Instructor: Hanson Hosein
Office: Room 251C, Communications Building
Office Hours: By Appointment
Contact: hosein at u.washington.edu
This is a pivotal time in the history of digital media. Inexpensive technology and powerful distribution networks mean nearly anyone can transmit their creations.
This flood of amateur content provides a glimpse at new ways to reach an increasingly fragmented audience. That same fragmentation also calls into serious question our traditional manner of measuring how well we have succeeded in reaching our audience.
Instead of ratings, subscriber statistics and click-throughs, we may be better off relying on the quality of engagement in today’s digital media environment. And could there be any more engaged consumer of information that one who is also actively involved in the collaborative production of media?
We’ll study this revolution in “user-generated content” (UGC) and discuss how popular messaging can be used in advertising, campaigning, storytelling, entertainment and social activism.
What’s driving the explosion of this form of digital content? Is there a “recipe for success” for the material that managed to reach a larger audience? What lessons can people, companies and organizations that typically use and generate profession content draw from amateurs? Can it be monetized? Where is all this heading?
At the end of this course, we’ll be able to:
- Identify new developments in UGC.
- Forecast the proliferation of these new developments.
- Develop proposals to exploit and manage UGC.
- Define and classify this new form of content.
This nascent subject matter is clearly in major transition. Since many of you have considerable media experience, I see this class as a joint learning effort as we all try and master this disruptive trend. So it will be in all of our best interests if you stay on top of the materials and contribute regularly to our discussions. Together, we may be able to reach some powerful conclusions.