Multimedia/Digital Component
In addition to picking up skills for the Print platform, students will be trained to become fully integrated digital-savvy journalists, who can deliver the same news content across different platforms—text, digital, and audio-video—so that they can fit seamlessly into the emerging media ecology of convergence. The course delivery will be in a combination of classroom lectures, and exercises.
Initially, the students will learn the basics of news gathering and reporting for the digital platform through field assignments that will help them put to practical use the skill learnt during the classroom sessions.The fundamentals of news writing and editing will be adapted to the requirements of the digital media, both in terms of content and writing style. Students will learn to package text, image, audio and video inputs and present them on the Web using multiple tools in the state-of-the-art Integrated Newsroom.
There will be sharp focus on must-have skills critical for functioning in the present and future newsrooms, working as independent journalists and for launching media start-ups. The pace and scope of these changes have opened up hitherto unthinkable vistas for storytelling.
Then, in addition to honing the news writing and editing skills picked up earlier, students will be trained to delve deep into the possibilities of innovative storytelling techniques with the help of digital and other tools, including mobile phones and drones, and social media, without compromising the core journalistic skills.
Focus will be on imparting and developing cutting edge storytelling skills, with an integrated approach to content creation, editing and publishing on multiple platforms. The component also includes training in Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) storytelling, Drone Journalism and Gamification.
Students will be helped in developing skills for producing core news, opinions and editorials and feature packages with emphasis on SEO compliance and optimisation for the digital platform. Students will also be trained in leveraging social media for content creation and dissemination, besides using various fact-checking techniques, which have become very important in this age of fake news and dubious content on both social media and news platforms.