Assignment Prompt
Final Multimedia Project
Each student will produce a final project around one topic or issue by the end of the semester. The issue should be local in nature, typically based in the area where the student is living. The final project should not be based at SDSU, unless specific approval is given in advance by the instructor. Students must comply with restrictions related to the pandemic (social distancing, wearing appropriate PPE, etc.) while reporting for the final project as well as all practice projects. Interviews can be conducted in person with proper precautions or online through Zoom. The majority of the photos and video should be original (taken by the student), but this is subject to change depending on the evolution of the pandemic.
Students will publish their final project using their Adobe Spark accounts and submit the link (Proper training on how to publish Spark web pages will be provided). The project will consist of the four following parts:
·Text story (600 to 800 words) written in A.P. style, with headline, and at least four interviews (two experts, two subjects)
·Video (2 to 4 minutes) this video will illustrate, not repeat the text story and must contain two people. The video will be edited so the subjects tell the story, not the reporter
·Extra multimedia element (audio slideshow, shorter TV news video package, podcast). No more than 1:30 in length
·Still photos (at least four) with captions written in A.P. style.
NOTE 1) Again as the purpose of this course is to showcase your industry-ready skills, I will be flexible regarding the elements of your multimedia story if you have a specific job in mind. For instance, if you want to be a data journalist, the extra multimedia element could be replaced with a data visualization. Talk to me about this, the earlier the better.
NOTE 2): The text story and video each will be graded twice. Improvements will be suggested (and sometimes required) to receive a better grade for the final project overall. The first grade will stand - do not submit a rough draft of the text story or video.
Student Example #1
Student Example #2
Student Example #3
Student Example #4
Dr. Lourdes M. Cueva Chacón is an assistant professor for the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2020. She earned her Master of Arts in Communication from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2010 and her Master of Science in Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2005.
She has taught in different positions at The University of Texas at El Paso and The University of Texas at Austin and brings years of bicultural multimedia journalism experience to SDSU. From 2008-2014, she was the designer and digital content manager for Borderzine.com, an online digital platform and innovative journalism education initiative, with the goal of preparing young bilingual and bicultural journalists for jobs in 21st Century news media.
Her research addresses important questions about social, historical, and systemic forces as well as individual traits that influence journalistic practices and routines and their effects on the coverage of minority and marginalized communities in the U.S. Her research is informed by her teaching experience in El Paso and Austin where she has witnessed how Latinx and Black journalism students and graduates struggle to reconcile their life experiences and community knowledge with the demands of news organizations that push them to relinquish those experiences or pigeonhole them into reporting only about their ethnic groups. Dr. Cueva Chacón also researches Latin American journalism and how digital tools are changing journalistic practices in the continent—especially within investigative journalism— and the ways these new practices are strengthening democracy in these countries.
