I teach into an industry that is changing rapidly. Social and mobile technologies have had a profound impact on journalism and both individuals and news organisations are searching for new ways to create stories, engage audiences and monetise them. This creates a challenge for educators.
My response to this challenge has been to foster enterprise skills among students. Enterprise skills include the ability to collaborate, develop ideas, grapple with uncertainty and respond to new challenges. My journalism, communication and arts courses incorporate human-centred design, creative practices and innovation.
Journalism Design
Journalism Design is about developing new ideas for how the news media can exploit emerging technology. Students are introduced to some of the challenges facing the media industry and encouraged to think about how to address them. Using design thinking methods and the JxD Process they work in teams to research, design and prototype a novel concept for producing, telling or distributing news.
Media Design
Media Design is an innovative combination of social design and communication design that encourages students to develop original and targeted communication that encourages audiences to act in the world. Through a human-centred process, students research issues and publics before designing stories, posters and web pages in response.
Creativity: Myths, Methods & Impact
Creativity: Myths, Methods & Impact introduces techniques of creative practice to Arts students and encourages them to develop projects with a view to creating value and impact for communities and audiences.
Related research
Sketching: a method for imagining journalistic tech, Digital Journalism, 2020
Exploring journalistic values through design, OZCHI 2017