∇ Religion, Conflict and Peace!
In this course, we explored a series of contemporary conflicts in different regions of the world with a special focus on identifying and analysing the diverse and complex roles that religions play in both promoting and mitigating violence in each context.
We learnt a method for recognising and analysing how religious ideologies are embedded in all arenas of human agency and not isolated from political, economic, and cultural life as is often assumed.
Countries we focused on are:
Brazil, Egypt, France, Israel/Palestine, Myanmar, Nigeria, Qatar, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Turkey, and the United States.
∇ Global Media, War And Technology!
High-tech nations wage wars from a distance using satellite-guided weaponry while non-state military actors, terrorist organisations, and citizen journalists have increasingly added new voices and visual perspectives to the conversation about conflict.
The ubiquity of smartphones, internet access, and social media transports the experience and complexity of war directly into our lives. Cyberspace offers greater freedoms and access to information at the same time as we discover a dramatic global rise of cyber espionage, internet censorship, and surveillance.
In this course, we examined emerging new terrain where violent conflict, information technology, and global media intersect and where the old distinctions between battlefront and home front, between soldier and civilian, between war and entertainment, and between public and private are being redrawn.
∇ Social Media: Effective Video Scripting!
Scriptwriting for social media involves creating engaging dialogues for various social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Effective scripts are crucial to capture the attention of the target audience and promote a brand or product.
During the two-week course, as scriptwriters, we gained a thorough understanding of scripting dialogues for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, targeting various age groups. We learned to be fully aware of the different age groups and demographics that use social media and tailor our messaging accordingly. We also practiced being creative and innovative in our approach to produce content that stands out among the myriad of social media posts.
At the end of the course, we submitted both a digital and a written content with the ultimate goal of generating interest and interaction with the audience, leading to an increase in engagement.
∇ Social Media: Crowd Tangle – keeping track of social media!
A course offered by the BBC and Crowd Tangle platform to develop skills in understanding social media. A tool from Facebook to help follow, analyse and report on what’s happening across social media.