The Center on Digital Culture and Society (CDCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Center for Social Impact Strategy (CSIS) at the School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2) aim to help meet the need for changemakers and other social action workers to navigate the fast-changing world of digital media. The two schools have jointly launched a new executive education program entitled Digital Media for Social Impact (DMSI).

“The University of Pennsylvania has a long history of valuing collaborations between schools and disciplines,” said John L. Jackson, Jr., Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School and Richard Perry University Professor. “The DMSI program falls squarely within that tradition, and I am excited that Annenberg and SP2 will be working together to provide this interesting learning opportunity to social impact leaders across a variety of industries.”

Annenberg’s first executive education offering, the program combines action-oriented education with leading scholarship on digital media and social change. It is designed for media industry professionals, activists, community organizers, nonprofit leaders, and social entrepreneurs looking to build mission-aligned digital media strategies.

“DMSI is an initiative to create an institutional base for such engaged scholarship,” said Guobin Yang, the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School and the director of CDCS. “CSIS has done trailblazing work in this area, and I cannot think of a better partner in this venture.”

The five-month program is online and asynchronous, so students can go at their own pace. Courses will be taught by Penn experts on digital media, including Annenberg School professors Sarah J. Jackson, Jessa Lingel, Victor Pickard, and Guobin Yang, and Annenberg alums Rosemary Clark-Parsons, PhD’18, Emily Dean Hund, PhD’19, and Hanna E. Morris, PhD’21. Students will gather virtually every week to build community and learn from one another. In addition, the program features two online convenings and one on-campus convening.

Through the DMSI program, students will gain a critical understanding of digital media platforms’ affordances and limitations for social impact and social justice work, develop a tool kit for building and evaluating mission-aligned digital campaigns, and build a community of likeminded changemakers.

“DMSI is a unique opportunity because it combines leading scholarship in communication with a hands-on, action-oriented curriculum,” said Dr. Clark-Parsons, the program manager of CSIS. “This is a really exciting opportunity for anyone looking to take a research-driven approach to their digital outreach strategies and build their professional network along the way.”