Courses

Students will cover the game-changing stories of our time, from the widening gap between the rich and the poor to battles over immigration to the climate change wars that may determine our very survival. They will analyze groundbreaking journalism and have an opportunity to write and shoot commanding stories of their own.

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Analyze, write and interview subjects about major social issues they are likely to cover as journalists.
• Develop stories in a range of feature styles, such trend and human interest stories, profiles and reported essays.
• Conduct journalistic research.
• Interview people about complex and sensitive issues.
• Develop writing techniques that will make their stories stand out.
• Incorporate photography, audio and video storytelling into their work.

Magazine writing for publication, including consumer, trade and business magazines.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Build articles step by step.
• Understand magazine markets.
• Know which rates and rights are operable.
• Turn an article into a saleable piece.

This course analyzes great examples of nonfiction writing from the last century to appreciate what makes for enduring non-fiction writing— journalism that rises to the level of literature.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Recognize what makes works of journalism last beyond the moment in which they were written.
• Read and learn to analyze classic works of journalism.
• Understand the historical, social, and intellectual importance of these works of journalism.

This course will consider the intersections of science, media, and society.  With a focus on both theory and practice, it explores the media's role in understanding and communicating about the most critical science and environmental issues of the day.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Identify and describe the theories and concepts used to explain public perceptions of and attitudes towards science and environmental issues.
• Explain how the media, in interaction with other factors, influence public engagement with science and environmental issues.
• Develop persuasive, evidence-based arguments about the intersections of science, media, and society.
• Critically analyze and evaluate science media content and practices.
• Apply relevant theories and concepts to develop media-based strategies to effectively engage the public around science.

Analyzes global production, distribution and consumption of news. Issues include: global news flows, journalistic cultures and practices, international news coverage.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Examine of the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. coverage of international news.
• Promote understanding of the differences among media systems around the globe.
• Identify major international media outlets.

Examines laws and regulations governing U.S. mass media.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Understand key communication law issues as the First Amendment, libel, privacy, and copyright.

In this course we will discuss one of the most powerful social, cultural, economic and political institutions of our day: intellectual property (IP). How did we arrive at the notion that creative works and ideas can be owned, bought and sold like tangible commodities? What impact does this concept have on the way we view the world? How does it help us achieve our social goals, and how does it present obstacles to reaching those goals? And, in the age of digitized information and networked communication, how can we understand the role of IP in light of the rapidly changing developments in the way culture is produced and consumed?  In our efforts to better understand these issues, we will read both primary and secondary materials, covering subjects ranging from the birth of copyright to the latest developments in the global “copyfight” over information in the digital age, view relevant and interesting documentary films, and enjoy guest lectures from a variety of knowledgeable speakers.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Explain the origins and function of intellectual property law.
• Describe the role of copyright in regulating culture and commerce.
• Distinguish among different points of view and formulate complex arguments related to intellectual property law.
• Debate the strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate limits of intellectual property law.
• Create a written or multimedia argument that advocates for a given interpretation of use of intellectual property law, to achieve a given business or social result.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Write and report about sports, sports-related, and sporting events.
• Describe and identify the issues and events which merit reporting to the public.
• Analyze and deconstruct the historical, societal, and economic forces that impact sports and our culture.

This course will explore the many facets of multimedia sports reporting, from conventional newspaper websites to robust sports sites and the use of social networking services to transmit sports news.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Compare, contrast, and properly evaluate video and print materials for online publishing with the express purpose of creating, designing and devising their own sports publishing entity on the internet.
• Understand the many aspects and tools that are used in the development of sports-related websites and digital journalism.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Define, describe, and identify the issues which have contributed to the impact of sports on America and the world.
• Analyze and deconstruct the historical, societal and economic forces that have taken the games people play and made them an integral part of our culture.
• Compare and contrast the attitudes about race, gender, and politics and the impact on sport and society.

Who decides what we watch, read, and listen to in the digital media age? Increasingly the answer is not a person at all, but an algorithm that studies our online behavior and tries to predict what we’ll click, like, and share next. This course will look at how media industries – such as TV, film, music, book publishing, and journalism – are using Big Data to compete in a fierce battle for audiences’ attention. How are data and algorithms shaping the movies we watch on Netflix, the songs we hear on Spotify, the books we read on Kindle, and the news we consume on Facebook and Twitter? What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of this transformation?

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate familiarity with the analytics and data-driven decision-making techniques that are commonly used in a range of media industries;
• Describe the factors – cultural, economic, and technological – that contributed to the rise of data-driven media;
• Analyze what a media environment based on data-driven predictions of popularity means for democracy, art, and culture.

This course will enable students to participate in the development of a journalism and media production project.  They will also learn how to harness technology and study its implementation and impact on social change.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Engage in media production, investigative reporting, web design, editorial writing, video production, photography.
• Develop stories that are grounded in community needs by listening to the public
• Analyze communities in order to better understand issues and concerns.
• Collaborate and build teams.
• Utilize social media and other tools to interact, curate, and inform.

What is a promotional culture? Bringing together elements of media studies, visual culture, critical branding/marketing studies, and consumer culture, this course is designed to provide advanced undergraduate students with analytical tools to understand the extent to which promotional language, communication, and habits suffuse our everyday lives.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Analyze media content and industries.
• Differentiate promotional language from editorial content, opinion, and argument.
• Connect theoretical and critical perspectives on promotional culture to real-world examples and practices.

Specialized topics related to the practice of journalism are offered on a regular basis.

Specialized topics related to the practice of journalism are offered on a regular basis.

Specialized topics related to the practice of journalism are offered on a regular basis.

Specific directed project work conducted under faculty supervision.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Integrate skills learned in the classroom and adapt them to an off-campus or online media environment.
• Share information about tasks assigned to them by mentors.
• Describe and relate the experience to their educational and career goals.

Students read and study the journalism of the U.S. civil rights movement (1954-1968) to understand its historical role

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate thorough knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement and the news media’s role in it; 
• Show an ability to think critically, analytically, and originally about questions that arise in the course of class readings and discussions; 
• Evaluate the quality of journalism from a different historical era (midcentury America), judged by the standards of its time, including by comparing different examples of the genre; 
• Develop some ability with researching a subject by going beyond class assignments and discussions and pursuing independent work; 
• Use the Rutgers databases and other advanced methods to find source material about a chosen research topic;
• Present independent research confidently to a group of one’s peers, without simply summarizing information or reading from a script.

Examines interactions between media and political institutions, actors and processes, in light of theories of journalism, communication and political practice.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Understand theories of globalization and contexts through which cultural experiences, information, and ideologies are mediated by a range of media.
• Analyze and evaluate the negotiations and dynamics of power through which institutions, producers, and users mobilize using these media technologies.
• Research, write, and digitally present emerging issues, uncover, and critique these dynamics.

The course explores how the news media have figured in constituting a public sphere in American history. Readings juxtapose classics of political philosophy with historical or sociological works describing democracy in practice in the United States.

By the end of the course, students will be able to explore ways the news media have figured into American conceptions of democracy and in constituting a public realm.

The course seeks to teach students to appreciate the theories behind a free press in a democracy and to understand both the role of the press (taken to mean the news media in general) in forming a public, and the role of the public in constituting a democracy. Students will come away with a sense that ideas about the media’s role in democracy have not been static over time, and that there have sometimes been divergences between how the media’s role is theorized and how it plays out in practice. Students should gain a deeper knowledge of the role of the media in American history and develop skills to think critically about the media in society in all eras, including today. Improving students’ writing, thinking, and speaking skills is also a course goal.

Examines the influence of entertainment media on political news, opinion, knowledge, and behavior.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Recognize how, why, and with what significance the boundaries between news and entertainment have blurred
2. Identify and describe the effects of entertainment on journalism, citizenship, and politics, as well as the theories used to explain these effects
3. Develop persuasive, evidence-based arguments about the intersection of entertainment and politics and its implications for public discourse and engagement
4. Evaluate how political entertainment texts construct political reality and encourage audiences to make meaning of politics
5. Apply theories and concepts from research in communication, media studies, and political science in order to develop an entertainment-based political strategy or media product

Long-form video journalism storytelling developed over a significant period of time teaching students critical thinking, research, writing skills and various production techniques.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Apply skills learned in the classroom to an off-campus or professional media environment.
• Describe and relate subject-related theory to the practical applications learned
• Innovate tools and technologies appropriate for media professions
• Research, produce, and critique documentary and news magazine broadcast
• Develop production skills such as one-man band filming techniques, editing with AVID software, and writing scripts, arranging shoots, interviewing and identifying characters, and developing stories

Surveys and critiques of social science research on news, journalists and the news media.

Analyzes debates about media and cultural globalization, and theories about international media.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Understand topics and debates about media and cultural globalization.
• Critically evaluate theories and arguments in the study of international media.

Specialized topics directed at enhancing or introducing journalism and/or media-related skill sets.  These are intense 7 week workshops teaching students specific skills applicable to the field. The specialized focus can be an accelerated introduction to basics or an advanced training in particular skills learned in previous offerings.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Apply skills learned in the classroom to an off-campus or professional media environment.
• Describe and relate subject-related theory to the practical applications learned.
• Innovate tools and technologies appropriate for media professions.