Course Catalog

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SENIOR PROJECT (CM4095)

In consultation with a faculty member, the student undertakes a senior project related to the field or pratice of journalism and media production. Written projects are normally 25-30 pages. The project can take the form of a feature-length magazine article, a long-form piece of video or audio journalism, a multi-media production including iconography and illustrative material, or a strategic business plan for a journalism or media product such as a magazine or online platform.

(https://aupforms.formstack.com/workflows/senior_project)

CAPSTONE INTERNSHIP (CM4098)

Students may undertake an internship in an advertising agency, film company, or television company. Internships may be taken for 1 or 4 credits. Students may do more than one internship, but internship credit cannot cumulatively total more than 4 credits. The internship must be registered for 4-CR if the student decides to do an internship instead of the senior seminar. Students have taken internships at CNN, Harpers, Societe Francaise de Production, Le Courrier International, Sixty Minutes, European Broadcasting Union, amongst many others.

TOPICS IN COMMUNICATIONS (CM4910)

TOPICS VARY BY SEMESTER

CAPSTONE EXTENSION (CM4980)

All internship extensions are related to a previous internship registration, please contact the internship office for more information.

GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS (CM5001)

This course introduces students to major theories and practices of communications research, particularly those dealing with the globalization of media and culture. Students learn a mixture of approaches: rhetorical, quantitative, ethnographic and textual. They learn how various disciplines—economics, political science, anthropology, sociology, and rhetoric—deal with these issues. They also study a variety of research methodologies, learn how to create research projects and develop thesis-writing skills.

BRANDS AND BELIEF (CM5002)

This course examines the evolution of critical advertising and brand analysis with a particular emphasis on learning how people come to identify with and believe in brands. It includes an analysis of how brands work as systems for producing differences between themselves by creating imaginary possible worlds associated with brands. Students learn tools of semiotic and linguistic analysis in analyzing brands and how they relate to each other. Each student completes a communications audit of a brand examining all aspects of its communicative strategies from package design to employee behavior, clothing, architecture, and shop design. The course will also examine how branding now has extended beyond consumer brands to such areas as NGOs and politics (political parties as brands and politicians as brands).

CULTURAL DIVERSITY & GLOBALIZATION (CM5003)

The course will explore the ways in which cultural difference is mobilized – socially, politically and economically – by individuals and groups and the ways in which current discourses and practices of cultural difference interact with globalization. The course will analyze the combined processes of homogenization and fragmentation that result from this encounter. It will examine how affirmations of cultural distinctiveness are joined by yearnings for negotiations and ‘translations’ between them. As different actors deploy divergent understandings of ‘culture’, questions of cultural ‘identity’, access, agency and power come to the fore. The actors in question range from academic cultural theorists to officials in governmental agencies; they also include international organizations, cultural entrepreneurs, NGO activists and artists. Against the backdrop of globalization, the course will analyze how these actors articulate ‘cultural’ discourses and strategies and practices as well as how the media re-articulate and reflect the latter. Two particular discursive formations will be emphasized: i) those of ‘cultural diversity’ that focus on cultural goods and services and ii) those inspired by the notions of inter- or trans-cultural communication and dialogue.

GLOBAL DIGITAL CULTURES (CM5004)

This course provides an introduction to key topics and theories in the study of the Internet and other digital media as cultural and social phenomena. Four main themes guide our approach: space and networks; bodies and identities; objects and practices; and economics and politics. Within the contexts of globalization, we will place particular emphasis on interrogating transformations made possible by the pervasion of digital media, but also restrictions and contestations that arise. Students will develop their individual interests in relevant topics with an independent research project.

IDENTITY FORMATION IN A TRANSNAT'L WORLD (CM5005)

This course examines the theories of self and identity formation in a globalized world where traditional techniques of identity formation coming from religions and schools and family are being supplemented or changed by techniques coming from other cultures and countries. Some of these ways of self-identification are influenced by consumerism, advertising and media. Some are influenced by traditional physical and moral training or globalized martial arts. Some are influenced by the implantation of psychological and therapeutic techniques from the West. Others are linked to the circulation of techniques of self-formation from yoga, tai chi, and kabala that have been taken out of their traditional contexts and globalized, mediatized and modernized. This course looks at people who seek to make and define themselves in various different local contexts. It will also examine the rise of religious fundamentalism, its appeal to youth, and how it uses media. The course also looks at the role of media, institutions and advertising consumer culture in this process.