Society & Culture

UGA students hoping YouTube views help videos go viral

UGA students hoping YouTube views help videos go viral

Athens, Ga. – Public relations students in the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication have traded video news releases for viral videos this semester. Students in Kaye Sweetser’s public relations communication class produced the popular type of public relations video while learning how to write for multimedia in class.

With the UGA Office of Undergraduate Admissions as their client, the students worked in five separate teams on the month-long project to create videos that would both communicate to the target audience (either high school students or parents) and showcase the university. According to Sweetser, the admissions office plans to use select videos in their recruiting efforts.

“The video assignment allowed students to develop their skills at identifying audience, creating messages and crafting persuasive appeals,” said Sweetser, “just like more traditional video or radio spot writing assignments have in the past.”

From now through Tuesday, April 28, the five student-produced videos will battle it out on YouTube to see which of the videos is able to “go viral.” The top two videos with the most views by the last day of class will receive bonus points on the assignment.

“This effort is just another in the public relations program at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication to integrate social media assignments into the traditional curriculum,” Sweetser explained.

View all five student videos at http://tinyurl.com/gradyvideos.

Established in 1915, the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers seven undergraduate majors including advertising, broadcast news, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and telecommunication arts. The college offers two graduate degrees, and is home to WNEG-TV, the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, see www.grady.uga.edu.