Fall Semester
Discovery Category Course
Discovery Category Course
ComArts Area A
CMN 455, 456, or 457

Spring Semester
Discovery Category Course
Discovery Category Course
ComArts Area A
ComArts Area B

Third Year

This course is an introductory exploration of moving image and sound with an emphasis on discovering how aesthetic choices impact media messages. Students investigate aesthetic principles by finding, making and working with digital media, animation, video, audio, and film. This is not a production class per se, but rudimentary, hands-on production will be taught. No credit earned if credit received for CA 502. Special fee.
Credits: 4

Theories of rhetoric applied to the practice of speech composition, oral performance and critical evaluation. Focus on student speeches for a variety of situations and audiences. No credit if credit earned for CMN 500.
Credits: 4

An introduction to business, creative and freelance writing for a variety of media. Writing, editing and rewriting in areas such as video scripts, short magazine articles, audio scripts, ads, press releases, news, short one-act plays, blogs and more. Prereq: ENG 401.
Credits: 4

Field-based learning experiences. Connects students to the urban community and integrates their classroom education within a business or organizational setting. Students work under the direction of a faculty advisor and workplace supervisor to fulfill the obligations of the workplace internship plan and to complete individually-designed academic projects. Projects must be approved in advance by the faculty advisor. Open to matriculated students with a GPA of 2.50 or better and junior standing. Permission of instructor required. May be repeated for up to 8 credits, with 4 credits maximum accepted toward satisfaction of requirements for the CA major. Cr/F.
Credits: 1-4

Image and Sound is a foundation course in the aesthetics of motion picture and sound production. This course explores the aesthetic principles that are used to communicate stories, emotions and messages in popular media. Students will study film, television and new media and survey production methods. This is not a production course per se, but is particularly helpful to students interested in video and film production. No credit for students who have completed CA 444.
Credits: 4

Focuses on the essential elements of fact-based reporting and discussion of the principles and ethics of independent journalism. Techniques include determining the different perspectives and voices that belong in a story, developing research skills for locating information, strategies for reconciling conflicting information, and procedures for effective interviewing. Prereq: ENGL 401 plus CMN 455; or permission.
Credits: 4

Introduction to the practice of film criticism. Critique of film as both art form and medium of communication. Examines the process of film production, basic principles of film form, techniques of film style, and major approaches to film criticism. Prereq: ENGL 401, CMN 455; or permission. Special fee. Film screenings run 1.5 hours longer than the lecture section. Students who plan to take video production courses in the future are permitted to use CA 504 as a substitute for CA 502 to meet the prerequisite for CA 514.
Credits: 4

How gender is created, maintained, repaired, and transformed through communication in particular historical, cultural, and relational contexts. Topics include the relationship between sex and gender, language, cultural mythologies, identity, health care, sexuality, and strategies for resisting conventional gender definitions. Prereq: CMN 457 or permission. Students who have completed CMN 583 should not register for this class.
Credits: 4

Introduces communication theories relevant to the study of conflict interaction in interpersonal relationships. Considers interpersonal concerns contributing to conflict such as power, face-saving, and goals. Examines behaviors that affect our ability to resolve conflict and strategies to resolve conflict such as mediation. Develop the ability to diagnose productive and destructive conflict patterns in relationships. The course is both theoretical and practical in its orientation. A combination of lecture, discussion, case studies, in-class group assignments will be employed. Prereq: CMN 457.
Credits: 4

Examines how identities, relationships, and social realities are constituted through language and interaction. Specific topics include perception, meaning, metaphor, power, gender, illness, and the environment. Prereq: CMN 457 or permission.
Credits: 4

Examines the pre-production phase of moving image media, focusing especially on the art and business of writing for the screen. Covers the process of developing student work from original story idea to completed, first draft screenplay. Topics include script formats, narrative structure, plot development, characterization, style, and marketing strategies. Prereq: ENGL 401, CMN 455 or 456 or permission.
Credits: 4

Theory and practice of producing news stories for radio. Research, organization, and technical skills necessary to produce a basic three-and-half to four-minute radio piece that includes three interviews, a scene created with sound, instructions for a studio mix, and a host introduction. Intended for beginning and intermediate students who have a strong interest in news writing and news production. Prereq: ENGL 401 plus CMN 455; or permission. Special fee.
Credits: 4

Beginning electronic field production using digital video and nonlinear editing formats. Covers basic aesthetic principles and practices of video communication. Introduces techniques for effective image and sound recording in the field, fundamentals of shot and sequence construction, and basic postproduction practices on nonlinear editing systems. Prereq: ENGL 401, CA 502 or CA 444, CMN 455, or permission. Preference given to CA majors. Special fee.
Credits: 4

Advanced electronic field production and post-production using digital video and nonlinear editing formats. Emphasizes original student work of increasing conceptual, formal and technical complexity that begins to incorporate a wider range of images, sounds, and editing techniques. Prereq: CA 514 or permission. Preference given to CA majors. May be repeated, with permission, to a maximum of 8 credits. Special fee.
Credits: 4

The strategies of art and persuasion in the craft of professional speechwriting for a variety of modes, audiences, and exigencies. Examines a wide array of famous speeches from political, literary and cinematic sources to uncover the fundamental theories of rhetoric and persuasion at work in these texts. Application of these theories and strategies of persuasion in original speechwriting projects. Prereq: ENGL 401, CMN 456 or permission
Credits: 4

This course provides students with an introduction to the history, principles, and techniques of audio production. Through hands-on experience, class projects, and homework assignments, student learn how to use voice, music, writing, sound effects, and audio hardware and software to design sound and tell a story. This class will also look at the radio industry and how sound design is being used by a variety of industries. Special fee.
Credits: 4

This course provides students with an introduction to the history, principles, and techniques of audio production. Through hands-on experience, class projects, and homework assignments, student learn how to use voice, music, writing, sound effects, and audio hardware and software to design sound and tell a story. This class will also look at the radio industry and how sound design is being used by a variety of industries. Special fee.
Credits: 4

Advanced examination of the preproduction phase of moving image media, focusing on the art and business of screenwriting. Develops student works from original idea through the numerous steps to completed, second draft screenplay. Prereq: CA 512 or permission
Credits: 4

Credits: 4

Process of program planning for electronic media. Covers the contexts—social, cultural, institutional, economic, technical, and regulatory—within which decisions concerning program selection, form, content, and scheduling are made. Prereq: CMN 455 or permission.
Credits: 4

Examines news as socially situated discourse. The professional norms, work routines, representational practices, ideologies, and ethics of news producing organizations. Prereq: CMN 455 or permission.
Credits: 4

The history of film since 1948. Historical analysis of the development of cinema since the emergence of television, both in the United States and abroad. Selected topics include cinema and the cold war, international stylistic movements, film exhibition, the decline of the studio system, new technologies, third cinema, globalization and economic consolidation. Prereq: CMN 455 or permission. Special fee.
Credits: 4

Nature, scope, history and current practice of federal regulation over broadcast and related telecommunications media. Emphasis on FCC policies and procedures in the United States with some coverage of comparative regulatory systems. Prereq: CMN 455 or permission
Credits: 4

Examines the development of advertising in historical context, focusing on the evolving structure and function of advertising agencies, market research practices, advertising design, anthropological approaches to advertising and consumer culture, and contemporary policy issues. Prereq: CMN 455 or permission.
Credits: 4

Introduces students to the study of communication in marital relationships. Examines the major theoretical orientations that characterize the marriage field and investigates the processes by which communication facilitates or hinders marital adjustment and stability: understanding, and relationship satisfaction. Also explores popular cultural constructions of marriage and intimacy and how these influence personal expectations for marital relationships. Students need not be married to take or benefit from this course. Prereq: CMN 457, or permission.
Credits: 4

Explores the role of communication in the creation, maintenance, and transformation of family systems. Focus on how meanings of "family" are constructed through familial and popular discourses, and the consequences these communication practices have for lived experience. Prereq: CMN 457 or permission.
Credits: 4

This course provides students with an overview of the field of public relations, including its history, ethics, and current practices. Will include case studies of major public relations issues that have occurred both historically and in recent years; individual and class projects that enable students to determine how best to plan for and respond to public relations issues; and quest practitioners who work in various fields, including business, government, the non-profit sector, and education. Prereq: CMN 456 or CMN 455 or permission
Credits: 4

New or specialized topics in the organization, history, and policy of communication practices not covered in regular course offerings. Topics vary; descriptions of course content and any prerequisites are available during preregistration. May be repeated for a maximum of 12 credits if topics differ. Prereq: contingent on topic.
Credits: 4

Qualitative research practices for the study of mass communication. Tools for investigating the production contexts of media institutions, the cultural and ideological meanings of media texts, and the social dimensions of media consumption in home and family. Emphasis on how to review literature, develop a research question, define a unit of analysis, select and apply method, interpret data, and draw conclusions grounded in theory. Prereq: any two courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 455 is prerequisite or permission. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Critically examines the myriad ways qualitative researchers approach the study of interpersonal communication. With an emphasis on the artistic practice of fieldwork, the course considers the process of research design, the relationship between researcher and researched, the moral and ethical aspects of research, issues of representation and audience, and evaluation strategies. Students design, conduct, and present original qualitative research projects. Prereq: any two 500 level CA courses (excluding CA 501), one of which must have CMN 457 as a prerequisite or permission. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Role of communication technologies in shaping cultural meanings and human consciousness. Covers the work of Innis, McLuhan, Ong, Postman, Carey and other to understand the historical development of shifting communication technologies and patterns of culture from orality to computer communication. Also explores the dynamic between mass culture and subcultural appropriations of media forms and content. Prereq: any two courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 455 is prerequisite or permission. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Critically examines a variety of theories which seek to explain the dynamics of interpersonal relationships including performance theory, social construction theory, systems theory, feminist theory, and narrative theory. Prereq: any two courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 457 is prerequisite or permission. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Considers ways humans make sense of experience through the stories we construct within particular relational, cultural, and historical contexts. Explores a variety of topics including narrative conventions, canonical stories, subjectivity and reflexivity, the relationship between story and audience, space and time, memory and imagination, and narrative truth. Each student will conduct an original narrative project. Prereq: any two courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 457 is prerequisite or permission. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Explores the concept of power -- how we conceive of power, how we enact power, and the effects of power in our interpersonal relationships. Using a variety of theoretical approaches such as relational theory, feminist theory, and social constructionism, we will consider the idea that the expression of power is an act of self-definition, that power resides in the ability to define one's reality while identifying and choosing courses of action, and that disempowerment is the end result of the loss of freedom of action. Prereq: CMN 457 and any two courses from areas A and B for which CMN 457 is a prerequisite. Students who have received credit for CA 720, Seminar: Communication and Power are not eligible to receive credit for CA 614.
Credits: 4

Intensive study of philosophical, rhetorical, and methodological issues in film history research. Examines a series of selected historical problems in the areas of social, aesthetic, industrial, and technological film history up to 1948 and reviews existing historiography on these problems. Focus is on original student research. Prereq: any two courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 455 is prerequisite or permission. Special fee. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Exploration of the historical development, ethics, funding, sociocultural significance, and communication strategies of documentary film and video. May focus of a particular genre or genres. Prereq: any two courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 455 is prerequisite or permission. Special fee. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Intensive readings and research course in a highly focused area of study. Topics vary. Descriptions of course content and any prerequisites are available during preregistration. May be repeated for credit to a maximum of 12 credits if topics differ. Prereq: contingent on topic. Prereq: CMN 457 plus any two courses from both areas A and B or permission. CA 720 may be repeated if topics differ. Writing intensive.
Credits: 4

Advanced individual study under the direction of a faculty member. Content area and research project to be developed in consultation with faculty supervisor. May be repeated for up to 8 credits, with 4 credits maximum accepted toward satisfaction of requirements for the CA major. Prereq: permission.
Credits: 1-4