Media & Communication (MCOM) Courses

MCOM1070 Writing for Radio, Television and Film

This course teaches students how to successfully write for radio, television and film by introducing them to the key elements of production for each medium. Students become familiar with a broad range of standard formats, acquire fundamental industry terminology and closely examine a variety of creative techniques for producing professional copy. The course balances theory and practice, providing students with many concrete examples through which to learn the essential components of script writing, from commercials, PSAs and talk shows to documentaries and a host of fictional formats. Students demonstrate their understanding of important concepts and develop their own skills and talents by writing a series of short scripts for each medium. This is a writing-intensive course in which assignments are designed to cultivate the strengths and interests of each student, while always requiring the student-writer to consider the demands of form and content, as well as audience and marketability.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM1200 Communicating for Social Change

In this course, students focus on the use of media to enable participation in the processes that can lead to social change. Media and communication can facilitate social change that has a direct effect on many diverse constituencies, especially those that are often underrepresented. This effect may be felt in areas such as hunger, poverty, gender discrimination, healthcare, human trafficking, and human rights. The foundation to enable change is derived from communication processes that include strong dialogue between multiple stakeholders. In this course, students learn strategies to identify areas of significant need, analyze stakeholders, and develop effective messages to facilitate social change.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2010 Media Industries

This course provides an in-depth look at the industrial contexts within which media professionals work. Of primary concern are the ways in which a range of factors (i.e., organizational philosophies, economic structures, regulatory contexts, technological innovations and day-to-day business practices) work to determine the ways in which media organizations operate, as well as how such contexts shape the kinds of media texts these industries produce. Ultimately, the course introduces future media professionals to concepts necessary for understanding and navigating the contemporary media landscape.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2030 Media Texts

This course surveys key theories and methods for conducting analysis in relation to media texts. As such, this course tackles advanced questions of textual construction, meaning and interpretation. Students closely read various media texts from a variety of theoretical perspectives, such as semiotics, narrative theory and discourse analysis. Through the application of such theories and methods, students develop a conceptual vocabulary with which to articulate the myriad ways in which media texts create meaning, elicit responses, and mobilize feelings and attitudes within audiences. Students also think deeply about the role media texts play in the construction, maintenance and transformation of our social world.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2050 Media Audiences

This course asks students to think critically about how they (as well as their friends, families and communities) influence and are influenced by mediated messages. Students compare and contrast the behaviors of film, radio, television and internet audiences from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. By reading and writing about media audiences in historical and contemporary contexts, students come to understand the effects of, as well as their own responses to, mediated messages.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2100 Children, Youth and Media

This course examines selected works aimed at children and young adults, and focuses on the interpretation and analysis of how media engages and affects young viewers. In addition to viewing selected works, students read what researchers and critics have to say in their analyses.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2150 Visual Communication

In this course, students learn how we make sense of the visual culture in which we live. They become proficient in the language of visual communication by studying the roots of the field and the key concepts that scholars and practitioners use to analyze drawings, paintings, photographs, video and film. Students also create an original project. The course concludes with the dissemination and reception of the project.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2200 Television Studies

This course offers critical perspectives on American television and its complex relationship to contemporary culture and everyday life. Specifically, the course covers several aspects that are crucial to understanding television as a cultural artifact: economic structure, aesthetic practices and technological developments, the consumption habits of audiences, government regulation, and social impact. Along the way, students gain a solid grasp of television's history and speculate about its future.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2300 American Film

This course explores major developments in the U.S. film industry during its first 100 years. The course is structured chronologically and focuses on moments in film history that are particularly relevant to the medium's development as an aesthetic form, industrial product and cultural practice. While a large portion of the course covers the Hollywood film industry, focus is also on the development of independent film in the U.S., which has always existed alongside the mainstream industry in various and ever-changing states of co-dependence. Students gain a strong appreciation for the wide variety of cinematic movements and styles that make up U.S. cinema, as well as a deep understanding of the way in which economic factors and industrial logic determine the kinds of films that are made. American cinema is also discussed in a global context, considering the ways in which international films and filmmakers have influenced, and been influenced by, the U.S. film industry.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2400 Writing for Publication

This course focuses on the various sectors and processes of the publishing industry, including (but not limited to) periodicals, book publishing, professional journals and online publishing. Throughout the term, students explore the various sectors of the industry and become adept at researching the market and identifying appropriate venues for a variety of works. Instruction begins with critical analysis of the market and develops into an in-depth discovery of the industry from the genesis of a piece to representation, acquisition, editing, distribution and marketing. Issues of copyright laws, collaboration and issuance of contract terms are central to the course. By the end of the term, students are challenged to assess their own writing in regard to audience, timeliness and marketability in today's publishing industry.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM2450 Writing in Digital Media

This course examines the theory and practice of writing in a digital age. Special emphasis is on ethics and the rhetorical conventions for online communication and the design of information, particularly for professional purposes. Topics include designing an effective blog, web style and identity online, social media applications, copyright and authorship issues, and participating in collaborative online environments.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027 (or concurrent).
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM3050 Media Identities

This course analyzes the ways in which media texts, from films to television shows, represent contemporary forms of social identity such as gender, race, class and sexual orientation. Specifically, students are encouraged to ponder the role contemporary media plays in constructing popular understandings of social identity, as well as how audiences use media representations to form their own sense of identity. Students engage with contemporary theoretical perspectives on media representation, evaluate current research in the field, and perform their own analyses based on this material.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM3090 Critical Perspectives on New Media

This course examines the rise of digital media technologies and their impact on contemporary culture. Topics include: economic issues, such as how the new digital landscape contributes to the consolidation of media ownership; industrial issues, such as how digital technologies cultivate new kinds of relationships between media producers and consumers; social issues, such as how the internet and social media change the way that individuals interact with one another and re-imagine themselves; and political issues, such as digital technology’s potential to break down some barriers (i.e., global, national, cultural), while erecting others (i.e., economic barriers related to access). Through critical engagement with these issues, students are encouraged to think deeply and ethically about the media’s past, present and future.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM3100 Radio, Records and Popular Music

This course is divided into three interlocking sections: genres, industries and technologies. The genres section explores major forms of popular music, such as jazz, blues, country and rock. The industries section examines how the businesses of radio and music produce culture. The technologies section describes the gramophone, phonograph, radio, jukebox, tape recorder and digital files in their social and technological contexts. Borrowing from multiple fields, such as media studies, sociology, anthropology, history and musicology, the course situates these genres, industries, and technologies alongside several themes, including noise and silence, listening and recording, body and voice, regionalism and urbanism, race and class, and creativity and commerce.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits

MCOM3200 History of Photography

This course covers important photographic inventions, from the camera obscura and the daguerreotype to the 35mm still camera and the Polaroid. Various formats and prints are studied from social-cultural perspectives, such as banquet camera photographs, cartes de visite, magic lantern slides, news photographs and picture postcards. The documentary quality of photographs is also addressed, with examples that draw from the works of Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lang and Walker Evans, among others.
Prerequisite(s): ENG1021 or ENG1027.
Offered at Charlotte, Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits