Open Educational Resources and Journalism

Title	Date	Tag
Developing Open Educational Resources (OER) for Journalism Courses	April 23, 2025
Making Journalism Degree Textbooks Cheaper	October 10, 2024
A Deep Dive into Open Educational Resources (OER) Options for Digital Journalism and Public Relations	May 13, 2024
Journalism and Open Educational Resources (OER)	November 8, 2023

• Media Communication, Convergence and Literacy, Second Edition (E. Osei-Hwere and P. Osei-Hwere) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  

• A Guide to Newswriting, Third Edition (Cuslidge-Staiano, 2024) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  An online flipbook created through San Joaquin Delta College by Tara Cuslidge-Staiano to serve as a comprehensive, standalone resource. This is an excellent resource for the news production classes and is a recent creation.

  

• Media Studies 101 (Pearson, 2013) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

  This text offers a collaborative effort of media and communication study academics from New England, Australia and the Pacific to outline the origins of mass communication, its theories and relevance in society.

  

• Media, Society, Culture and You (Poepsel, 2018) (CC BY)

  Media, Society, Culture and You grew out of an experiment in developing and employing open educational resources (OER) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Professors from various disciplines were encouraged to find or develop texts to replace or supplement course materials. Because the field of mass communication changes so rapidly, the author of this text decided to “go all in” on OER materials and develop, write, and edit the first version of this electronic textbook with plans to update it at least once per year. Chapters are kept relatively short, but links lead down various intellectual paths for curious readers to follow.

  

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (Saylor Academy, 2012) – LibreTexts (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. LibreTexts has adapted the content from Saylor Academy.

  

Module 1: Communication & Media

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 1.2 Intersection of American Media and Culture will distinguish between mass communication and mass media.
• Chapter 1.3 The Evolution of Media will identify the four roles media performs in our culture.

Module 2: Mass Communication, Mass Media & Culture

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 1.4 Convergence outlines Media Convergence as well as the type of mediums in mass media.

Module 3: The Theories of Mass Communication

• Media Studies 101 (Pearson, 2013) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 20. The Hypodermic Needle goes into detail on the theories of mass communication.

Module 4: The Mediums of Digital Mass Media: Books

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 3 The History of books outlines the origins and path towards digital.

Module 5: The Mediums of Digital Mass Media: Newspaper

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 4: Newspapers outlines the history of newspapers and its path today.

Module 6: The Mediums of Digital Mass Media: Radio

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 7: Radio outlines the history of radio and its eventual transition to podcasting.

Module 7: The Mediums of Digital Mass Media: Television and Movies

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 8: Movies and Chapter: 9 Television offer a full historical rendition of its transfer into a media convergence.

Module 8: The Mediums of Digital Mass Media: Music

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 6: Music outlines the historical pathway music took to eventually transition to a digital medium.

Module 9: Media Convergence to Digital Mass Media

Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

Module 10: Understanding Media Literacy

• Media, Society, Culture and You (Poepsel, 2018) (CC BY)
• Chapter 3: Media Literacy and Media Studies Research offers an academic approach to studying mass media.

Module 11: Media Controls: Who is in charge?

• Media Studies 101 (Pearson, 2013) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 42. Consumer Culture offers an outlook of the companies that represent today’s consumer culture

Module 12: Social Media Marketing

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 11.3 Social Media and Web 2.0 offer a historical run through of social networking sites and trends. 

Module 13: Digital Public Relations

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 12.2: Public Relations offers an introduction to the models of PR, government regulation on advertising, and the digital versus traditional forms of advertising

Module 14: Patterns in Advertising and Content Marketing

• Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication (University of Minnesota) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 16: The Future of Mass Media outlines the changes in media, the new delivery methods, current trends and patterns in digital media, marketing and advertising.

• Broccoli and Chocolate: A Beginner’s Guide to Journalism News Writing (Hiro, 2024) (CC BY-SA)

  This is a free, 10-chapter textbook for the introductory journalism course. It was created by a veteran community college journalism professor with consultation of other journalism professors around the state.

  

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Brian Champagne wrote a casual but incredibly informative layout for journalists yearning to tackle reporting, interviewing and multimedia in the digital world. He writes that this book does not teach the who, what, when, where, why, and how of reporting; its goal is to teach how to present the journalism already known via electronic media, primarily television. Further he declares, “A reporter who understands her medium knows she must write words to fit her video. In this book it is Rule #1: Write to Video. Write that on your hand, the wall, and your computer monitor. Needlepoint it onto fabric, etch it in metal, and carve it in wood.” It is a perfect addition to any aspiring newsroom.

  

Module 1: Types of Leads and Story Awareness

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 2: Leads offers insight to the importance of leads and examples of strong ones.

Module 2: Interviewing tips, Presentation, and E-mail Etiquette

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 4: Interviewing offers tips for securing an interview and how to show up prepared.

Module 3:  Introduction to Podcast/Radio Reporting

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 13: Radio provides tips for live interviews and writing a script for podcasts.

• Tools for Podcasting (Olmsted, 2019) (CC BY)

  This online textbook covers audio podcasting and this practical guide will help you navigate the technology and best practices in an easy-to-understand handbook.

  

• Journalism 120: Online Journalism (Hiro, 2025) – Canvas Course (CC BY)

  This is an 8-module Canvas Course class developed by Professor Erin Hiro (Palomar College and San Marcos, California) that includes suggested syllabus, resources and assessments.

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Brian Champagne wrote a casual but incredibly informative layout for journalists yearning to tackle reporting, interviewing and multimedia in the digital world. He writes that this book does not teach the who, what, when, where, why, and how of reporting; its goal is to teach how to present the journalism already known via electronic media, primarily television. Further he declares, “A reporter who understands her medium knows she must write words to fit her video. In this book it is Rule #1: Write to Video. Write that on your hand, the wall, and your computer monitor. Needlepoint it onto fabric, etch it in metal, and carve it in wood.” It is a perfect addition to any aspiring newsroom.

  

Module 1: A Reporter’s Basic Report

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• In Chapter 7: PKGS the book offers insight into how to put together a reporter’s basic report, a pre-written, pre-voice recorded track, ready to be edited and cleaned.

Module 2: The Interview

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 4: Interviewing offers tips for securing an interview and how to show up prepared.

Module 3: The Job

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 16: The Job Market offers insight into the industry job market.

• Be Credible: Information Literacy for Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing Students (Bobkowski and Younger, 2018) (CC BY-NC)

  This free and open textbook teaches college-level journalism students to become information experts. Using the themes of credibility and information literacy, the book helps today’s students, who start out all their research with Google and Wikipedia, to specialize in accessing, evaluating, and managing information that often is not accessible through Google searches. The book includes chapters on public records, freedom of information requests, nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, scholarly research, public data, interviews and more.

  

• A Guide to Newswriting, Third Edition (Cuslidge-Staiano, 2024) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  An online flipbook created through San Joaquin Delta College by Tara Cuslidge-Staiano to serve as a comprehensive, standalone resource. This is an excellent resource for the news production classes and is a recent creation.

  

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Brian Champagne wrote a casual but incredibly informative layout for journalists yearning to tackle reporting, interviewing and multimedia in the digital world. He writes that this book does not teach the who, what, when, where, why, and how of reporting; its goal is to teach how to present the journalism already known via electronic media, primarily television. Further he declares, “A reporter who understands her medium knows she must write words to fit her video. In this book it is Rule #1: Write to Video. Write that on your hand, the wall, and your computer monitor. Needlepoint it onto fabric, etch it in metal, and carve it in wood.” It is a perfect addition to any aspiring newsroom.

  

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers (Caufield, 2021) – Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

  In this book Caulfield outlines how to fact check a variety of mediums, including Twitter identities, images, and much more. He offers short and informative chapters that help to guide students to primary sources and in depth research.

  

Module 1: The Staff Reporter

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 12: Ethics offers a layout of ethics of journalism and how to maintain those ethics in the field.

Module 2: A Multimedia Newsroom

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 3: Photographers outlines the different types of photographers and their roles in the newsroom and digital media production.

Module 3: Finding High Quality Secondary Sources 

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers (Caufield, 2021) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 24: Finding High Quality Secondary Sources offers direction to help further guide secondary source backup.

• Check, Please! Starter Course for Fact Checkers (CC BY)

  This is a website full of classroom activities to help students review or learn fact-checking skills in a campus newsroom.. Ancillaries range from nline lesson plans, video lectures, discussion questions and other classroom activities. Development of this website concept funded in part by RTI International and the Rita Allen Foundation via the Misinformation Solutions Forum Prize. Neither organization is responsible for the content of this site.

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Brian Champagne wrote a casual but incredibly informative layout for journalists yearning to tackle reporting, interviewing and multimedia in the digital world. He writes that this book does not teach the who, what, when, where, why, and how of reporting; its goal is to teach how to present the journalism already known via electronic media, primarily television. Further he declares, “A reporter who understands her medium knows she must write words to fit her video. In this book it is Rule #1: Write to Video. Write that on your hand, the wall, and your computer monitor. Needlepoint it onto fabric, etch it in metal, and carve it in wood.” It is a perfect addition to any aspiring newsroom.

  

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers (Caufield, 2021) – Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

  In this book Caulfield outlines how to fact check a variety of mediums, including Twitter identities, images, and much more. He offers short and informative chapters that help to guide students to primary sources and in depth research.

  

Module 1: The Student Editor

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 12: Ethics offers a layout of ethics of journalism and how to maintain those ethics in the field.

Module 2: A Multimedia Newsroom

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 3: Photographers outlines the different types of photographers and their roles in the newsroom and digital media production.

Module 3: Finding High Quality Secondary Sources 

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers (Caufield, 2021) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 24: Finding High Quality Secondary Sources offers direction to help further guide secondary source backup.

• Public Relations Planning & Strategy (Carlin, 2023) (CC BY-SA)

  Public Relations Planning and Strategy is a comprehensive compilation of open access resources for college students seeking to understand PR planning and strategy essentials. This book presents a practical approach to developing effective PR plans that align with an organization’s goals and objectives.

  

• The Evolving World of Public Relations (NSCC and Martinelli, 2021) (CC BY-NC)

  This text is provided to you as an Open Educational Resource (OER) which you access online. It is designed to give you a comprehensive introduction to public relations at no or very nominal cost.  It contains both written and graphic text material, intra-text links to other internal material which may aid in understanding topics and concepts, intra-text links to the appendices and glossary for tables and definitions of words, and extra-text links to videos and web material that clarifies and augments topics and concepts.

  

• Write Like a PR Pro: Why writing is still crucial in a digital and visual world (Sterenberg, 2023) (CC BY-NC)

  Print and electronic communication, social media and even visual messaging all require a core skill: writing. Learn how to write and develop messages in different formats from professionals with expertise in different areas of communication. NOTE: This textbook is currently under revision, so you may notice content moving or changing.

  

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

  This book is authored by Ohio State University lecturer, Jasmine Roberts, who has drafted an incredibly informative and detailed breakdown of the public relations origin, role in society and trends.

  

Module 1: The Origin of Public Relations

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 7: Public Relations, offers an in depth look into its origins and impact on culture.

Module 2: Models and Approaches to Digital Public Relations

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• The four models of Public Relations are outlined in Chapter 7: 39, models of public relations.

Module 3: Social Media Marketing and Digital Public Relations

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• In Chapter 10: Social Media Uses and Messages, the book offers insight on the impact of social media messages and the best practices in posting for companies.

• Documentary Photography and Photojournalism: Still Images of a World in Motion (MIT OpenCourseWare, 2002) (CC BY)

  This resource has images for use, assignments and examples as well but are SUPER outdated.

• Digital Foundations: Introduction to Media Design with the Adobe Creative Cloud – Revised Edition (Burrough and Mandiberg, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  Digital Foundations uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach the Adobe Creative Suite. All students of digital design and production—whether learning in a classroom or on their own—need to understand the basic principles of design in order to implement them using current software. Far too often design is left out of books that teach software for the trade and academic markets. Consequently, the design software training exercise is often a lost opportunity for visual learning.  This revised edition updates Chapters 1-12 of the original text for use with Adobe Creative Cloud 2024 software.

  

• Digital Photography for Graphic Communications (Adams, Asaleh, Seto, Lisi, and Habekost) (CC BY)

  This book is based on a 2009 print book by the authors that was called Digital Photography for Print and published by the Printing Industries of America (PIA) Press.

  

• Media, Society, Culture and You (Poepsel, 2018) (CC BY)

  Media, Society, Culture and You grew out of an experiment in developing and employing open educational resources (OER) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Professors from various disciplines were encouraged to find or develop texts to replace or supplement course materials. Because the field of mass communication changes so rapidly, the author of this text decided to “go all in” on OER materials and develop, write, and edit the first version of this electronic textbook with plans to update it at least once per year. Chapters are kept relatively short, but links lead down various intellectual paths for curious readers to follow.

  

Module 1: The Ethics of Journalism

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 12: Ethics offers a layout of ethics of journalism and how to maintain those ethics in the field.

Module 2: Newspapers and Digital News

• Media, Society, Culture and You (Poepsel, 2018) (CC BY)
• Chapter 9: Newspapers and Digital News supplies an outline for photojournalism.

Module 3: Working with Photographers

• Writing for Electronic Media (Champagne, 2017) (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 3: Photographers outlines the different types of photographers and their roles in the newsroom and digital media production.

• Media Studies 101 (Pearson, 2013) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

  This text offers a collaborative effort of media and communication study academics from New England, Australia and the Pacific to outline the origins of mass communication, its theories and relevance in society.

  

Module 1: Who is the Public?

• Media Studies 101 (Pearson, 2013 ) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 18: Who is the Public? offers discourse on who the public is that responds to issues, trends and messages.

Module 2: Audience and Audience Research

• Media Studies 101 (Pearson, 2013 ) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 40: Audience and Audience Research discusses the different ways we think about receivers, audiences, and users.

Module 3: Impressions

• Media Studies 101 (Pearson, 2013) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 45: Impressions Management discusses the strategies used to influence perception on a broader scale.

• Media Communication, Convergence and Literacy, Second Edition (E. Osei-Hwere and P. Osei-Hwere) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  

• A Guide to Newswriting, Third Edition (Cuslidge-Staiano, 2024) (CC BY-NC-SA)

  An online flipbook created through San Joaquin Delta College by Tara Cuslidge-Staiano to serve as a comprehensive, standalone resource. This is an excellent resource for the news production classes and is a recent creation.

  

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers (Caufield, 2021) – Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

  In this book Caulfield outlines how to fact check a variety of mediums, including Twitter identities, images, and much more. He offers short and informative chapters that help to guide students to primary sources and in depth research.

  

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)

  This book is authored by Ohio State University lecturer, Jasmine Roberts, who has drafted an incredibly informative and detailed breakdown of the public relations origin, role in society and trends.

  

Module 1: The Digital Journalist

• Writing for Strategic Communications (Ohio State University) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 12: Ethics offers a layout of ethics of journalism and how to maintain those ethics in the field.

Module 2: A Recent Study  

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers (Caufield, 2021) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 20: Stupid Journal Tricks offers direction to the vague statement “a recent study.”

Module 3: Fact Check

• Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers (Caufield, 2021) in Pressbooks (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Chapter 5: Fact-checking Sites offers an up close look at websites that can fact check current topics or trends on a global scale.