Tom Dooley Headshot

Tom Dooley

Senior Lecturer, Journalism

Dean’s Office
College of Liberal Arts
Faculty Advisor, Reporter Magazine
tjdgla@rit.edu
585-475-4034
Office Location
EAS-3176

Tom Dooley

Senior Lecturer, Journalism

Dean’s Office
College of Liberal Arts
Faculty Advisor, Reporter Magazine

Bio

Thomas Dooley is a senior lecturer in the Humanities, Computing and Design program at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a two-time Emmy award-winning multiplatform producer with expertise in digital content strategy, video production, photojournalism and long-form documentary.  

Before joining RIT in 2019, Tom worked as a Senior Media Specialist for the International Monetary Fund and as a TV and Documentary Producer at WXXI, Rochester’s PBS and NPR station. He has worked at nearly every level of production: behind the camera as a videographer, behind the computer as an editor, and leading teams as a producer. He has created more than 150 short-form segments for broadcast and social media, and produced, filmed and edited documentaries for national distribution, including Dialogue in Metal and the Emmy-winning Music for Life: The Story of New Horizons. In 2018, he took part in PBS’s Digital Immersion Program.

His work and studies have taken him to 36 countries. He has studied in Argentina, Italy, India, Nepal and Tibet, and earned his master’s degree in International Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from University of Bolton (UK) while attending the program in Dalian, China. That experience drives his commitment to international education, and his service on RIT’s Global Futures (BS) council.

Since 2023, Tom has served as faculty advisor to Reporter Magazine, RIT’s student-run news publication. He works alongside student editors on editorial policy, ethics and newsroom practices, and periodically travels with Reporter’s student leadership to national student media conferences.

tjdgla@rit.edu
585-475-4034
Personal Links
Personal Website
LinkedIn
Areas of Expertise
Documentary and nonfiction
Journalism/News business
Social Media
Media
News Business
Photojournalism
Video Production
Digital Content Strategy
Multimedia

Currently Teaching

COMM-240
Media, Creativity and Innovation
3 Credits
This foundational course explores how visual creators use new media and technologies for cultural impact and expression in a variety of fields. How have these new innovations merging art and technology impacted contemporary society by combining different languages, including visual, verbal, written and signed? By selecting case studies within the fields of, for example, film, journalism, digital media, games, internet culture, immersive media, students will understand how creative media is shaped by, and engages with, contemporary economic and social issues within the U.S.
COMM-321
Copywriting and Visualization
3 Credits
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.
COMM-450
Multiplatform Production & Publishing
3 Credits
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.
DHSS-102
Industrial Origins of the Digital Age
3 Credits
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.
DHSS-377
Media Narrative
3 Credits
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.
DHSS-500
Transmedia Storytelling
3 Credits
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.
SOIS-510
Capstone Project
3 Credits
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).

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