Media Innovation & Content Strategy 2020–21: Reflections on our experience
Students in the Medill School’s MSJ specialization in Media Innovation & Content Strategy completed their studies this summer after a most unusual year of classes conducted almost entirely online.
While the COVID-19 pandemic made for a different kind of Medill experience, it was still transformative for the 2020–21 students. Here are some of their reflections.
Jen Drysdale: Learning “everything” in media
In addition to the foundational classes of the Medill journalism program, I’ve taken courses focusing on business models, audience analytics, UX design and entrepreneurship. I’ve worked with interdisciplinary teams to build media products based on user needs I identified. I learned how to create those products, how to test them, how to monetize them, how to pitch them to stakeholders and how to market them to audiences.
The skills and knowledge I’ve gained at Medill were exactly what I wanted. I’ve learned the foundations of “everything” in media. Now, I need to figure out how to apply that to the next step in my career.
Some of the best advice came from a guest speaker in my Case Studies in Content Strategy class. Eric Wahlgren, director of content programs at Pinterest, encouraged me and my classmates to throw away the question, “What do I want to do?” Instead, he suggested, let your job search be informed by the question, “What do I want to get better at?”
Rebecca Klein: Weaving interests into a career
I spent much of the year behind a laptop in my childhood bedroom, eating meals with my parents and petting my cats during breaks. While it was not the Medill experience any of us had asked for, it was the experience we got. I had decided in the beginning that there was no point in dwelling on what we might have missed.
I didn’t know what I would find at Medill. I wasn’t a reporter, nor was I trying to become one. But I identified strongly as a writer and storyteller, and I cared deeply about helping people with disabilities. I didn’t know how to weave these interests into a career.
During a presentation by Emily Withrow, VP of Product at the New York Times, I realized that the combination of storytelling and accessibility could be a thread connecting one opportunity to the next.
“Lean into the problems you can’t let go of,” Withrow said. I think about her advice every day.
Leaning into the challenges of making content accessible and available, I found opportunities at Medill to gain the necessary skills to bring my ideas to life. During my time at Medill, I started working as a content marketing associate for 3Play Media, a video accessibility company that offers a full-service solution for closed captioning, transcription, audio description, translation, subtitling, and live captioning. I am thrilled to join 3Play full time after graduation.
Grace Miserocchi: Focusing on the audience
During my time at Medill, I learned about media business models, audience analytics, product management, user research and more. But at the end of the year, the one theme that came across from each experience was “know your audience.”
Almost every project I worked on over the past year involved interviewing and user research. As a journalist, interviewing people comes naturally to me, but I had never applied it in other environments. Being forced to talk to people about their experiences with various media products and applications changed my perspective on media product development as a whole. Talking to users and figuring out “why” you are building something seems like an obvious first step when solving a problem. But, as I learned, it is even easier to assume you know what your audience needs without even asking.
During the August week we spent in person at the Northwestern San Francisco campus, the practice of user-centered design really clicked for me. Almost every alumnus and guest speaker we heard from reinforced what our professors had been harping on all year, telling us to “know our audience.” I am not sure yet what is next for me, but I do know that wherever I land, getting to know my audience and asking “why” will be how I approach a role.
Tina Tan: Finding my passion in product management
The MICS program teaches everything I’ve ever wanted to learn about — media, business, technology and all things combined. We studied:
- the foundation of business innovations;
- the design-thinking approach used in building technology and media products;
- the correlation between content strategy and storytelling;
- digital UX design;
- and how to build a new product in a startup environment.
The most valuable experience was collaborating with engineering and business students at Northwestern to build a product from scratch and launch the MVP. From working closely with my startup team at Together (and hustling together through ceaseless challenges), I learned about cross-functional teamwork, project management, user research/testing, business marketing, and so much more.
Most importantly, I found my passion in product management. Being a project and product manager on the team, I did what I was passionate about — exploring what I didn’t know, experimenting and creating things with my teammates, and leveraging my collaboration skills to solve problems.
Eric Xu: Adding content strategy to journalism
“Journalism is dying” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, including among journalists. But after a year at Medill, I don’t believe that. Times are different, yes; the field is changing, yes; but the craft does not die, rather it reinvents itself.
As content cycles grow faster and content appetites are greater, the modern journalist must wear many new hats in pursuit of the news. You must operate comfortably across disciplines, and I credit the MSJ core curriculum for its breadth of instruction. I’m a better writer now, with a keener eye for stories. Moreover I can shoot video, record audio and edit all of it with a surprising degree of confidence.
What MICS added was strategy. Does your content speak to humans and computers? Do you understand how to promote your stories, or measure their success? Can you create new products that your audiences actually want? These skills are becoming contemporary table stakes, they are also among the cornerstone subjects you will explore in MICS.
Content strategy is the tactical layer nestled above journalism (and storytelling in general). It leans into data and analytical tools to help you decide what kind of content you want to create, how you might distribute it and what you should do to make it stand out. When paired with design thinking, it offers a powerful framework for understanding your audience’s wants, needs and the novel ways in which you might meet them. It is, by definition, a forward-looking discipline.
Content strategy is predicated on navigating uncertainty. It is a dynamic field of study, one where you solve problems all the time. In the process of hunting for solutions, you will have many opportunities for your creativity and inquisitiveness to shine through.
Ana Suarez: Discovering how journalism translates into UX design
In my final quarter at Medill, I took Foundations of UX Design with adjunct lecturer Anthony Jakubiak, executive design director at JPMorgan Chase. UX design is a blend of storytelling, technology and art. UX designs create the interface of websites and apps. How you navigate through a website, how you interact with tools on the screen, the look and feel of the site — all of that is created by UX designers.
I found three key similarities between journalism and user experience design:
- Conducting user interviews: To create a successful product, designers need to uncover the problems of their audience and glean important insights to inform their design. As a journalist, uncovering information through interviews is the bedrock of our profession. Asking the necessary and tough questions leads us to uncovering breakthroughs. I found that applying my reporting skills to user interviews generated the most insightful conversations.
- Understanding your audience: Like reporters who go through their notes and construct the outline of a story, UX designers spend time organizing their notes, finding patterns, and searching for pain points that may reveal the true problem. We developed journey maps to understand our users and develop a successful solution. This process is similar to outlining an article and thinking about the structure necessary to create a compelling story that will resonate with readers.
- Creating for your audience: When identifying the best way to craft our stories, we must identify the medium to use, find the assets that will accompany the piece, craft the narrative the reader will follow and think through its distribution channels. UX designers have a similar creation process that goes from early conception to the most minute detail. Ultimately, a successful design is the culmination of meticulous interviewing and feedback from users. Seeing it all come together is truly rewarding.
Jiang Li: Cross-disciplinary, creative and eye-opening
Since my undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota, I’ve been exploring the intersection between media and technology. I took journalism, computer science and statistics classes, but I couldn’t find a way to apply all the skills I learned.
The NUvention Web+Media class showed me how to collaborate with students from different majors, such as computer science and mechanical engineering, to make something real.
We learned how to find unmet needs and solve them through research, prototyping, coding and testing. For a student with no business background, thinking through a business model was the most challenging part. It was overwhelming at first, but I was proud to survive the experience.
I also learned the importance of understanding the audience and formulating a proper strategy. I found it super useful to learn Google Analytics in Prof. Rich Gordon’s Audience Development & Analytics class. By learning how to measure a website’s performance, I can understand what strategic steps to take. I was able to apply my understanding of content strategy in my role as a part-time marketing intern at Particle.io, a technology company in San Francisco.
Lark Breen: Figuring out what fits
After my undergraduate experience at Medill, I had a vague idea that I wanted to work at the intersection of journalism, marketing and design, but didn’t know how to get there. The MICS experience gave me the chance to learn about a lot of different areas and ideas and discover which ones fit.
I learned that there is no proven pathway to any career in innovative media. We heard from guest speakers who work in content strategy, product management, audience development, venture capital, UX design and research and more. The one thing almost all had in common is that they did not start out in these jobs, and many didn’t even know the roles existed when they started out.
I gathered that the important thing is to figure out what you want to do and which skills you want to exercise, find a company with a culture that allows you to develop them, and learn from the people who have made it happen in the past.
I also got to stretch my boundaries. Hands down, my favorite experience was going to the Kentucky Derby as part of Medill Explores. I’d never, ever produced a sports story, but I figured I should try something new, especially if it meant crossing the Derby off my bucket list. I learned about access in media, the ways institutions have to change and adapt to new media and changing audiences, and what success versus failure looks like. And this wasn’t even what my final story was about!
Over the past year, MICS has been an anchor for my psyche and boon to my professional development. After a year of being in flux and feeling adrift, I am prepared to embrace life outside of Northwestern.
About the MSJ media innovation specialization
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