Professor Charlie Beckett and Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi

We live in a world where information is a critical resource. The news media play a central role in the production and dissemination of that information. From Twitter to the New York Times, from Al Jazeera to Facebook, journalism is having an impact on our personal and political lives.

Recent events such as the election of President Trump, the UK EU referendum and the debate over ‘fake news’ have put the news media centre stage in national and international affairs.

This course is a unique opportunity to benefit from the LSE’s outstanding research into modern journalism combined with talks by pioneering media professionals. It is taught by Professor Charlie Beckett who was an award-winning senior journalist with the BBC and who runs the LSE’s international journalism think-tank, Polis. The course will draw upon recent high-profile research led by Professor Beckett from the LSE Truth, Trust and Technology Commission and the Polis Journalism and AI project. The course will be co-taught with Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi, Assistant Professor in the LSE Department of Media and Communications.

Modelled on LSE’s postgraduate media and communications course, you will attend daily guest talks by world renowned journalists giving you insights into a variety of aspects of contemporary news media. Workshops will develop your skills, including AI journalism skills, while seminars will encourage you to think and act like a journalist facing all the dramatic ethical and technological challenges of reporting the complex and dangerous world we live in.

Texts

C. Beckett, SuperMedia, Blackwell (2008)
R. Silverstone, Media and Morality, Polity (2006)

Other Sources:

POLIS blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/
POLIS on Twitter: @charliebeckett