The University of Florida is to build a new journalism training centre aimed at new methods of storytelling using digital and new media.

The Center for Media Innovation and Research (CIMR) will experiment with multimedia storytelling on different platforms and test their effectiveness, a release from the university said.

“News media of all types are struggling with the transition to digital. Our new center will help them find the way. It also will help us produce students who are prepared to lead media companies in the changing landscape,” said John Wright, dean of the university’s college of journalism and communications.

“It will be a sort of farm for new ways of disseminating news and information.”

The centre will include a ’21st Century Newsroom and Laboratory’ with a later addition of a ‘Digital Laboratory for Strategic Communications’. Students and staff from across the university’s journalism courses will use the centre.

“The result will be a sort of think tank consortium for digital media,” the release said.