Communication and Digitalization

Introduction

This is the first semester introduction course to the bachelor program “Digital Communication and Marketing”. The course combines hands-on experiences with social media management and digital communication strategies with foundational knowledge in communication and media theory.

Lectures and course readings will require both Norwegian and English. The exam can be answered/written in Norwegian or English.

Course content

The course introduces key social media management practices and (digital) communication theories that enable students to analyze digital and social media and understand how digitalization and artificial intelligence impact modern forms of professional communication. Emphasis is placed on developing a foundational understanding of social media and its role in professional domains of communication (such as in public relations, news media, or marketing). Further, the course introduces digital strategies and tools to analyze, plan, implement, and evaluate communication.

The course is split into two main parts:

The first part introduces concepts and principles that are foundational to developing effective communication on social media platforms, recognizing key principles of strategic communication in an age of algorithms and artificial intelligence. This part dives straight into the practice of engaging stakeholders online, using concrete platform examples paired with a practical project. Through their project assignment students will explore best practices and reflect critically on key challenges and intricacies when using social media for professional communications (e.g., related to engagement and customer experience, data- and AI-driven insights for showing impact, and digital strategies for visibility and credibility). Students learning from the first part and the project will be assessed through presentations and a reflection paper.

The second part builds on the practical insights on social media management from the first part to provide a broader overview of key domains of professional communication (including journalism, mass media, public and media relations and marketing communications). Students will understand and analyze the distinct focus, formats, and principles within the different professional communication domains and be able to interpret how social media innovations trigger digital transformation within and convergence between these domains. Student learning from the second part will be assessed through a standardized test (multiple choice).

Disclaimer

This is an excerpt from the complete course description for the course. If you are an active student at BI, you can find the complete course descriptions with information on eg. learning goals, learning process, curriculum and exam at portal.bi.no. We reserve the right to make changes to this description.