Sponsored content finding a niche in college media marketing
By Matthew Salzano
Pacific Lutheran University
Consumers of Colorado State’s Rocky Mountain Collegian recently learned how to build a bar. A Ft. Collin’s liquor store owner told a freshly 21-year-old student just what to buy — from his store! — to have a classier selection in a college home than just whatever beer was cheap that week. The landing page for the video is marked with bold text, declaring it “SPONSORED CONTENT.” Sponsored content is the long-form version of advertising content that is known as native advertising.
Traditionally, ads stand out due to the difference in their form from editorial content—a quarter page ad looks different than a op-ed or reportage. With native advertising, however, the paid content looks like it natively inhabits to the platform it exists on: the liquor store video is only distinguishable from editorial video content due to that all-caps label.
The practice that was once only seen from large media outlets like Buzzfeed or the Guardian has made it to college newsrooms. Native advertising, especially creating sponsored content, poses challenges and opportunities for college newsrooms to educate and prepare students while serving clientele. Continue reading “Navigating Native Advertising in College Media”
CMA’s spring national convention in New York was my first as a board member. I’ve seen evaluations for other collegiate media conventions and have been on planning committees, but I still was surprised how often location played into the feedback we received about #CMANYC18.
College Media Association honors the contributions of advisers in a variety of capacities, including those at two-year newspapers, four-year newspapers, those who have advised less than five years (Honor Roll Adviser) and those with more than five years (Distinguished Adviser Award), and more.
The thought of incorporating something else into the mix might be overwhelming. But adding an honor society has the potential to pay dividends for advisers, students and campus communities who are in the trenches engaged in everyday collegiate media work.
At a time when students are increasingly skeptical about the value of high priced textbooks and professors are often asked to justify their cost, it undoubtedly helps when a book offers something “more.” Vincent Filak’s “Dynamics of News Reporting & Writing,” released on Jan. 2, 2018, does just that. In addition to providing a potpourri of chapters routinely found in reporting books, including “Interviewing,” “Broadcast-Style Writing and Voicing,” “Basics of Writing,” and “Editing Audio and Video,” Filak, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, has deftly added “more” in the form of a blog, dynamicsofwriting.com. It includes almost daily updates with additional information, examples of material discussed in the textbook and interactive elements to keep students engaged and the material fresh. Recent blog posts, including “Profile Writing: You can observe a lot by watching” and “5 cool things about open records I learned from an #ACPBOM session,” provide timely and helpful content that can be integrated into a course curriculum.
Abstract — This paper examines publication of the NTUBulletin newspaper at the National Taipei University of Business (NTUB) from spring 2016 through fall 2017, focusing on the fall 2017 semester. This was the first English language newspaper published at our school. The newspaper is a full-color paper, printed on A3 and A4 paper. A four-page paper has been expanded to six pages. The paper has undergone one redesign. It began with a four-week deadline schedule that was reduced to three weeks in the second semester. A News English class originally published the paper and later was moved into writing courses. The paper thus always had a focus on writing improvement with students – the value of which has been shown in questionnaires distributed to the class. This paper has created substantial energy and excitement at NTUB, and the teacher has been invited to distribute copies to other schools and speak about the experience of publication and writing training in the course. 
