Graduate Studies

Seminar on content analysis, experiments, survey methods, qualitative research, historical and legal methodology. Development of media research proposals.

Lectures and roundtable discussion of problems in covering public affairs issues at the national, state, and local levels. Emphasis on reporting on government, social welfare agencies, elections, political parties, special interest groups, and other areas of general public interest.

Open to graduate students only. The purpose of this course is to teach students about research/methodology and scientific evaluation as it is applied to all mass communication professions, from investigative journalism to public relations and advertising. This is a hands-on course. The primary objective is to teach students how to collect, manage, evaluate, interpret and understand data. The course will focus entirely on quantitative methodologies that journalists and communication practitioners commonly encounter in their daily professional lives, and it will help students engage in data analysis, and work toward a better understanding of scientific and social-scientific methodology.

This course introduces graduate students to the fundamental practices and principles of writing, reporting, editing and design for the print media. Students will develop skills in news judgment, document-based information gathering, interviewing, observation and description, news and feature writing, ethics, page layout, headline writing, copy editing, content editing, and photo editing.

Examination of structure, functions, ethics, and performance of communication and mass media, stressing a review of pertinent research literature. Analysis of media policies and performance in light of communication theory and current economic, political, and social thought.

Comparative analysis of international media systems. Course topics and geographical regions studied vary from semester to semester.

Integration of advanced visual communication skills, including photography, writing, and editing. Individual projects in packaging news and public affairs information. Emphasis on experimentation with message forms outside constraints of the traditional news media.

Examination of problems in teaching journalism and supervising school publications. Topics may include impact on scholastic journalism of changes in educational philosophy, law, financial support, and technology. May be repeated for state certification to teach secondary school journalism, but no more than 6 credits may be counted toward graduate degree.

Sharpen your photo storytelling and editing skills as you receive hands-on experience shooting assignments on digital cameras and editing images for publication and the Internet on the latest computer software. Also learn to collect and edit sound for basic multimedia presentations. Computer applications include Adobe Photoshop CS4, Expressions Media, and Photo Mechanic for imaging and editing digital pictures. Applications for teaching and advising student media in the secondary school also included.

Our goal is to redesign your publication, be it a newspaper, news magazine or yearbook. We'll start with the fundamentals in design, visuals, graphics and typography. We'll quickly move into the trends from a wide array of publications. Along the way, we'll tackle daily exercises to strengthen your design skills. We'll critique your publications, look at others for inspiration, explore story-telling tools. It will be a busy but productive week. We'll try to have some fun along the way.

Designed to enable students to manage a public relations department. Theories and principles relevant to public relations practiced in agency, corporate, and not-for-profit organizations will be covered. This will include developing goals and objectives, working with clients, developing budgets, and research methods.

Designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop and execute a Public relations campaign for a local not-for-profit organization. Students will be exposed to relevant Public relations theory and in-depth case study analysis.

Study of the political, economic, social, legal, and historical issues involved in the introduction and diffusion of communication technologies. Research on the uses and potential effects of new technologies on the structure and practice of journalism and mass media.

This graduate seminar focuses on how a nonprofit organization creates images and how it shapes its programs and goals to gain public support. Assignments and readings are designed to foster a theoretical and practical understanding of promotional techniques and campaigns using journalistic and other media.

Study of issues in arts journalism and the role of the arts in mass

media and society. Lectures by guest experts and independent research on current trends and problems in the field, emphasizing the public affairs aspects of the arts.

An examination of science in society, with a particular look at research and commentary on media coverage of science and technology. Reading, reflection, and discussion of both theoretical and practical issues, and independent reading and research on a topic of the student's own choosing.

Study of public affairs aspects of the law. Research and reporting on timely topics pertaining to the courts, the legal profession, and law enforcement agencies particularly as they relate to the social-political-economic order.

Limited to graduate students only. Course provides students with training in the coverage of the arts. Writing assignments range from feature articles to news to criticism for the journalistic media. Of value also to those who plan to write about the arts for promotion or development purposes. Close attention given to information gathering and writing. Good opportunity for a student to sharpen writing skills in an area of special interest.

Study of problems and issues in such areas as school finance, curriculum development, teaching methodology, and the politics of education. Research and reporting on current trends in the field.

Exploration of the challenges and opportunities associated with writing about science for nonscientists. Reading and discussion of articles and texts about communicating science to nonscientists, and practical exercises in reporting and writing.

Exploration of the theory and practice of college pedagogy. Specific attention to skills required for teaching mass communications. Includes development of a new course syllabus and teaching portfolio.

Study of current urban problems, such as air pollution, transportation, inner-city redevelopment, ghetto life, and metropolitan government. Research and reporting on timely topics.

Borrowing the techniques of fiction, literary journalists tell stories that invite readers into the action. Read some of their best work and try your hand at this challenging form. We'll draw on an anthology, The Art of Fact (Kerrane, Yagoda), read Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, and use the web to explore literary journalism in newspapers. You'll write several long pieces, each emphasizing a different kind of reporting experience and narrative strategy. We'll "workshop" your pieces together, a process that will sharpen your editing skills, and talk about where you might publish them.

About the instructor: Carol Polsgrove is author of It Wasn't Pretty, Folks, But Didn't We Have Fun? Esquire in the Sixties; Divided Minds: Intellectuals and the Civil Rights Movement, and Ending British Rule in Africa: Writers in a Common Cause (to be published this summer). She has been an editor at Mother Jones and The Progressive and has written for Sierra, The Atlantic, The Nation, The American Prospect, and other magazines.

The primary goal of the course is to help students develop the professional writing skills expected of beginning public relations practitioners with special emphasis on the different approaches required for particular audiences and media. Class will focus on the basics of good writing-grammar, punctuation, sentence structure-as well as the art of writing-word choice, rhythm, nuance, tone. Students will learn how to change their writing styles to suit different communications tools. The pace and content of the course will be tailored to the abilities of the students enrolled. Because this is a service-learning course in which students produce public relations materials for a community organization, the class will also learn the fundamentals of effective client relations.

Second eight weeks only.

Topical seminar dealing with changing subjects and material from semester to semester. May be repeated twice for credit with a different topic.

Surveys twentieth century photography as a medium of art and communication. Considers portraiture, landscape, still life, the nude, conceptual photography, the social documentary tradition, the magazine picture story, fashion, advertising and war photography. Examines the impact of postmodern theories on photographic practice and the understanding of photography.

This publishing design course incorporates typesetting, electronic photo editing, graphics, and page design. Students are instructed in design theory, computer publishing skills, and creative problem solving.

This advanced publishing design course builds on J563 Computerized Design I and incorporates advanced work in color, type design, computer illustration, creative problem solving, and an introduction to print production.

Introduction to the theory and research relevant to mass media studies at the individual level of analysis. Corresponds to R541 in the telecommunications department.

Introduction to theoretical orientations and research findings at the macro-social level of analysis.

Seminar on specialized topics concerning the rights and obligations of mass media under the Bill of Rights. Research and discussion on law of privacy, access, and other constitutional problems.

This course takes the approach that gender is a social, cultural, and economic phenomenon, not merely a biological construct. Hence, we start with the fundamental question “How do males become men and how do females become women?” Throughout the semester, we will examine the ways in which other social categories and identities—race, class, age, and sexual orientation—are central to the creation and maintenance of gender differences. This course seeks to expose you to current and cutting-edge work in the broad interdisciplinary arena of gender and media; hence, the course readings and class discussions will address the complex ways in which conceptions of gender structure the economic and cultural landscape of media including newspapers, television, magazines, advertising, billboards, and photography. The course will go beyond the geographic borders of the United States to consider the relations between gender and media culture in Europe and Asia.

Taking a cultural studies approach to the media, course materials focus on masculinity and femininity in media texts, media production processes, and audience reception. While the emphasis of the course on media texts reflects the prolific research in this area, my goal in allocating much of the semester to readings on media representations is to offer you examples of research that can guide your thinking on your own final projects. The range of topics in the portion of the course on media texts includes consumer culture, television news, feminism, sexual violence, celebrities, masculinity, gay and lesbian media, and youth culture. In the section on media production, we will examine the institutional (state and corporate) deployment of gender in the marketplace and in the workforce. Finally, the course introduces students to studies of audiences so we can learn about readers’ and viewers’ engagement with media representations of gender in their everyday lives. For their major assignment, students will critique the social construction of gender in a set of media texts of their choice.

This course is designed for both experienced and relatively inexperienced scholastic journalism teachers and media advisers. We will cover legal and ethical issues in the media, especially as they apply to teaching and advising high school publications and media staffs. The course will examine the basics of media law, ethical decision-making as it pertains to school publication situations, and legal and ethical cases and situations especially relevant to high school newspapers and yearbooks.

Advisers and prospective yearbook advisers will learn principles of yearbook management, including the important business aspects of advising, as well as yearbook production, design, writing, and legal and ethical issues relevant to yearbook supervision and advising. For beginning or experienced yearbook sponsors, this workshop also includes projects to help advisers keep their staffs organized by preparation of relevant policies, staff job descriptions and tips for how to work with administrators and others in building lasting support for a quality scholastic yearbook program.

Professional experience in media. Students hold work assignments with media organizations. Grading is on an S/F basis. Arranged through the associate dean for graduate

studies office.

Prequisites: J500 or R500, and one statistics course. Advanced behavioral methods in the analysis of mass communication data. Practice in analyzing data with computerized statistical programs.

Study of the structure and roles of the mass media in national development and the application of communication theory and technology to the problems of development and social change.

Investigation of theory and practice of communications systems in the region, including history, news content, institutions, journalists, technology, economic and political pressures, as well as audience and international influences.

Lectures and discussion on the origins, the historical growth, and the philosophical roots of the communication media, with particular emphasis on the relationship between the media and political, economic, social, and cultural trends in the United States.

Seminar on qualitative, historical, and legal research methods for mass communication research.

Seminar on topics in the history and philosophy of the communication media in the twentieth century, stressing both continuity and change in an age of rapid technological growth for print and electronic media in the United States and in selected areas of the world.

Exploration of the role of ethics in journalism. Using literature that examines ethics in the context of journalism practice, the course will analyze ways journalists attempt to deny or limit the role of ethical values. Special attention to objectivity, freedom, and casuistry.

Open to graduates only.

Topical seminar dealing with changing subjects and material from semester to semester. May be repeated twice for credit.

Independent research and roundtable analysis of selected problems in communication law.

Independent research and roundtable analysis of political communication and government-media relations.

This course is eligible for a deferred grade.

This course is eligible for a deferred grade.

This course is eligible for a deferred grade.

This course is eligible for a deferred grade.