learn to write investigative articles and produce video coverage about government policy implications, public and private practices that impact the public, and activities that are not generally known by digging into not-so-readily available materials, and by interviewing the players involved – in search of facts that are hidden, contradictions and misrepresentations. Examples of major investigations conducted by journalists, investigative reporters and reputed organizations form the basis of the study.
Sports Reporting
Much more is involved in sports and games these days than who won, who lost and why. Complex questions involve the sociology, the psychology and the business of sport, and perhaps more importantly, the ethics of sport.
Opinion and Editorial Writing
Students are introduced to editorials and opinions expressed in the media. The course teaches how the subject is chosen, formulated, and presented. The style of writing editorials and opinions is also covered.
Covering the Arts and Cultural Events
Students will learn to cover different aspects and forms of art, and learn its importance to daily life. The world of ideas is another related area that is both compelling and important to human experience. Further, the impact of “established,” “popular” and “emerging” cultures on society will be examined.
Covering Social and Religious Issues
These two distinct but inter-related subject areas are of considerable importance to a sustainable and peaceful culture and society. Students will learn to write with an edge about issues of poverty, social class, labour, crime, religion and spirituality, traditions, environment and a host of other topics.
Podcasting: Telling audio stories
In covering a variety of topics from politics and sports to art and music, traditional media organizations (such as BBC and the Guardian) and independent producers are embracing podcasting as a way to reach their audiences with long-form audio content. Podcast audience is largest among the 18-34 demographic. With increase in Internet penetration in new markets in India, this medium is set to explode in its usage.
This course will teach students how to script, record episodes and interviews, edit and publish podcasts on a variety of topics and platforms. The course will aid students looking to work for radio and multimedia organisations in this rapidly emerging media stream. It will also allow them to tell independent stories that the mainstream media may not have covered adequately.
Telling Data stories using Graphic Tools
Data is often the source of news stories. It can also be one of the tools with which a story is told. Data offers journalists many new possibilities — from using digital tools to automate the process of gathering and combining information, and using software and data to find connections between thousands of documents and sources. Data journalism further helps to simplify a complex story for the audience through the use of attractive and easy-to-understand infographics.
This course will teach students how to find relevant data using web-scraping tools, analyzing data with Excel and Python, and visualizing data with a variety of software.

IIJNM Curriculum consists of several systematic integrated components:

Boot Camp

The academic year at IIJNM begins with a Boot Camp that introduces the basics of journalism and Bangalore city. Students are also trained on software applications like Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, InDesign,  web-based tools such as CMS, and social media.

In-class and Media Lab Sessions

The course at IIJNM is a perfect balance of in class theory sessions and practical learning through beat reporting in Bangalore City, news writing and media production. Theory is put directly into practice in print, television and new media.

Weekly Beat Reporting

Each student is assigned a Bangalore city neighborhood and spends one to two days a week in that area. From this beat reporting, news and feature stories evolve, tied to topics discussed in class. Students learn to cover courts, government, and political events, etc. 

Real-Life Production & Internship

Students produce news bulletins weekly in our media lab and studio. They are also assisted in obtaining internship assignment at media companies during year-end break. The portfolio of real news stories produced helps them get placed in major media companies.

Capstone Project

Capstone project consists of researching and producing a major story on a selected topic. The story is a culmination of the student’s study on different aspects of journalism. It also includes learning about rural governance by visits to villages.

Remedial English Language Classes

IIJNM offers Remedial English classes to help students improve their competency in the language. These assist students to write and speak fluently as journalists. Intense reading and writing sessions are held to enable students to report news effectively.

Registration for : Online/Multimedia Journalism

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