Stories and analyzes about people and events from our environment following the master classes in media and journalism

Stories about people who encourage and inspire, about the culture of living and forgotten places, as well as analyzes of relevant social topics. These are some of the final media products created by the 60 participants of the first generation of master classes in media and journalism “Prepare yourself for the digital age”.

Divided into four groups, during the months of May and June, the participants followed four modules – the challenges of the digital age; creating web content; collecting, verifying and visualizing web data; and creating journalistic content with a mobile phone. The master classes were a combination of intensive sessions, exercises and discussions with 12 prominent journalists-trainers, including practical work on making media products individually or in teams.

The participants discussed the advantages and disadvantages of online media outlets and learned how to attract and retain audience, how to write for web, and how to create blogs. They received advice on using data from free databases and used tools to visualize that data in a way that was easily understood by viewers and readers. They also got acquainted with software applications for detecting manipulations in visual content.

Since the digital age brings a rapid flow of information, the participants developed skills such as using a mobile phone to create journalistic content in a short period of time. They have mastered the basic techniques and software applications for video recording and editing, prepared scripts for filming, they were shooting in the field and used their mobile phones to do editing. They also narrated stories through video and people and using the new formats of vlogs and podcasts.

Following the completion of the master classes, the participants obtained certificates and 3 ECTS credits.

The master classes in media and journalism were organized by the Institute for Communication Studies and IREX, within the USAID Project for Media Literacy “YouThink”.

The final media products were published on the following LINK.