Courses

Special topics courses relevant to contemporary studies in Information Technology and Informatics.

Learning objectives for each Topics class offered will be listed on the instructor's syllabus.

Fundamentals of writing across media platforms.  By the end of the course, students will be able to write in many journalistic and media-based styles using basic and accepted techniques accepted by each discipline.  This course will serve as a foundation for understanding and using different styles of writing, research, and content development.

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

• Identify and analyze the characteristics of various forms of media writing.
• Write clearly, accurately, with energy and voice, for specific audiences.
• Purposefully blend text, graphical content, multimedia, and interactive elements.
• Develop content for various media platforms.
• Gather, evaluate, and disseminate data-based research.
• Critically evaluate and edit mediated content and design.

Legal issues and ethical problems confronting journalists.

(This course was formerly numbered 04:567:480)

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

• Reason through ethics-related conflicts, using moral philosophy, moral decision-making models or journalistic principles as guides.
• Help students understand the basic principles of libel, reporter's privilege and shield laws.
• Teach ethical practices in journalism and provide a sense of journalists' role in society.
• Examine the role of good corporate owners; the challenges of practicing ethical journalism in an environment filled with hindrances; the responsibilities journalists have to sources, audiences, and employers; the role of diversity; and how philosophers have approached ethical problems.
• Review basic journalism law, such as libel and privacy.
• Examine real-life situations in which journalists and public-relations practitioners have faced ethics-related decisions.

Students will master the fundamentals of audio and video production and gain an understanding of how to create engaging and editorially sound visual stories. 

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

●    Demonstrate the fundamentals of audio and video storytelling.
●    Create and critique media projects.
●    Apply quantitative concepts relevant to media production.
●    Conduct research, including gathering information through interviews and evaluating information.
●    Write clear, accurate, and engaging content for multimedia stories.
●    Apply ethical principles in journalism and media that focus on truth, accuracy, fairness, and inclusivity.

Fundamentals of gathering information and journalistic writing.  By the end of the course, students will learn basic journalistic newswriting and reporting techniques, including writing in journalistic style, fact-gathering, observation, freedom of information, and ethics.

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

• Develop and practice basic journalistic news writing and reporting techniques, including writing in journalistic style.
• Comprehend accepted fact-gathering practices and implement observation techniques.
• Understand and practice ethical news writing and reporting behavior.

News writing for radio, with review of television news writing approaches for comparison.

(This course was formerly 04:567:310-Broadcast News Writing)

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

• Write, produce and report on news stories for broadcast media.
• Describe and analyze how they approached their story from formulation to submission.

Fundamentals of copy editing and layout.

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

• Develop beginning editing and aggregation skills for digital and print media.
• Develop introductory design skills for various types of print media.
• Critically evaluate the design, use, and placement of print and online copy, headlines and the design of news pages and websites.

This course focuses on the key economic and strategic concepts, challenges, and opportunities that are central to the management of contemporary media organizations.  The course is grounded in the growing academic and professional literatures examining the unique nature of media products and services and the unique and rapidly changing marketplace dynamics in which media organizations operate.  Given the ongoing convergence of media industries and technologies, this course focuses on concepts, analytical tools, and issues that have relevance across the full range of media industry sectors.

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

• Assess and critique media management and strategic decisions from a perspective that is well-informed by knowledge of the distinctive characteristics of media markets.
• Analyze the managerial and strategic challenges and opportunities presented by technological and economic changes affecting different media sectors.
• Formulate and justify strategic responses to changing technological and economic conditions in the media marketplace.

This course examines the nature and impact of emerging media technology. Students study four primary ways new technology influences media, including 1) how media professionals do their work, 2) the nature of media content, 3) the relationships between and among media and relevant publics, and 4) the structure, culture and management of media organizations and systems. Five areas of media technology are studied, including 1) acquisition tools, 2) storage technologies, 3) processing devices, 4) distribution technologies and 5) display, access or presentation tools.

(This course was formerly numbered 04:567:330)

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

• Conceive of new media and their implications for journalism and society.
• Understand weblogs and other new media that are transforming journalism.
• Think critically about new media and their consequences.

Digital media production is the study of media creation and display through online and interactive experiences. This includes audio and video steaming in online contexts, but it also covers other types of new media that are hybrids of the two. Using various multimedia systems and formats, you will explore the foundations of development, content creation and distribution across multiple platforms. Focusing on multi-platform digital media, you will have the opportunity to write, produce and edit your own digital media content for online distribution.

Upon successful completion of this course you will be able to:

• Discuss various digital media production workflows from concept to distribution.
• Differentiate between media formats and choose appropriate actions for initiating and completing media projects.
• Produce, design, record and edit original content for websites, podcasts, and video.
• Identify various software and hardware interface items and define their function.
• Develop, organize, and create content optimized for various media distribution formats.

Content, treatment, and effects of women and minority group coverage in television, newspapers, magazines, popular music and film.

(This course was formerly numbered 04:567:334)

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

• Understand how media shape culture and society, becoming more critical consumers of media.
• Recognize how the economic structuring of the media relates to media content; understand the psychological and political effects of stereotyping.
• Learn about actions and policies that encourage more diversified media representations of women, people of color and other historically underrepresented populations.

Historical and contemporary social, cultural, political, and economic issues related to digital media in society.

(This course was formerly numbered 04:567:351)

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

• Recognize the history and development of digital media starting with digital and networked computing.
• Illustrate and explain salient political, social, cultural, and economic issues and factors related to digital media in society.
• Examine and reflect critically on relationships between digital media and institutions, relationships, politics, and/or the environment.

Survey of critical approaches to the analysis of media and its impact on society.

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

• Demonstrate proficiency in the key methods of textual analysis in the field of media studies.
• Properly conduct original, scholarly research on a variety of media texts.
• Analyze how to construct meaning after observing or interacting with various genre of mass media.

This course examines children's relationship to media in its historic, economic, political, and social contexts. It begins by reviewing theories of child development as they inform children's relationship with and understanding of media. Next, it considers the political and economic forces that shape the landscape of children’s media. Against this backdrop, the course examines research on the effects of media on children's physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. Class time consists of lectures, screenings, and visits from professionals working in the field. Students in this course produce a proposal or prototype for an educational children’s media property as their final project.

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

• Analyze and evaluate the forces that shape the creation of cultural products for children.
• Explain children’s place in the broader economic and political context of media systems.
• Explain the meaning of media content to children of different ages, stages, cultures, and contexts.
• Appraise how children’s media connections and experiences are bound in their social relationships with family, friends, and other influential individuals.

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.

Provides a critical understanding of advertising's role in society. Examines the history of advertising, the commercial and social aspects of the messages conveyed by ads, and the advertising industry's influence on social relations and institutions, such as journalism. The basic orientation of the course is to study consumer media culture (advertising, public relations, and branded space) as a form unique to modern society.

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

• Reason critically when discussing advertising.
• Demonstrate and exercise an independence of thought.
• Respond to issues identified by others in the course.
• Research, summarize and develop an argument.
• Deploy analytic strategies for interpreting ad texts.
• Develop their skills of exegesis and critique.
• Develop a greater command of a range of presentation skills.
• Gain experience in conducting research, using at least one of a range of methodological approaches and drawing on a variety of sources, including academic and industry generated material.  
• Learned to work both independently and collaboratively, effectively managing their time.

This course takes a critical approach to understanding new media environments, especially with regard to what has been called at various moments “social media,” “participatory culture,” “digital media,” “convergence,” “Web 2.0,” “social web,” and “interactive media” among other things.   Rather than focus on these emerging media practices as purely technological phenomena, the course situates them in broader social, political, and historical contexts. We will examine key dimensions of cultural life that make up our selves, including friendship, intimacy, labor, celebrity, power, gender, control, race, sexuality, activism, and privacy.

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

• Demonstrate an understanding of approaches to, and debates surrounding, the emergence of social media and convergence in society.
• Describe the implications of social media on social interactions and political participation.

This course looks at the invisible power of music over lives, exploring how music can influence how people feel, what they think and how they think. Exploration of music's social power, delving into its rich history at the center of politics, religion and a multibillion dollar global industry. Consideration of music's relationship to technology and how changes in the media landscape are altering the role music plays in human life.

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

• Examine music's role as a major communicative form in human history.
• Discuss music as an expression of a diverse range of cultures.
• Utilize an analytical language for discussing musical communication.
• Describe major elements of the economics and politics of musical industries.

Examines relationship between media and institutions, and the processes through which people and societies make political choices.

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

• Examine the role of the mass media in the American political system.

Fundamentals of still photography in the print and audiovisual mass media with primary focus on print journalism. Must have 35 mm camera.

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

• Analyze, recognize, and evaluate the elements of a good photograph, photojournalistic image.
• Develop the technical skills, comprehend the ethical responsibilities, and discern the social, political, and linguistic implications of being a photojournalist.

Students will draw inspiration from great Mediterranean journeys, and learn to write compelling journey stories of their own. They’ll travel with Homer, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell and other notable authors through one of the world’s grandest regions, as they explore its legacy of war and exodus, cooking and eating, and romance and revenge. This course includes a spring break reporting trip to a Mediterranean country, such as Spain, Italy or Turkey.

Open to majors and MCM Digital Media Track students only, except by special permission

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

• Understand the components of successful nonfiction storytelling 
• Identify key themes that underlie nonfiction storytelling about the Mediterranean
• Develop a narrative, evoke a scene and present dialogue
• Use new media techniques to capture image and video content to accompany their articles
• Revise and edit their work, with the aim of achieving professional publication
• Apply their experiences in reporting from another country to their future media careers

Fashion Journalism is a course for advanced students in the Journalism and Media Studies major who have an interest in writing about fashion, a key industry in New York City. The course provides students with an overview of writing about fashion, the different types of fashion journalism and the numerous formats for fashion journalism. Students will also look at how fashion journalism has changed and how digital has transformed coverage. Throughout the semester, students will use readings, televised fashion coverage as well as online documentaries and collection showings to learn about the fashion journalism industry and to practice reporting techniques. Assignments will incorporate a multimedia focus with students working to produce a full range of fashion journalism that reflects the variety of journalism commonly produced in the industry.

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

• Identify and analyze different formats for fashion journalism;
• Recognize and distinguish among industry leaders in fashion journalism;
• Describe how fashion journalism has changed because of revolutions in social, cultural, and/or technological changes;
• Write and produce fashion journalism content appropriate for print and digital formats.

Fundamentals of by the end of the course, students learn the basics of the production, writing, and journalistic process required to use audio as a nonfiction storytelling language. Students will participate in the completion of at least one podcast episode.

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

• Write, produce and report on non-fiction stories for broadcast media;
• Describe and analyze how they approached their story from formulation to submission;
• Demonstrate knowledge of techniques necessary for podcast and audio production.