Monetization + New Media
JOUR 577 with Professors Gabriel Kahn + Sasha Anawalt
What is the value of content?
All of us are content creators of some sort. And there’s a reason: Content is powerful. It changes minds, moves markets, shapes policy and enhances understanding.
But what is content worth?
Understanding that deceptively simple question is essential for anyone building a career in media. While there may be no easy answer, this is the question that this course will consider.
There has never been a more interesting moment to examine these issues. The entire media business is being redefined. New business models are emerging. While this presents many challenges, it creates just as many opportunities. We will focus on identifying the opportunities.
This class will demystify the media business, help you understand how your content creates value, and help you strategize about your career. While our principal focus will be on journalism in all its forms (from text to “This American Life”-style radio shows) all types of content will be considered. This course requires no background in economics, though we will be doing some in-depth analyses of economic issues.
Among the issues we will be confronting are: understanding how the economics of content works; looking at how different components of the media industry derive revenues; analyzing how emerging distribution platforms create new value opportunities for content while destroying older ones.
How will we confront these issues? By interviewing a broad array of media experts who will be our guest speakers. This will not be a one-way conversation. They will present you with their real work problems and expect you to deliver interesting and viable approaches to fix them. This course will give you some tools and expanded ways of thinking to do that.
You will be exposed to — and will create — different communications strategies and models that will help you analyze the media landscape through an economic lens. This course is not intended to teach you how to launch a business (though it might help). Rather, its goal is to make you aware of the reality of what it takes to create revenue from content. What is successful today might not work tomorrow.
Week One
Defining the Problem.
Please read this article for our first class.
