Curriculum

Media Cloud offers a wealth of opportunities for integrating into university-level courses. As an open and free set of tools and data, we encourage you to adopt and share how you teach with Media Cloud's online news archive or directory. Here are some examples

Attention Investigation

Shared by Prof. Rahul Bhargava

Analyze how the media covers the issue your partner organization works on. Your deliverable here is more like a research report for the organization to inform their media strategy (ie. not a newspaper story). Use the tools we covered in class to analyze how much the issue is covered (“attention”), how media/people talk about (“language”), or who is dominant in the narratives (“representation”). You must include analysis of at least 2 digital platforms. This written piece, roughly 2,000+ words in length, should include supporting screenshots, charts, etc. This can be turned in as a PDF or an online published piece. The muscles are critical for audience metrics and editorial guidance. You will work in teams of 2 to 3 people, with your same external partner organization.

Your goal is to give us some insight into how the media is telling the story. Some ideas:

compare the amount traditional media talks about a topic vs. how much people talk about it on different social media platforms; try to explain any discrepancy
look at how conservative media vs. liberal media outlets cover an issue, both in terms of total attention and language they use; tell us why it matters
critique one media outlet's coverage of a topic, providing context on why it merits digging into and the potential impacts they have
look at attention in US media to your topic overtime - can you identify and dig into any key events (spikes) that drove coverage? is there a pattern to them?

Grading Criteria:

Readable: your report includes detail, but also summarizes key findings so leadership can quickly comprehend takeaways
Data-driven: your report justifies your conclusions with data
Multi-platform: your report takes a “social listening” approach to looking for evidence across multiple media platforms
Integrated: you have taken both qualitative and quantitative approaches to your investigation, digging into both the “what” and the “why”

Minimum Requirements:

Focus on one aspect of online attention to an issue related to your partner organization
Integrate data from at least two online analysis platforms (Media Cloud, TV News Analyzer, social media platform search)
Include charts showing evidence for claims about online attention related to your issue. Charts must have a consistent visual design (ie. make them all the same way).
Address at least two aspects of coverage - attention, language, representation, or influence
Be written as either: an academic style research report, a consultant-style report for the partner organization, or an online news piece (for a publication like FiveThirtyEight, StoryBench, or Columbia Journalism Review, NiemanLab)

Advanced Requirements:

Address more than two aspects of coverage in your report
Analyze data from more than two platforms
Use an extended, but still appropriate, set of visualizations (try RAWGraphs)
Craft a short pitch for NiemanLab or CJR based on your work and submit it to me for review

Tracking gender in election news coverage of the 2024 elections

Shared by Prof. Meg Heckman

In this assignment, you will work in teams of two to use Media Cloud to identify, document and contextualize a gender-related trend in news coverage of the 2024 elections. You will receive detailed training on using Media Cloud in class. We will brainstorm topics after that and set aside class time to work on these ahead of the deadline.

These will vary a bit based on topic, but each project should have the following components: 600 - 800 words of text, two or three visual components (most likely charts/graphs/visualizations) and links/references to at least two relevant readings from class this semester.

Our goal will be to publish at least a few of these on Storybench. Here's an example of a piece about coverage of covid written a few years ago by Prof. Rahul Bhargava. (It's longer than what you'll produce for this assignment but gives you an idea of what I'm looking for in terms of focus and methods.) Here's another example by a former student that looks into how the news media is covering questions about content moderation on social media.

Media Analysis in Boston

Shared by Prof. Myo Chung

Two students will work together on this assignment. Find an issue in the Greater Boston area that needs more social justice. Then analyze how mainstream media cover the issue, using Media Cloud. Remember to focus on only one issue. More detailed guidelines:

For this media analysis assignment, please follow these steps:

1. Determine the following:

Search sources (which news outlets to include in the analysis)
Search terms
Search period: June 1, 2024 - now (you need to have minimum 20 articles to analyze, after excluding any duplicated articles. If this search period does not yield minimum 20 articles, expand the search period)

2. Follow the steps you learned in the Media Cloud Workshop session for analyzing media attention.

3. Find answers to the following questions. When writing your analysis, put the answer to each question under an appropriate subtitle (e.g., Frame, Spokesperson, Topics...).

How often does news from the Greater Boston area focus on the focal issue?
Which news outlets are covering (or ignoring) the issue?
How do the media frame the issue? How is the focal issue depicted? Under the issue, what topics are being covered, and what topics are being ignored? (e.g., pro-market vs. pro-social equality; episodic vs. thematic)
Who are the main spokespeople on the topic? How are they being quoted? Are they mainly advocates, policymakers, academic experts, etc.?
(Optional) Is there a time of year when the issue is more likely to be covered than others?
(Optional) How many articles discuss solutions for the issue/problem?
(Optional) Which reporters from which outlets are writing on this issue?

4. Write a media analysis report (7-10 pages, double space, excluding references). Try to include some graphs or tables.