Workshop 1: Journalism in action: Developing competencies for mobile journalism
Date: 24 February 2022, 16:00-18:00 (online)
Guest speaker: Dr Nikolas Dietis, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the Medical School, University of Cyprus
Trainer: Christiana Varda, Research Associate and PhD Student at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology
The pandemic has laid bare the value and relevance of accurately reporting science in the media, especially for controversial topics that may be prone to misinformation (e.g., COVID-19 vaccinations, climate change). This is not without its challenges, considering that journalists often need to translate complex scientific findings into comprehensible stories that a general, lay audience can understand. This workshop will look at the common challenges that journalists face when reporting on socio-scientific issues and will focus on a journalist’s most accessible asset: their mobile device. Participants will explore how to make the most of their mobile devices to deliver “social-first” stories that can be shared with audiences directly and that create new forms of storytelling to engage with online users. The workshop will also present best practices for communicating science effectively, and ways in which misinformation can more effectively be corrected on social media. Finally, participants will have the opportunity to explore a tool that allows drafting, scheduling and monitoring engagement on threaded social media posts on Twitter.
