Big data are more and more incorporated into contemporary journalistic practices. Journalists and newspapers increasingly rely on digital data to both compose their articles (e.g. tweets, Instagram posts, etc.) and cast a light on new social phenomena (e.g. fake news, bots, censorship, gig economy etc.). Therefore, this course aims at providing students with an essential methodological toolkit to unlock the power of big data, that is, to collect, analyse and interpret digital data for journalistic purposes.
The course will also host presentations by experts in the field of digital journalism, who will give students an overview on digital journalism theories and best practices.
The course will cover, mainly, the following topics: big data and journalism, algorithms, query design, data scraping and API extraction, basic social network analysis, content analysis for digital media, social media analysis.
- Docente: ALESSANDRO CALIANDRO