Media Studies and Production

Teaching Faculty

Teresa Housel	Ji Hoon Park	Christian Spielvogel

Courses Offered

Comm 251. Media Production 1: Introduction to Digital Media Production

This course offers an entry-level learning experience and introduces students to digital media production from theoretical, aesthetic, and practical perspectives . The course aims to familiarize students with basic tools and processes of digital media production so that they learn to communicate with their ideas creatively and effectively using various forms of media. The course is divided into seminar and workshop components. In the seminars, students will discover different theoretical approaches to media representation that inform the practice of digital media production. In the workshops, students will gain technical skills and knowledge required for digital media production, including the use of camera, sound, voice recording, lighting, editing, graphics, and transitions. All students will undertake a series of exercises which demonstrate their understanding, skills, and creativity, and they will present and discuss their own productions.

Four Credits, Park, Both Semesters

Comm 255. Print Media I

The purpose of this course is to provide students with the skills necessary for communication competence, which is the ability to communicate effectively, ethically, and critically within our global community. We will read communication research and engage in communication exercises to increase your understanding of these skills. The first part of the semester focuses on learning about communication processes. The second part of the semester looks at those processes within specific areas: self, interpersonal relationships, groups, and mass media. Students will also have opportunities to present in front of the class because public speaking, and being able to effectively communicate a message to an audience, are important parts of communication competence.

Four Credits, Housel, Fall Semester

Comm 352. Media Production II: Media Literacy

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of media literacy and the community/alternative media. In the first part of the semester, the course helps students to become familiar with critical issues in media education and equips them with advanced video techniques for broadcast-quality production. While refining techniques for editing tools, such as Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Adobe Photoshop, students will learn to use Adobe After Effects, the industry standard application for motion graphics and visual effects. In the second part of the semester, students will produce a short community /alternative media project. Students should expect to spend a considerable amount of self-directed production, practice and research time in addition to the designated class/lab meetings. In addition to individual projects, students will undertake a series of lab exercises which demonstrate their technical skills and creativity, and they will present and discuss their productions.

Four Credits, Park, Spring Semester

Comm 356. Print Media II

COMM 255 introduces students to fundamental skills in news writing and reporting. This class focuses primarily on newspaper, magazine, and online journalism writing. We'll cover the basics of developing story ideas; research for reporting; interviewing; listening and note-taking skills; observation; inverted pyramid and features story structures; and synthesizing information for an article. In addition, we will explore ways to combine visual elements (photographs, graphics) with the written word to present news effectively. This is a fast-paced course, and students will work on story assignments (sometimes more than one at the same time) throughout the semester.

Four Credits, Housel, Spring Semester

COMM 357. Social Documentary: Theory and Practice

This course introduces students to documentary film and video from both theoretical and practical perspectives. By combining theoretical/analytical work with a series of production exercises, the course encourages students to develop a critical understanding of creative, theoretical, and practical dimensions involved in documentary representations. In the first part of the semester, students will learn different approaches to documentary, including ethnographic documentary, activist documentary, and the politics of representation. Discussion will focus on such issues as insider accounts, processes of othering, reflexivity, realism, the ethics of consent, the politics of editing, and the role of the intended and non-intended audiences in documentary production. The course will cover simultaneously the technical and practical aspects of documentary production that enable students to produce their own projects. During the final part of the semester, each student will produce a broadcast-quality documentary video.

Four Credits, Park, Fall Semester

COMM 451. Media Theory

You're probably tired of hearing it by now "the mass media has saturated our minds, corrupted our youth, and short-circuited our attention spans." Such proclamations usually reflect a media determinism bias. That is, critics assume that mediums such as television and film are inherently immoral and/or inferior, which precludes any real close and serious engagement with the media. This course takes the perspective that the media exerts a powerful--and often negative--influence in our culture, but we are complicit in its popularity. We have used the media to shape our hopes, identities, relationships, and expectations in ways that we can only begin to imagine. Most of us, of course, are familiar with a few of the media's effects on our perceptions and behavior, including its unrealistic and damaging portrayals of beauty and violence. However, there are other more subtle (and perhaps therefore more influential) media influences that we will explore including: the ubiquity of entertainment values in many areas of public life, including religion, education and politics; deep levels of religious meaning in films that can be traced through the application of different film criticism methods; some surprising ways in which television has revolutionized relationships between children and their parents and men and women; and the revolutionizing effects of new digital technologies. This class aims to equip students with ways to understand the complex processes by which we use media messages to create our individual and communal identities.

Four Credits, Spielvogel, Park, Fall Semester

COMM 470. Cultural Theory

Although it has roots in older disciplines such as history, sociology,
political science, and linguistics, "cultural studies" is a dynamic and young
field that examines how power, the state, language, and identity shape
people's lives in a cultural context. Drawing on the theorists discussed in
our readings, our class approaches how culture is constructed and reproduced
through (1) larger economic, political, and ideological structures (the
nation, gender, social class, language, race, and ethnicity) that in turn
influence (2) people's everyday signifying practices that include (among many
others) group communication, shopping, food, and fashion, people's
construction and reception of mediated texts such as television, films,
magazines/newspapers, the Internet, and music. Our class readings and
assignments focus on making this link between larger structures and everyday
signifying practices that make up "culture."

Four Credits, Housel, Spring Semester