Publishing in Public was taught by Nika Simovich Fisher at The New School during the Spring 2026 semester. The dispatch was published weekly(...ish) on LinkedIn and Instagram. This website launched in August of 2026.
This course looks at how cultural publications shape their editorial voices through digital strategy and how their approaches to distribution reflect their goals. We studied a variety of platforms and publishing models, examining how decisions about where and how content is shared shape a publication’s identity and its relationship with readers.
Students analyzed contemporary approaches with guest speakers who connected editorial goals to distribution strategies. They also worked in teams to prototype digital strategies for a selected publication: rethinking archives, developing a digital voice to complement physical formats, and imagining ways to reach broader audiences online.
In short, the class was about learning how to make publishing ideas legible to readers, editors, and collaborators through messaging, audience engagement, design, taste, and alignment.
The course served as an experimental publication in itself. Each week, the instructor shared a short dispatch reflecting on how the class was unfolding. These dispatches were posted on LinkedIn and Instagram Stories to make the process of teaching a new course visible beyond the classroom.
The goal was to demonstrate that publishing does not require a traditional format or platform: almost anything can function as a publication when it is shared with intention, even on platforms not designed for it.
Students were occasionally invited to contribute through in-class activities or highlighted responses, always with permission.
Format: Figma slides
Establish a shared understanding of Index Space’s programming, audience, voice, goals, and priorities.
Students researched one Index Space event from the previous five years and analyzed it as a form of cultural publishing. The research considered the event’s framing, audience, speakers, cultural context, distribution, documentation, and what those elements suggest about Index Space’s publishing priorities.
Format: A curated set of media organized and housed on a ZIP file
Develop editorial taste by translating a public text into a thoughtful, poetic, and visually cohesive collection.
Students selected a New York Times obituary and responded to revealing emotional, personal, or cultural details through three nonrepresentational images and one additional multimedia asset. Portraits of the person and imagery from the original article were not permitted. A .txt file explained the selections and credited any found material; presenting the files on a custom USB stick was optional. The final collection should function as a miniature profile of the person.
Format: A thoughtfully designed seven-minute presentation
Practice making editorial decisions by designing a public-facing project that fits naturally within Index Space’s existing work.
Working in small teams, students proposed one editorial activation that reframed, resurfaced, redistributed, or extended Index Space’s work. Each proposal defined its audience, editorial intent, format, and mode of circulation while demonstrating alignment with Index Space’s voice and priorities.
Weeks 1–5
Who is this for? How do you know? What signals, assumptions, and forms of data shape editorial decisions? When should data guide you, and when can it get in the way of authentically sharing a vision? This unit focused on identifying audiences and exploring ways of researching and understanding them.
Weeks 5–10
How do you decide what belongs together visually and thematically? How does taste operate as a form of editorial authorship? What makes something feel coherent, overworked, or unclear? This unit focused on taste, curation, and how selection, framing, and restraint shape meaning.
Weeks 10–15
Where should this live? What platform or format makes sense? How does sharing through Instagram, a website, a newsletter, or an event change how work is understood? This unit focused on strategy and thoughtful decisions about how work circulates in public.