Get Lit! with the Witherspoon Institute
As part of our work with the Witherspoon Institute’s Get Lit Program, we collaborated on a project that utilized the power of artificial intelligence to create a comprehensive digital toolkit...
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Courses & Project Showcase
Explore our academic courses and discover innovative student projects at the intersection of AI and media.
AI in Media Industries
Spring 2025
Course Description
Develop practical skills in using AI tools to tell impactful stories across public relations, advocacy, journalism, and strategic social media. Students will work with generative AI for text, images, and multimodal media while evaluating tools, platforms, ethics, limitations, and biases.
The course includes collaboration with an external media partner to produce real-world deliverables, prototype new workflows, and develop AI-driven storytelling for local communities and civic or enterprise goals.
This is also a Northeastern Service-Learning course, partnering with four community organizations this semester.
Course Objectives
- Identify human-centered AI tools to improve operational and business practices
- Assess risks, benefits, and biases in AI systems and propose mitigations
- Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Collaborate across disciplines to apply AI in real-world contexts
Learning Outcomes
- Advise media and communications organizations on AI use
- Apply prompt engineering for compelling generative media
- Create and evolve AI-driven storytelling techniques
- Design AI-powered social media strategies
- Evaluate ethical tradeoffs in AI-driven media applications
- Leverage and combine leading AI tools into effective workflows
Teaching Assistants
- Yash Phalle — Technical Lead
- Amelia Chu — Service-Learning Partner Manager
Featured student projects from course
Workshop: Introduction to Vibe Coding
Spring 2026
Spring 2026 · AIMES Lab, Northeastern University
Course Description
A hands-on workshop introducing non-technical students in media, journalism, and communications to AI-assisted software development. Participants learn to build real websites and data dashboards through natural language prompts - no prior coding experience required.
Using Cursor as the primary tool, students go from idea to deployed website in a single session - developing an intuition for how to work with AI as a creative and technical collaborator.
Course Objectives
- Build functional websites and dashboards using AI-generated code
- Develop effective prompting strategies for creative and technical tasks
- Understand core web technologies - HTML, CSS, JS at a conceptual level
- Apply vibe coding techniques to real-world media and journalism scenarios
- Deploy and publish projects to the public web
Learning Outcomes
- Write specific, iterative prompts that produce high-quality AI output
- Build and style a complete personal portfolio website from scratch
- Create interactive data dashboards from CSV datasets
- Deploy a live site to Netlify or Vercel with no command-line experience
- Critically evaluate AI limitations and when to iterate vs. restart
Instructors
Prof. John Wihbey
Faculty Supervisor, AIMES Lab
Yash Phalle
Graduate Research Assistant
Graduate Research Assistant
Session Resources → Open Resource Page ↗
Featured student projects from course
HuskyAI – Be an AI-Ready Husky!
HuskyAI - AI Literacy Coaching for Northeastern Students An initiative by Prof. John Wihbey & Yash Phalle · AIMES Lab, Northeastern University · 2026 As AI tools become embedded in...
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