With the evolution of communication technologies, transformations across the media landscape have become inevitable. Therefore, this course examines how digital journalism operates, how its technical infrastructure is built, and how news is delivered online. Furthermore, students learn how to build, maintain, and manage professional news portals through hands-on laboratory exercises.
Course Completion Requirements
This course covers a concise history of the internet, key terminology, digital journalism principles, website deployment, news reporting, reader engagement via social channels, Google services integration, and journalism ethics. Each student is expected to manage both an individual portfolio website and collaborate on a shared group portal.
To successfully complete this course, students must satisfy the following criteria:
⚠️ Attendance is mandatory for all students. Attendance must be at least 70%. Students falling below this threshold will not receive a passing grade regardless of their practical scores.
ℹ️ Weekly Laboratory Exercises: Hands-on lab assignments must be completed and submitted on schedule every week. These exercises account for 50% of your final grade.
ℹ️ Capstone Project: You will build, launch, and manage a collaborative digital news portal project, including individual reporting articles and project documentation. This constitutes 50% of your final grade.
Sınavlar ve Projeler
Evaluation is based entirely on continuous practical assessments and the final capstone project.
- Practicals: 50%
- Final Project: 50%
Course Format
This course combines theoretical foundations with extensive practical laboratory sessions. Classes consist of instructor presentations followed by hands-on student lab work conducted at individual workstations.
Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:
- Understand the fundamental dynamics of digital journalism and modern web technologies.
- Manage domain names, web hosting environments, DNS records, and secure FTP deployments.
- Install, configure, secure, and administer the WordPress content management system.
- Implement search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and digital analytics tools.
- Collaborate effectively in teams to design, launch, and maintain a professional online news portal.
Course Policy & Important Notes
ℹ️ Technical Infrastructure Policy: Students are responsible for procuring their own domain name and hosting plan required for setting up and administering news portals. Both individual testing sites and group production portals must be hosted on student-procured servers.
⚠️ Content Ethics & Academic Integrity: These portals serve as your public academic and professional showcase. All published articles must adhere to journalism ethics, respect intellectual property, and feature original reporting. Plagiarism and unethical conduct will lead directly to course failure.
Useful Links
- Creating Effective Headlines
- Headline Analyzer 1 - MonsterInsights
- Headline Analyzer 2 - Advanced Marketing Institute
- 8 Best Headline Analyzer Tools Compared (Deep Dive into How to Use Them)
Workflow: Individual Sites and Group Portals
Throughout this semester, you will work across two distinct digital environments. Weekly Exercises (worth 5 points each) are executed on your personal Individual Testing Site. You will then apply all acquired skills collaboratively to your team’s live production Group Portal.
Weekly Course Syllabus
| Week | Topic | Practical Lab | Task & Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to Digital Journalism & Web Ethics | — | Team formation, portal concept selection, and audience definition. |
| 2 | Domain Registration, Web Hosting & FTP Setup | Practical 1 | Server provisioning, DNS configuration, and verified FTP connection testing (Individual Site). |
| 3 | WordPress Installation & User Role Management | Practical 2 | WP core installation, database configuration, and editorial user role assignments (Individual & Group Sites). |
| 4 | Theme Installation & Custom Styling | Practical 3 | Theme activation, logo/favicon deployment, and branding customization (Individual Site). |
| 5 | Core Information Architecture & Navigation | Practical 4 | Essential pages (About, Contact), category hierarchy, and navigation menus (Individual Site). |
| 6 | Essential Plugins, Caching & Web Security | Practical 5 | SEO plugins, caching layers, and brute-force security hardening (Individual Site). |
| 7 | AI in Journalism, Originality & Fact-Checking | Practical 6 | Evaluating AI-generated copy, detecting hallucinations, and editorial verification (Individual Site). |
| 8 | Digital News Writing & Headline Crafting | Practical 7 | SEO-compliant reporting and non-clickbait headline optimization (Individual Site). |
| 9 | Midterm Week: Project Milestone Evaluation | Midterm | Individual site review and group portal readiness presentation. |
| 10 | Visual Media, Copyright Standards & Optimization | Practical 8 | Sourcing royalty-free images, proper resizing, WebP conversion, and alt tags (Individual Site). |
| 11 | Page Builders & Advanced Editorial Layouts | Practical 9 | Custom front page wireframing and rich media article templates (Individual Site). |
| 12 | Social Media Integration & Reader Engagement | Practical 10 | Social share buttons, newsletter capture forms, and live feed embeds (Individual Site). |
| 13 | Group Portal Sprint & Integration Lab | Group Lab | Finalizing staging environments, cross-device testing, and team content migration (Group Site). |
| 14 | Final Capstone Delivery & Presentation | Final Evaluation | Live launch review, group presentations, and final grading. |
Detailed Grading Criteria
Practicals
50%
Practical exercises are conducted weekly as scheduled above. Each practical is worth 5 points (10 practicals in total = 50%). Students absent from class cannot claim practical points.
Evaluation Criteria:
Grades reflect problem-solving proficiency, technical correctness, and adherence to requirements.
Final Project
50%
This is a collaborative group capstone, though each student receives an individual grade. Each member must author and publish at least 10 original articles and submit documentation.
Evaluation Criteria:
- Group Domain & Server Setup
- CMS Hardening & Editorial Role Assignment
- Theme Customization & Mobile Responsiveness
- Analytics & Webmaster Tools Integration
- Static Architecture & Menu Navigation
- Individual Contribution Report
- Published Articles & Reporting:
- Editorial depth & writing quality
- Adherence to journalism ethics
- Originality & proper sourcing
- Keyword research & on-page SEO
- Visual layout & readability