Teaching media business in a time of uncertainty

Marcus Messner, Ph.D.Virginia Commonwealth University

Business of Media Class

Multimedia Journalism Master’s Program

Online class with 15 journalism students

10 weeks in spring semester (2009 + 2010)

How do you teach business of media to journalists?

Topics covered Media Market Models Media Deregulation Media Conglomerates Media Profitability and Challenges New Media Markets

Assignments Online discussions Interviews with media managers Business model development Research paper on media company

strategy

Interviews with Managers

Discussions of Strategies

Developing new business models

Student Business Projects

Where to go from here? Young journalists start thinking about

the business of their profession Multimedia and social media strategy

development

Involving real clients for model development in future semesters

Questions?

Marcus Messner, Ph.D.Virginia Commonwealth University