Course Catalog

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Course Catalog

COMPARATIVE COMMUNICATIONS HISTORY (CM2004)

This course provides historical background to understand how contemporary communication practices and technologies have developed and are in the process of developing and reflects on what communication has been in different human societies across time and place. It considers oral and literate cultures, the development of writing systems, of printing, and different cultural values assigned to the image. The parallel rise of mass media and modern western cultural and political forms and the manipulation and interplay of the properties and qualities conveyed by speech, sight, and sound are studied with reference to the printed book, newspapers, photography, radio, cinema, television, new media.

MEDIA GLOBALIZATION (CM2006)

What is globalization? Why study the media? What is the relationship between the media and globalization? What are the consequences of media globalization on our lives and identities? This course critically explores these questions and challenging issues that confront us today. Globalization can be understood as a multi-dimensional, complex process of profound transformations in all spheres – technological, economic, political, social, cultural, intimate and personal. Yet much of the current debates of globalization tend to be concerned with “out there” macro-processes, rather than what is happening “in here,” in the micro-processes of our lives. This course explores both the macro and the micro. It encourages students to develop an enlarged way of thinking – challenging existing paradigms and providing comparative perspectives.

DIGITAL JOURNALISM (CM2012)

This course is a workshop that will focus on training students for digital journalism. Students will learn writing, editing and curating skills for an online environment, notably in news, reviews, and opinion writing. Emphasis will also be placed on using online tools for researching and sourcing, as well as digital tools for graphics and big data.

COMPARATIVE JOURNALISM : GUTENBERG TO GOOGLE (CM2014)

Studies will study the production of journalism in different historical, political and cultural contexts. Theoretical approaches to media and journalism (for example, authoritarian vs liberal models) will be studied to understand the relationship between politics and journalism – and, more generally, the media that operate as industries regulated by states. The course also examines the transformation of the journalism profession by new technologies, notably the impact of the web and social media on newsgathering and other journalistic practices. Issues such as censorship and surveillance will be examined through case studies such as Google and Facebook and new “gatekeepers” of news.

SCREENWRITING FOR TELEVISION (CM2018)

Over the past twenty years, Granada, HBO, and the BBC have been creating series such as The Singing Detective, Cracker, MI5, The Sopranos, and The Wire that are much darker and more persuasive and perverse than anything else on television or on the big screen. Students will examine these 'visual texts,' and will also outline one or two series of their own, working on individual scenes that will be dramatized in class.

DOCUMENTARIES IN ACTION: THE ART OF THE REAL (CM2032)

Course divided into theoretical and practical sections. The practical half of the course includes daily exercises in "hands-on" documentary research, scripting, sketching and shooting in the streets of Paris, with small video cameras, producing work that will then be critiqued in class. The theoretical component surveys the history of documentary film and different approaches to making documentaries.

COMMUNICATION THEORY & RESEARCH METH. (CM2051)

The skills learned in this course will prepare students for upper-division communication courses, and provide students with basic research methods in the field of communication. Students will become familiar with a range of research methods (survey, interview, ethnography, discourse, and political economy.

GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIO (CM2080)

In this course, students will be introduced to graphic design history and graphic design principles. They will learn to apply these principles through hands-on exercises and projects, using both analog means and digital tools (Adobe Photoshop). No prerequisites.

TOPICS IN COMMUNICATIONS (CM2091)

Topics vary every semester.
“For the course description, please find this course in the respective semester on the public course browser: https://www.aup.edu/academics/course-catalog/by-term.”

INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL CULTURE (CM2100)

This course considers the construction of the visual world and our participation in it. Through a transcultural survey of materials, contexts and theories, students will learn how visual practices relate to other cultural activities, how they shape identity and environmental basic ways, and how vision functions in correspondence with other senses.