University of Iowa Explores Ugandan Pop Music and Presidential Politics at Journalism Bootcamp

Source: CSIS

Students from the University of Iowa will hit the ground running on Monday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Journalism Bootcamp: Reporting on International Affairs. This session of the intensive weeklong program dives into Ugandan politics, including the role of pop music in presidential politics, as a practicum in international affairs journalism.

The Bootcamp invites a select group of university students to travel to Washington, D.C. to take part in a week of workshops with policy experts and multimedia producers at CSIS. Deep-dive seminars with CSIS experts focus on a current media topic, this time “Ugandan Political and Security Dynamics: How Pop Culture Figure Bobi Wine Sparked Political Change in Uganda.” Other seminars give students hands-on experience practicing storytelling, interview, social media, video, and data visualization skills. One skill-building workshop during this session, for instance, focuses on “Using Multimedia to Tell Complex Stories.”

The students’ work culminates in a long-form reporting project that incorporates video, audio, and data visualization elements. The project is produced in collaboration with CSIS’s Dracopoulos iDeas Lab, which was created in 2011 with support from SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos.

Based in Washington, D.C., CSIS is a nonprofit, bipartisan organization that for over half a century has provided policy to guide society toward a better future. SNF has provided support for a number of other events at CSIS, notably the CSIS-TCU Schieffer Series, hosted by former CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer.

Past cohorts have come from universities around the United States and in Greece.