GLO 407: Building Digital Audiences Across the World

The course focuses on crafting and promoting media content in ways that seek to develop and monetize global networks of influence. Rather than assuming mass audiences wait passively for content, this course covers audience development including audience engagement tracking. This studies of global media course also discusses the history of audience research and broad concepts having to do with the global attention economy. Finally, it covers in some depth how to conduct a critical analysis of the potential social ramifications of building online audiences at scale. Globally, vast networks of people have been mobilized for good and for ill by means of engaging them with verified information and misinformation. This course addresses head on the dichotomy of the need for global media professionals to develop audiences in online networks using influencer-like practices while also paying attention to the many reasons why we do not feed the trolls.