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Another FaCTS Mellon Project

TEACHING MEDIA INNOVATION FOR A DIGITAL AGE

Dr. Shearon Roberts

by Dr. Shearon Roberts

PROJECT SUMMARY
The digital revolution disrupted the means of production, and in many cases, the survival of traditional mass media industries. From the New York Times to CNN, mass media experts are in search of a model to sustain and support news and the flow of information and to pay the skilled media workers who do so for a living. The answer in academia has been media entrepreneurship. The start-up culture of the business world has merged with mass media industries resulting in the new jobs of the future from Facebook to BuzzFeed to digital content creation through Amazon and Netflix who now lure and hire traditional media workers. Many of these digital media giants today were first conceived on college campuses. This project seeks to introduce the teaching of media innovation and entrepreneurship to prepare students for the careers o the digital age where they must become active creators, rather than passive replicators of old models of communications. The teaching of media entrepreneurship is the objective of this project. Students will be exposed to the media start-up mindset as part of a new course component; they will innovate in the classroom through media innovation pitches; and they will compete at the Scripps Media Innovations Cup that awards innovations that target diversity and minority groups. Studies show such groups have been left behind in the digital divide. This project will energize the teaching mass communication because it merges the tried and tested pedagogy of communication, writing and technical skills with a critical approach by challenging students to learn as well as to imagine and create. Mass media industries serve all professions and this project seeks to expose not only mass communication students by Xavier students of all majors who regularly take media courses related their disciplines and career goals.

Start date: Monday, March 30, 2015
Finish date: Sunday, May 1, 2016