Iona College
Department of Mass Communication
PR 629-EA: Converged Technologies for Public Relations
6:30-8:30 pm, W
Instructor: Prof. David Cundy Semester/Year: Fall 2013
Office: Murphy Center, Room M219 Phone: 914 633-2364
Office Hours: M, W 12:45-1:45 pm Email Address: dcundy@iona.edu
Course Description:
A practical course examining and applying current communications technologies and strategies to enable graduate students to develop and produce effective PR vehicles of the caliber and nature used in modern communications organizations. Components of the course will be: Media Literacy (critical thinking), Information Literacy (knowledge) and Digital Tools (skills). The course will deal with blog and Web site creation, social media, audio and video posting and strategy development. Includes software and technical training.
Course Prerequisites:
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Recommended readings
Basic reading:
Holtz, Shel and Demopoulos, Ted. Blogging for business: everything you need to know and why you should care. Kaplan Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1419536451
Miller, Michael. YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business. Que, 2008, ISBN:0789737973 Scott, David Meerman. The new rules of marketing and PR: how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing, & online media to reach buyers directly. John Wiley and Sons, 2007 . ISBN: 0470113456
As noted in the lectures below: Anderson, Christopher. The Long Tail. Hyperion, 2006.
Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Book of Sand,” from Ficciones. Editorial Sur, 1944.
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Simon and Schuster, 1969.
Gleick, James. The Information. Pantheon, 2011.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Chatto & Windus, 1932.
Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Basic Books, 1999.
Linn, Susan, Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood, The New Press, 2004.
McLuhan, Marshall and Fiore, Quentin. The Medium is the Massage. Random House, 1967.
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Secker and Warburg, 1948. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin, 1985.
Schor, Juliet B. Born to Buy. Scribner, 2004.
Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. Penguin, 2008.
Films
Art & Copy, 2009 (advertising)
Curtis, Adam. The Century of the Self. London, British Broadcasting Company, 2002 (public relations)
Page One, 2011 (journalism)
Spurlock, Morgan. Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (promotion)
Steal this Film, 2006, and Steal this Film II, 2007 (media and culture)
Professional Values and Competencies of ACEJMC
The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) requires that, irrespective of their particular specialization, all graduates should be aware of certain core values and competencies and be able to:
1. Understand and apply the principles and laws of freedom of speech and press for the country in which the institution that invites ACEJMC is located, as well as receive instruction in and understand the range of systems of freedom of expression around the world, including the right to dissent, to monitor and criticize power, and to assemble and petition for redress of grievances;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the history and role of professionals and institutions in shaping communications;
3. Demonstrate an understanding of the gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and as appropriate, other forms of in domestic society in relation to mass communication;
4. Demonstrate and understanding of the diversity of peoples and cultures and of the significance and impact mass communication in a global society;
5. Understand concepts and apply theories in the use and presentation of images and information;
6. Demonstrate an understanding of professional ethical principles and work ethically in the pursuit of truth, accuracy, fairness and diversity;
7. Think critically, creatively, and independently;
8. Conduct research and evaluate information by methods appropriate to the communications professions in which they work;
9. Write correctly and clearly in forms and styles appropriate for the communications professions, audiences and purposes they serve;
10. Citically evaluate their own work and that of others for accuracy and fairness, clarity, appropriate style and grammatical correctness;
11. Apply basic numerical and statistical concepts;
12. Apply tools and technologies appropriate for the communications professions in which they work.
Graduate Program in PR
Units requesting evaluation of a graduate program must also demonstrate how their master’s graduates attain this additional core competency.
13. Contribute to knowledge appropriate to the communications profession in which they work.
Specific Course Objectives:
This course is intended to give students insights into and experience doing original research into emerging media phenomena. Students will gain experience creating serial communications using emerging media, specifically blogs and related tools.
Students will learn information, gain skills, and will engage in critical thinking. By the end of this course, the student should be able to:
- Define and apply current social media and Internet technologies to public relations projects and strategies. (This objective will be measured by essays, exams, laboratory projects, homework and class discussions). (PVC 3, 4, 6, 8, 11; Assessment Tools 1-5)
- Discuss use of online tools and applications in mass communications. (This objective will be measured by essays, exams, homework and class discussions). (PVC 4, 6, 8, 9, 11; Assessment Tools 1-5)
- Apply common technologies and software and create professional deliverables in service to public relations and communications. (This objective will be measured by laboratory projects, exams, homework and laboratory applications). (PVC 4, 6, 8, 11; Assessment Tools 1-5)
- Be capable of developing strategies to integrate traditional communications techniques and converged technologies. (This objective will be measured by essays, exams, homework and class discussions). (PVC 3, 4, 6, 8, 11; Assessment Tools 1-5)
- Analyze and discuss the differences between traditional communications technologies (print, broadcast, mail, promotions) and Web publications in approach, editorial style, and audience service. (This objective will be measured by essays, exams, homework and class discussions). (PVC 4, 6, 8, 11; Assessment Tools 1-5)
Assessment Tools:
Student Performance will be measured as follows:
- 1. In-class and online exercises and laboratory projects (75%): These exercises and examples will demonstrate professional applications and current use of technologies in the public relations field. Portions of each class will be devoted to applications of specific technologies.
- 2. Homework assignments (15%): various exercises will be assigned to help students understand the history, progression and current state of technologies. Students will have a number of essays to write, some of them one page and others longer.
- 3. Participation/Attendance (10%)
Each assignment will be evaluated on demonstrated writing and thinking skills, adherence to the assignment, satisfactory length, correctly formatted source documentation, and on-time completion.
Grades will be as follows: 90-100 = A; 86-89 = B+; 80-85 = B; 76-79 = C+; 70-75 = C; 65-69 = D; anything less than 65 = F)
Diversity Component
The Department of Mass Communication is committed to fair play within the media in the belief that everyone should be treated fairly regardless of ethnicity, disability, or gender. A significant part of the course, approximately three periods, will be devoted to case studies that illustrate historical and current inequities within media organizations and their products.
All courses taught in the Department of Mass Communication at Iona College contain a module integrated into the course that explores the issue of the diversity of groups in relation to the mass communication industry. Examples of diversity and discussion of historical issues in diversity will be integrated into PR629 class content. Diversity is tangential to PR629 subject matter, which assumes diversity. Given this limitation, androcentricity in Internet innovation is discussed, with examples including Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, and others.
Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty:
College Policy: Cheating and plagiarism subvert both the purpose of the College and the experience students derive from being at Iona. They are offenses that harm the offender and the students who do not cheat. The Iona community, therefore, pledges itself to do all in its power to prevent cheating and plagiarism, and to impose impartial sanctions upon those who harm themselves, their fellow students, and the entire community by academic dishonesty. When a case of academic dishonesty surfaces, a report will be filed with the dean of Arts and Sciences. In the case of a second instance, a student may be suspended from the College. Students may appeal first to the professor who discovered the instance; second, to the department chair; and third, to the Dean of Arts and Sciences. The decision of the dean is final. Students may appeal to the Provost if the suspension is five class days or less. The student handbook describes the procedures of adjudication.
The College policy, as applied to this course, is that citations are required for all quotations, paraphrases or concepts derived from third party sources.
General Course Policies:
Attendance and lateness: Because of the participatory nature of this course, you are required to come to class. If you must be absent, please e-mail me with a general reason (please do not provide personal details) in advance. More than three unexcused absences or frequent tardiness displays a lack of interest in the course and will be reflected in your participation/attendance grade. If you miss more than three classes (regardless of whether they are excused or unexcused) you may be given a grade of “FA,” or failure due to excessive absence.
Computer Skills: Computer literacy and facility with the college’s on-line system is essential for this course. Much of the research will be done on-line and significant teacher-student communication will take place using e-mail or the Blackboard system. It is the responsibility of the student to have a working User ID and password and to schedule time in the school’s computer labs if the student does not have at-home access. The student is expected to check his/her e-mail frequently during the week.
Timeliness: Timely submission of assignments is required. Again, e-mail me in advance if you cannot submit an assignment on time. The semester assignment must be submitted on or before the exam date.
Appeal of Assigned Grade: If a student believes that an error has been made in grade assignment, there is a specific procedure to follow. First, discuss with the instructor the basis on which the grade was assigned. If the student is still not satisfied, an appeal may be made to the department chair. Such appeal should be made in writing, stating the basis upon which the grade is questioned and requesting a departmental review. If, following the review, the student is not satisfied with the departmental decision, a final appeal may be made to the academic dean of the department involved. A student has until the tenth day of the new semester to have a grade other than “I” changed.
Course and Teacher Evaluation (CTE): Iona College now uses an on-line CTE system. This system is administered by an outside company and all of the data is collected confidentially. No student name or information will be linked to any feedback received by the instructor. The information collected will be compiled in aggregate form by the agency and distributed back to the Iona administration and faculty, with select information made available to students who complete the CTE. Your feedback in this process is an essential part of improving our course offerings and instructional effectiveness. We want and value your point of view.*
NOTE* You will receive several emails at your Iona email account about how and when the CTE will be administered with instructions how to proceed.
Course Outline
Session 1: 28 August 2013
Lecture/Discussion:
Online communications and social media: An overview of the spectrum of online and social media – Web sites, blogs (weblogs), Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, RSS, podcasts
Knowledge:
Kevin Kelly: The Next 5,000 days, TED Conference
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html
Skills:
WordPress blog installation (class will be documented in WordPress blog); blog architecture
Session 2: 4 September 2013
Lecture/Discussion:
Technological determinism: technology and communications
Knowledge:
Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8YYM_7KUpw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQkWZqqvyCM
Skills:
WordPress architecture, continued
Laboratory: Google and Tumblr blog implementation
Session 3: 11 September 2013
Lecture/Discussion:
Weblogs (= Blogs) and blog strategy; Blogs v. Webstites (architecture)
Knowledge:
Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/3881/
Hans Rosling, “The Magic Washing Machine,” TEDWomen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w
Skills:
HTML basics; Dreamweaver; content management systems
Session 4: 18 September 2013
Lecture/Discussion:
Convergence: Public Relations, Journalism and Advertising
Knowledge:
Morgan Spurlock, Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c0VtOdibcI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEphQtvzyag
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/03/135957787/spurlocks-movie-sold-to-product-placement?ft=1&f=135957787
Sut Jhally, “Advertising and the Edge of the Apocalypse.”
http://www.sutjhally.com/articles/advertisingattheed/
Skills:
Photoshop for the Web
Assignment 1 due:
Write a 250-word essay comparing the ideas presented by Vannevar Bush and Hans Rosling.
Session 5: 25 September 2013
Lecture/Discussion:
Photoshop, continued
Knowledge:
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody
Chris Anderson, The Long Tail
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
Skills:
Photoshop, continued; animated GIF “movies”; uploading graphics and media (YouTube)
Session 6: 2 October 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Issues in converged communications: access, privacy, anonymity, commercialization, professional commoditization, time management, the “electronic hallucination,” addiction
Knowledge:
Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle
Maureen Dowd, “A Penny for my Thoughts,” New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30dowd.html
Eric Alterman, “Out of Print,” The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman
Skills:
Image organization and presentation tools: Instagram, LibraryThing and Pinterest
Session 7: 9 October 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Website development: benchmarking and competitive analysis
Knowledge:
Samuel Pepys, Diary.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/
Skills:
Whois search; archive.org; Top Level Domains; development process; research: benchmarking – internal and external; best practices; information architecture;
Assignment 2 due:
Write a 250-word paper about an issue in converged communications as it has affected you.
Session 8: 16 October 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Organizing and presenting information; principles of PowerPoint
Knowledge:
Richard Saul Wurman, Information Anxiety
Skills:
PowerPoint, Prezi, Keynote
Session 9: 23 October 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Analytics: Measuring results; Intellectual property
Knowledge:
John Perry Barlow, ” The Economy of Ideas,” Wired
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas_pr.html
Pirate Bay: Steal This Film II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpXK8mDTiNg
Skills:
StatCounter, Google Analytics, alexa.org, IP address locators
Session 10: 30 October 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Social media sites; the Facebook phenomenon: A fad – or the Future?; Online PR tools
Knowledge:
Jose Antonio Vargas, “The Face of Facebook,” The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/20/100920fa_fact_vargas
Skills:
Event planning in Facebook; QR code generation
Assignment 3 due:
Write a 250-word essay analyzing John Perry Barlow’s assertion that “Information wants to be free.”
Session 11: 6 November 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Online PR tools, continued
Knowledge:
Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth
http://www.bfi.org/about-bucky/resources/books/operating-manual-spaceship-earth
Skills:
SurveyMonkey, Constant Contact and MailChimp; Twitter case studies; Establishing a YouTube channel
Session 12: 13 November 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Honing your skills using online tools; online video communications and protocols
Knowledge:
Lawrence Lessig: Code
https://www.socialtext.net/codev2/table_of_contents
Skills:
The Oxford English Dictionary; thesauri; word count analysis: Google Hangout; Skype
Assignment 4 due:
Write a 500 word paper on Steal This Film II, with a critical analysis of the concepts of intellectual property, file sharing, “information socialism,” and the Internet as a freely accessible environment.
Session 13: 20 November 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Information utopia: Understanding Google; Google Scholar, Google books, Google Art Project
Knowledge:
George Orwell, 1984
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Skills:
Google applications
Session 14: 4 December 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Search and research; Ryan Library presentation
Knowledge:
James Gleick, The Information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_Theory,_a_Flood
Assignment 5 due:
Write a 1,000 word paper on a Google application, comparing it to competing applications offered by other enterprises.
Skills:
Search engines for PR research
Scholarly research tools
Session 15: 11 December 2013
Lecture/Discussion/Workshop:
Wikipedia and “Information Socialism”; Wikimedia Foundation; The Wiki; Wikipedia for Public Relations; Jimmy Wales, Brewster Kahle; Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia
Knowledge:
Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand
http://anagrammatically.com/2010/03/08/the-book-of-sand-el-libro-de-arena-by-borges-translated/
Skills:
Generating and editing Wikipedia entries
Final exam session: 11 December 2013
Course review, Contextualization; workshop; in-class final exam essay
PR629 Skills
Analytics (WordPress, Google Analytics, StatCounter)
Archive.org
Comparative online platforms: Websites, blogs and Facebook pages
Congoo
Constant Contact and MailChimp
Content Management Systems (CMS: Drupal, Joomla)
Dreamweaver
Epub (and Mobi) ebook formats
Excel
Facebook
File formats
Gchat, Skype
Google, including Google Scholar
HTML
Instagram
Intellectual Property (USPTO, WIPO, Berne Convention)
LibraryThing (bibliography management)
Oxford English Dictionary and Thesaurus
Photoshop
Pinterest
PowerPoint, Prezi and Keynote
PR and other media sites
QR Code generation
Search and databases
SurveyMonkey
Top Level Domains
Twitter
Website architecture: strategy, organization and structure (wireframes)
Whois search, URL procurement
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
Word count analysis
WordPress, Google Blogger, Tumblr
YouTube channels