Media & Communication Practice Courses
COM 216 - Communication & Public Relations
1 course unit
Explores public relations from a critical perspective with emphasis on communication theory and research into public relations practices. Topics include the origins and development of public relations, its role in society, principles of public relations theory and practice, and the ethical issues raised by various philosophies and practices of public relations.
Prerequisite(s): COM 201 Media & Society.
COM 233, 234 - Environmental Journalism
1 course unit
This course will introduce students to examples of award winning journalism covering the environment. Students will read examples from newspapers, magazines and books, analyze the writing for best practices in reporting and critique writing style and storytelling technique through reflections and discussion. The course will culminate with an original reporting project with the goal of publishing it online.
Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 234.
COM 236 - Writing for the Media
1 course unit
Against the backdrop of today’s media environment, Writing for the Media will ground students in the practice of uncluttered and precise writing as it applies across media professions - from journalism to public relations. Practical advice from the instructor and guest speaker-mentors will play an important role. The Associated Press Style Guide and other industry standards will be used to assist students through writing exercises, with an emphasis on editing and revision. Students will learn to find stories and hone their interviewing, research, reporting and writing skills. Also will ground students in news values, and foster an awareness of legal and ethical issues essential to the success of any future media practitioner, as well as build awareness of the essential digital components of the trade, such as SEO.
Meets general academic requirement W.
COM 238 - Sports Journalism
1 course unit
This course will focus on sports journalism that goes beyond recaps and game analysis to cover ethics, historical trends, social issues, and the business of sports. Students will report and write original stories that position sports within this framework.
COM 256 - Introduction to Interactive Web Design
1 course unit
This course explores how (and what it means) to create, design, and build your own digital online cyberspace environment. The class focuses on visual (game) encounters, virtual reality, and mobile media. Students map out original project idea(s) learning and using multimedia apps and HTML code. This course is for students exploring the convergence of art, music, film, and media. Working on their projects, students learn the skills for conceiving, designing, and constructing a Web 2.0 (interactive) environment. This class does not require students to have any pre-existing design skills or computer knowledge.
Meets general academic requirement AR and IL.
COM 260 - Digital Media Design Lab
1 course unit
The Digital Media Design Lab is a 200-level, practice COM elective course in which each participant discovers a defined, real-world social issue or event (in themes like social unrest, human rights, racial discrimination, universal access, gender inequality, socioeconomics, etc.) and develops multiple media works to effectively inform, engage, and motivate audiences. Through a series of writing, graphic, audio, video, and web design projects, students gain design literacy through theoretical, technical, and practical experience in human-centered mediamaking - truly empathic, explicitly defined, iteratively developed, and fully-implementable design - in a hands-in, collaborative workshop.
COM 334 - Health Communication
1 course unit
Examines interpersonal as well as mediated dimensions of health communication, including theories and case studies that address issues in physician and patient communication; gender, race, and cultural constituents in health communication; social marketing techniques for the production, distribution, and assessment of health-care information; the design and implementation of public health campaigns; and the use of communication technologies in the production of health communications.
COM 336, 337 - Environmental Communication
1 course unit
Explores theories, models, and strategies for production and assessment of environmental communications. Examines environmental media and campaigns; provides students with skills to identify and solve problems in environmental communications and in the production of environmental media. Emphasizes writing.
Meets general academic requirement W when offered as 337.
COM 338 - Organizational Communication
1 course unit
Explores theories, models, and strategies for internal and external communication within organizations. The constituents, constraints, values, practices, and media of organizational cultures are investigated from historical, cross-cultural, and contemporary practices. Primary emphasis is on the corporate experience in the United States.
COM 349 - Media Advocacy
1 course unit
This course introduces students to the strategic use of media to advance social and public health initiatives. Students will investigate principles, ethics, and theories underlying media advocacy; monitor and analyze framing and message development; and use both traditional and new communication tools to construct and implement media interventions, messages and/or campaigns to address public health problems and social justice issues. Students will participate in a service-learning opportunity in partnership with a not-for-profit organization in the Lehigh Valley.
Prerequisite(s): COM 201 Media & Society or PBH 201 Issues in Public Health
Meets general academic requirement IL.
COM 351,352 - Video Production
1 course unit
Refines an understanding of video/television concepts and operations through the application of advanced production techniques. Provides hands-on experience beginning with the development of a professional project, treatment, script, and storyboard. Focuses on production tools and skills, class workshops, and outside exercises that facilitate becoming comfortable with camera and editing equipment and with the overall production process. Conceiving, coordinating, shooting, and editing the project, production teams will encounter real-time pressure and problem-solving situations.
Required lab.
Prerequisite(s): COM 251 - Introduction to Moviemaking. Meets general academic requirement AR and IL as 352.
COM 361 - Introduction to Audio Production
1 course unit
Introduces the tools, techniques, and principles of radio production. Students develop awareness of sound, the ability to structure information on the radio, and the capacity to sustain attention and build an audio documentary. Students will plan, produce, and evaluate audio projects in a variety of modes, including news, documentary, dramatic, and commercial.
COM 367 - Studio Workshop in Television & Film
1 course unit
Beginning with a survey of the promise and demands, historical, economic, and political circumstances surrounding community television, this course broadens students’ exposure to television formats beyond mainstream commercial media. The course examines the history and innovation of community television in the United States and overseas. It provides students an opportunity to explore how to channel ideas into practice by expanding students’ established skills (research, writing, scripting, producing, directing, multi-camera and audio strategies, staging and lighting, post-production). Toward that goal, the course engages students in the production of a regular series of documentary, narrative, and experimental television and film projects that will be realized during a multi-week intensive studio experience. Multimedia and interdisciplinary projects involving theatre, art, dance, and music will be welcome.
Prerequisite(s): COM 251 Introduction to Moviemaking recommended.
COM 431 - Documentary Field Work
1 course unit
Documentary Field Work develops advanced skills in documentary inquiry and practice. Provides tools and opportunities for developing skills in interviewing for archival, journalistic (print and electronic), social scientific, and administrative purposes. Introduces the principles and practices that archivists and records managers apply, including appraisal, arrangement, preservation, and management. Course is organized using an interconnected design 1) to identify, select, organize, preserve, and make accessible historical materials in a variety of archival formats to the public at large and 2) to design and develop individual or group documentary projects in selected media. Completed project(s) will be exhibited in some campus or public forum and online.
Prerequisite(s): COM 231 Documentary Research or instructor permission.
Meets general academic requirement IL
COM 450 - Dublin Seminar (Sp 2022)
1 course unit
The Dublin Seminar is offered every spring by the Resident Director of the Media & Communication and Film Studies dedicated study abroad program in the Dublin, Republic of Ireland. The course is taught at Dublin City University in an accelerated format. Each spring has its own focal topic, designated by the faculty member, and may include mobile media, community media, image ethics, media spaces, or contemporary European cinema.
COM 467 - Advanced Video Production
1 course unit
Students explore the convergence of video and digital media while studying the problems of constructing narrative and documentary texts within emerging experimental formats. Through their research-production projects, students learn to work with more advanced visual and organizational concepts and tools. Legal and ethical issues involved in media production are considered. Students present ongoing work and final projects in either an online or broadcast venue. Meets general academic requirement AR.
ENG 210 - Introduction to Narrative Journalism
1 course unit
This course will introduce students to examples of award winning journalism covering the environment. Students will read examples from newspapers, magazines and books, analyze the writing for best practices in reporting and critique writing style and storytelling technique through reflections and discussion. The course will culminate with an original reporting project with the goal of publishing it online. Meets general academic requirement HU
FLM 356 - Cinematography
A hands-on advanced production workshop that aims at deconstructing the technical, perceptual, and theoretical elements behind the use of the motion picture camera as a tool to communicate ideas. This class is built as a creative and collaborative laboratory in order to conceive and shoot exercises in preparation for the shooting of a short film at the end of the semester.
Special Topics Courses
Special Topics Courses are not offered every year, but still count toward the major. Check the Curiculum Checklist or with your advisor to see what special topics are availble.
