Journalism: More Course Options for the Fall

The Journalism department has begun to develop some existing and new classes to offer to a broad campus population.  The classes are designed to appeal to students with broad interests and as thoughtful consumers of media messages. They are good classes for student wanting to deepen their strategic communication skills and/or explore academic journalism. These are not “skill” classes per se – so the ability to produce a documentary or write a news magazine piece are not required. They all carry the 460 rubric (a topic course number ) but they aren’t necessarily upperclassman level classes in the traditional sense –  should be ideal for sophomores and up.




JOUR460: ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTARY
Jay Rosenstein


In this course students will watch, analyze, discuss, and write about some of the greatest – and even not so great – documentaries of the past fifty years.  Students will learn about the history and development of the documentary and how to identify, dissect and decode the key ethical issues of: bias, credibility, fairness, representation, privacy, production choices, the difference between documentary and propaganda, and funding and its influence – all through analysis of the documentary.  Students will screen many great programs that they’ve probably never seen before.  Some may inspire, some may infuriate, but they will all provoke some response.  After this course students will see the possibilities of documentary and television journalism in a whole new light.  Professor Rosenstein is a Peabody and Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker who brings his many years of documentary production experience into the classroom. 3 hours.



JOUR460: REAL-WORLD POLITICS AND THE MEDIA
Nancy Benson and Eric Meyer

Students from all majors will have an opportunity to bring their academic expertise to bear on the real-world challenge of helping make the fall general election more relevant to fellow students. Working with journalism students, they will explore and help create online, mobile, broadcast, print and social media news coverage in an attempt to increase relevance in non-traditional ways by pursuing issues or performing analyses that may arise from within their own academic specialties. In addition to scheduled class sessions, students may need to be available to work on election night, Tuesday, Nov. 6. 3 hours.



JOUR460: THE MEDIA AND YOU: GETTING YOUR MESSAGE OUT
Lex Tate


This course will equip students and practitioners in journalism, public relations, business, agriculture and science and technology fields with practical knowledge and tools to understand and work with all forms of media to achieve their goals. The course will include a quick survey of contemporary public relations and clarify several discrete elements: publicity, advertising, branding, press agentry, public affairs, issues management, lobbying, investor relations and development. This will set the stage for this course, which will focus on working with and – at times – around news media:. The core issue of working with the media will encompass guidelines for good media relations, guidelines for working with the press, and understanding the ethical dimensions of the relationships that form. The course will employ case studies, real and hypothetical. The class will break into small groups for the last four-five sessions to develop a set of strategies, employing an array of media, to reach a PR goal the instructor will develop. The instructor will solicit real-world opportunities for class teams to work with local/regional interests on a media and communications plan that suits the client. Course credit: 2 hours; Course length: 8 weeks, offered both first 8 weeks and in second 8 weeks