300

Survey course on the visual documentary tradition.

This course introduces students to theory, research and applied practice in the study of organizational communication. Students will explore the role human communication plays in structuring, maintaining and changing organizations, and they will explore specific issues within the study of organizational communication including socialization, decision-making, conflict, stress and burnout, cultural diversity and external communication.

Students will develop critical perspectives on media consumption and creation while learning intermediate skills in design and digital production for visual communication. The course focuses on conceptual thinking and problem-solving in the development and production of digital media projects.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the socio-cultural dynamics that affect the communication process. Students focus on their own cultural world view as they are exposed to the cultural dynamics and characteristics of other societies. Emphasis is placed upon the nonverbal and oral/visual aspects of communication content, structure and context.

Examines public opinion from a variety of perspectives, providing students with the ability to be intelligent consumers of public opinion research and effective users of public opinion research tools. Explores the interaction between the media and public opinion, as well as public opinion's effects on contemporary society and politics.

Students explore the role of communication in the social construction of culture. Emphasis is on acquiring knowledge of culture as an evolving process of codifications, and examining dominant and marginal cultural meaning systems in science, history and the arts.

Communication and Technology explores the social, political, economic, and cultural effects of emerging communication technologies.  Areas covered include the design and affordances of new technologies, how they are used by consumers and organizations, and how they are addressed by laws, policies, industries, and social and cultural institutions.

This course covers the elements of broadcast news writing and production, including the structure of radio and television news and feature stories, research and interviewing techniques, "package" production and ethical considerations.

Communication and Law is the study of concepts, policies, laws and court decisions that affect communication in our society. Through text, scholarly and popular articles, sound and video recordings, court decisions, lectures and class participation, we explore critical legal principles of civilized democratic society and the range of laws that protect or restrain communication within it. In addition to examining such principles and laws for their own merit (or lack of it), the course provides a practical basis upon which students who seek to become communications professionals can identify legal issues that will influence their professional conduct.

A supervised practicum experience in a fully integrated marketing communications agency working with clients to deliver strategic media/communication solutions to meet organizational goals. Available to students across disciplines, majors, and colleges. Positions include agency president, account executive, creative director, public relations director, digital strategists, graphic  designers, media writers, media producers, and project managers. No more than 4 credit hours per semester are permitted. May be repeated for credit. Students may participate in The Spartan Agency for credit or non-credit.

This is a survey of traditions of television criticism. The class covers key areas of television research and criticism, including narrative, aesthetic, production-oriented, economic, audience-centered, and ideological approaches to TV. The class will address questions related to TV as a technology, the broadcast and post-network eras of TV, the globalization of media programming, as well as a wide range of TV genres and their conventions.

This course builds upon the foundational skills developed in Studio TV I. Students receive practical experience in directing, camera operation, audio mixing, graphics creation, teleprompter use, and on-air performance for multi-camera studio productions. Each student is also responsible for producing a half-hour live stream.

Independent media is free from state or corporate influence, but how is this sustainable in an increasingly consolidated media landscape? Media independence protects and enables healthy criticism; however, it is not immune to censorship or commercialization. Therefore, this class explores various forms of media such as film, video, music, podcasts and other analog and digital publications produced by independent media movements.

This course explores practice and theory of writing for interactive media, including hypertext and hypermedia, narrative games, critical games, and location-based media.

This course is an introduction to the mechanics of writing for television. From idea through final draft, students learn the process of developing scripts for television. The structural demands of commercial television and cable are explored. The student obtains a grounding in the historical development of marketable TV genres. The selling and buying of a script are analyzed, as well as strategies for creating a teleplay by oneself or with a staff of writers.

Students will learn how to use social media for strategic purposes, develop effective content, and measure success through analytics.

What is the appeal of the retro? Why are we nostalgic for old media? This class explores such appeals via the history of communications, media, and technology. Taking a hands-on approach—including local field trips and creative projects—the course keeps one foot firmly in the past, and another in the future, using old media to better understand new media, and vice versa: from automata to AI, from Pong to the PlayStation, from 3D films to 3D printers. Other topics may include the histories of digital mapping, social media, gaming, and beyond.

Examines women directors worldwide. The course will focus on the theoretical, critical, historical, cultural and aesthetic basis of films made by international, mainstream, documentary and the avant-garde women film directors of New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the African and Asian diasporas, and North and South America. Students will submit a series of written critical responses and complete a major project related to course material.

This variable credit internship course is designed for Communication and Media Studies (CMS), Advertising and Public Relations (AD/PR), and Journalism (JOU) majors. Key assignments include learning objectives, orientation seminar, informational interview, reports, and evaluations. Cannot be used to meet the 300-or-above-level requirement in either the COM or AD/PR major. Credits (1-4) vary according to the number of hours worked at the internship host site.

This course examines experimental, avant-garde cinema worldwide. It focuses on the theoretical, critical, historical, cultural and aesthetic basis of experimental and avant-garde films made by national and international directors. Students submit a series of written critical responses and complete a major project related to course material.

A search for the defining characteristics of a director's works, including issues of thematic motifs and visual style.

The course is designed to introduce intermediate research methodologies to a student's critical analysis of large-scale media events. It involves the practical analysis of a media event, including circumstances, details, historical perspective and reactions by journalists, officials and the public. Archival coverage, documentaries, feature films, print articles and Internet sites relating to a singular or series of events will encompass a majority of the analysis. Particular attention will be given to events with international implications. Students will review the previous exposure of related topics in an effort to compare the attention given to a subject in a comparison of "before and after."

Focuses on the politics of representing women, particularly in film, television, advertising, popular literature and the popular press. The critical background includes texts on political economy, semiotics, feminist theory and cultural studies. The student completes a major research project during the course.

This course introduces students of communication to the core concepts and common practices of both quantitative and qualitative communication research. Students will be exposed to a variety of theoretical perspectives on the nature, practice, use and meaning of research in the field of communication. Particular emphasis will be placed on research concepts and methods appropriate to the practice of advertising and public relations.

This course familiarizes students with key theories, techniques, and media forms that will enable them to produce creative, well-researched and thought-provoking projects that embody critical media practice.  Each student will select and examine an issue of social importance, and research media platforms and rhetorical approaches suitable for that issue. Combining scholarship with media skills, the student will create a final media project. Laboratory fee required.

This lab course involves strategic concept development, copywriting, and media production, as well as ethical considerations related to these practices.

This course involves training in theory, form and style for writing public relations materials for all stages and types of public relations campaigns. This course is designed to provide students with a broad range of public relations writing skills utilized in the industry.

This course develops the understanding and application of common theoretical approaches to crisis communication, including the development of crisis communication objectives, strategies and tactics during all stages of a crisis. Students then practice these approaches through the development of crisis communication messaging and campaign materials.

“For-profit” brands and companies have crossed-over to the traditionally “non-profit” territory, using their platforms in advertising and public relations (ADPR) to discuss social issues so as to promote social good and to achieve commercial success. This emerging market of prosocial consumers lead to changes in the practice of doing social good in ADPR. This demands our future ADPR practitioners to have the diversity/multicultural literacy that guides them to make appropriate and conscious decisions when applying multicultural and prosocial strategies. In this course, we will cover prosocial strategic decision-making, multicultural targeting/messages/markets, consumer diversity psychology, critical social issues, and related practices in ADPR.