| CODE | MCS3150 | |||||||||
| TITLE | Data Journalism | |||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 03 - Years 2, 3, 4 in Modular Undergraduate Course | |||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | |||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | |||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Media and Communications | |||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | The techniques of data journalism have evolved since the days of Computer-Assisted-Reporting, but, from the Migrant Files to the Panama Papers, data has been providing leads, analysis, evidence and explainers for some of the hardest hitting journalism of recent times. As Freedom of 福利在线免费 legislation and Open Data movements allow access to previously unavailable data, and new methods of gathering data become ever more feasible, journalists need the skills to be able to penetrate and make sense of vast datasets. Contemporary journalism involves finding, collecting and analyzing data for storytelling, presentation and investigative reporting. This is a study-unit designed to help students respond to work within a range of data journalism roles, from sourcing data, to investigating leads, and communicating stories in new, engaging ways, in a range of newsroom contexts. It is intended to help students develop a keen eye for a story, develop advanced data driven journalism techniques that help establish the facts, find out how to work within a range of newsroom contexts and tell stories across a range of platforms. Students are taught new skills in data journalism and interactive storytelling across a range of contexts, from mobile-first data journalism on social platforms, to practising data driven journalism for print, audio or the moving image. Study-Unit Aims: Using both journalistic and scientific methods, the study-unit aims to teach student journalists how to responsibly leverage open data, results of public records requests, scraped (or otherwise automatically accumulated) data and acquired data in their assessment, evaluation and investigation of an issue. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Identify steps in the reporting process for using the right data in a basic news story; - Determine the news angle by finding relevant and reliable data sources; - Check for accuracy and timeliness; - Investigate leads, following data sets, extract and clean necessary data; - Leverage open data (from public records, scraped or automatically accumulated data); - Be aware of the staying power of interactive storytelling stemming from data gathering; - Use data to support facts and narrative. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Search for and obtain large datasets; - Carry out data set analysis; - Data clean; - Visualise data in a number of formats; - Data scrape; - Explore patterns, trends and anomalies; - Bring together and analyse data from diverse sources. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Texts: - Bounegru, L., & Gray, J. (eds.) (2021). The Data Journalism Handbook: Towards a Critical Data Practice. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Supplementary Readings: - Gray, J., Bounegru, L., & Chambers, L. (eds.) (2012). The Data Journalism Handbook. Beijing: O鈥橰eilly. - Reilley, M., & Sunne, S. (2022). Data + Journaism: A Story-Driven Approach to Learning Data Reporting. London: Routledge. - Richards, A. (2023). Foundations of Data and Digital Journalism. New York: Routledge. NB: Any Texts which are not available at the Main Library; will be ordered in due course. |
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| RULES/CONDITIONS | Before TAKING THIS UNIT YOU MUST TAKE MCS1030 | |||||||||
| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | |||||||||
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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