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ICLD core course

Strategic communication

Curriculum

8 Sections
21 Lessons
Lifetime

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A five-step strategy to make a communication plan
A five-step strategy for ensuring that your message reaches the right people, on the right channel, and leads to the outcome that you intended. We also offer you a template for your communication plan (to be downloaded here below).
9
Communicating Democracy and ICLD Core Values
ICLD’s core values are based on the foundations of well-functioning local democracy and are expressed under the following headings: equity, participation, transparency and accountability. So how does these core values operationalise themselves within your projects?
1
- 2.1
  Communicating Democracy through ICLD Core Values
The structure of a news story
Here, you will learn the structure of a news story using the inverted pyramid. The structure will be the same whether you are writing an article for the web, your newsletter, or social media; it's just the length of the text that will differ.
2
- 3.1
  The structure of a news article/story
- 3.2
  Value-added information
Public speaking and communication techniques
Public speaking is a skill that will last you a lifetime. But it needs training and preparations. And to convince people by your speech, you have to be aware of different communication techniques. Watch these videos with speaking tips to improve your public speaking skills and the different communication techniques to make people listen to you.
2
- 4.1
  How to deliver a clear and powerful message
- 4.2
  How to communicate with more than words
Supression techniques
How to deal with people that try to supress you? Here are some techniques!
1
- 5.1
  How to deal with supressions techniques
Press and media
Media training allows professionals to learn how to communicate with the media – in other words, media relations. Media training can help teach you what to expect from the media and understand what they’re looking for. Journalists may purposefully trick you or ask difficult questions to get you to reveal something you weren’t planning to talk about.
1
- 6.1
  The five W’s in your press & media relations
Gender sensitive communication
In this module we look at how communication can be used both to challenge and maintain gender inequality and social norms.
4
Code of Ethics
2
- 8.1
  Taking photos and videos
- 8.2
  Posting photos and videos in social media

The structure of a news story

The structure of a news article/story

The inverted pyramid (or ‘inverted triangle’) structure is a metaphor to illustrate how information should be prioritised and structured in a news story.

It is a common method in journalism but has wide adaptability to other kinds of texts, such as blogs, marketing factsheets as well as posts in social media

There are a few basic rules for writing and structuring any news story. If you’re used to other types of writing – such as fiction, fairy tales (once upon a time there was a…) – these rules may seem odd at first. But the format is easy to pick up, and there are very practical reasons why you should follow his format – known as the ‘inverted pyramid’ (or ‘inverted triangle’) structure.

A headline should be an eye-catching summary

The introductory paragraph is the headline and it is where the most newsworthy info is placed and answers questions such as who? what? when? where? why? how? A headline should be an eye-catching summary. Next section contains the lead. By reading the headline and the lead, readers should get the main information quickly without having to read the entire report.

Then comes the section with general infomation and background. The least important details come last.

Value-added information is also an important ingredient in a news story.

Inverted pyramid Wikipedia, Public Domain

Templates:

How to write a good news article

How to write a pressrelease

Communicating Democracy through ICLD Core Values

Value-added information