The history and development of U.S. media, theoretical aspects of mass communications, the composition of media audiences, law and regulation of mass communications and how the media affect and are affected by society are presented.

An opportunity for undergraduates to learn the verbal and visual skills utilized in the creation of advertising messages. To create an effective strategy for an advertising campaign, the advertising copywriter/art director team needs to combine linguistic and visual metaphors into a persuasive message. Students will develop creative advertising messages by researching and writing a creative brief and then implementing the plan by transforming concepts into actual advertising messages and campaigns.

This course introduces students to the principles and practices of using multiple mediums to tell stories on multiple platforms, including written text, video, photo, audio, immersive media and other new and evolving forms of media. The course familiarizes students with the tools and techniques of a multiplatform storyteller, for example, digital content strategy, story concept ideation, pre-production, production, post-production and dissemination through new and evolving platforms. Additionally, students explore current examples of multiplatform stories.

The central focus of this course will be the excavation of textual, visual, and sonic materials, obsolete or emerging. The archaeological metaphor evokes both the desire to recover material traces of the past and the imperative to situate those traces in their social, cultural, and political contexts. How does the digital age imagine backwards to the Industrial Age and vice versa? Is it true that virtually everything that is being invented now for a digital age had its origins in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century industrial age? (inventions of telegraphy and telephony, electricity, photography, cinema, the automobile, the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems, muckraking and sensationalist journalism, celebrity culture, the skyscraper, the office, the typewriter, the Brownie camera). We will take a research approach that explores moments in which both familiar and unfamiliar devices have yet to emerge as significant or disappear as curiosities.

The contemporary understanding of communication and narrative is quickly shifting in a world where media is ubiquitous. The "language of new media" is the thematic used in this course to discuss contemporary and historic forms of non-linear narrative. Students will explore the properties of non-linear, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives. This course will survey some of the possibilities, examining both traditional and new media such as oral storytelling, literature, poetry, visual arts, museum exhibits, architecture, hypertext fiction, Net Art, and computer games. Writers on communication culture, gaming, television, digital aesthetics, contemporary art and film, as well as synchronic narrative will be addressed. The focus is to develop critical tools to analyze contemporary media as well as a minimal level of practical implementation. Students will produce a final media project.

In the 21st century, narratives transcend traditional boundaries and come to life across various platforms. Transmedia storytelling is an innovative approach that has gained significant prominence in the digital age being deployed today in the commercial/entertainment industry, extending a narrative universe beyond a single medium, allowing the story to exist and evolve through various channels such as film, television, books, graphic novels, video games, social media, augmented reality, and interactive exhibitions. In this project-based class, you will delve into the theory, practice and ethics of commercial transmedia storytelling in the entertainment industry, gaining insights into the mechanics that drive this exciting phenomenon. Students will create their own transmedia story by analyzing iconic transmedia narratives and their aesthetic treatments, exploring cutting-edge technology, increasing audience participation and engagement, and considering ethical and legal considerations, including those involving copyright issues and responsible use of technology. Finally, students will connect with guest speakers and industry professionals who have successfully navigated the world of transmedia storytelling.

This honors seminar is a foundational course that examines how our social worlds are linked to our natural and built worlds. The corresponding emphasis on inquiry, analysis, and interpretation facilitates student-engaged learning. In exploring pertinent place and space related issues/topics through an experiential, active, and site-specific curricular focused learning, various aspects of the human condition are discovered. The theme or topic of this honors seminar, as chosen by the instructor, is announced in the subtitle as well as course notes and is developed in the syllabus. The honors seminar integrates the required Year One curriculum.

This course will provide a mechanism for teaching topics within the field of humanities and/or social sciences on an ad-hoc basis. This course will serve as a shell to allow the College of Liberal Arts flexibility to allow faculty across the college to teach a short-term course in their area of expertise. These short-term courses can take the form of • a course surrounding a professional opportunity, such as a conference or field study; • a short-term course developed to teach students skills not ordinarily offered in the curriculum, which may lead to a skills-based certification • a pop-up course developed to address a current event. Faculty who wish to stand up this course must have the permission of the department chair as well as the dean’s office.

A capstone class for students in the Individualized Program bachelor of science degree program. Course provides students an opportunity to reflect upon and enhance the many aspects of their individualized educational programs and focus on future goals. Senior status is required. Students should consult their adviser before registering. (Pre-requisites: Senior status and permission of academic adviser).