Whether it’s traditional or cutting-edge digital media, you can take courses at STAC that will engage you and give you exciting opportunities to learn about your field first hand. Take a slot at our radio station, assist in the HDTV studio, create a digital marketing strategy — a Communication Arts major puts you on the front lines of technology and culture.
Communication Arts
Featured Courses
Blogging 101: Create, Content Development, SEO
Students will learn the fundamentals of creating a blog, generating and formatting blog content (including the use of audio, images and video), optimizing for search engines and social media marketing, and publishing. The class will culminate with students pitching their blogs to real companies and websites. “This course was structured to meet the varied needs of the professional world, so instruction will come from a slightly different standpoint than traditional college courses that focus on theory,” Professor Winship says. “The blogging course will blend theory and practicality, giving students an opportunity to immediately apply what they learn in class.”You may not find this course at many colleges and universities, but you will find it at STAC. To add to the college’s new concentration in Social & Interactive Media, faculty member Elaine Winship and adjunct instructor Tom Winship created a blogging course, in which students will build their own blogs and learn how to leverage them to maximize social media marketing impact and search engine results.
Social Media Marketing
Examines the life cycle of the social media marketing and communications process — from strategy to implementation to program monitoring and measurement; addresses the applications of social media through hands-on experience, developing skills in the most widely used social platforms. (Also offered as MKTG 340.)
TV News Show Production
This course requires students to produce news programming of substantial quality, including video television news, topical news discussions, and investigative reports. Students will examine the elements of studio news production, including the pre-production, planning, scripting, and recording of a weekly TV news show. Contemporary and historically important broadcast news/documentary journalists and anchorpersons will be studied and evaluated. Prerequisites: CA 221 and CA 325.
Communication Skills in Business
Practical application of communication theory to a sequence of projects progressing from writing of memoranda, letters and resumes to more advanced problems of persuasion, interviewing, research and proposal and report writing. Prerequisite: ENG 102. Recommended for juniors and seniors.
Sport Media
Overview of coverage of sports by all media: print, radio, television, and electronic. Study of sports coverage through lectures, analysis of tapes, field trips, and guest speakers.
New Media Communications
This course will explore how media technology has altered our way of life over time, with an emphasis on recent technological changes. It will also explore technological determinism vs. social determinism. Does technology change society or does society change technology? Is technology an extension of the human (early Marshall McLuhan) or is it an autonomous force that alters communication and thus, patterns of behavior. Students will explore the effects of technology on business and marketing, politics and war, education and learning, social behavior and perception, family life, language and writing, relationships and dating, publishing, literature, and art. They will consider whether new media, in particular social media, have expanded our knowledge base or caused information overload. They will also look at the consequences of the emerging Web 3.0 platform, which includes mobile communications.
REQUIRED COURSES
CORE REQUIREMENTS
Intro to Journalism
Intro to Mass Media
New Media Communications
Media Law and Ethics
Communication Arts Seminar
Internship
Seven courses selected from the following areas (21 Credits):
Social & Interactive Media Concentration
CA 203 Public Speaking
CA 213 Content Development for Public Relations
CA 305 Principles of Acting & Directing
CA 322 Event & Crisis Management & Planning
CA 340 Social Media Marketing
Public & Organizational Communication Concentration
CA 209 Communication Skills in Business
CA 230 History & Development of Mass Media
CA 231 He Said/She Said: Gender Differences in Communication
CA 314 Sports Media
CA 326 Advanced Journalism
CA 401 Studies in Persuasion
CA 413 Theory & Crit. of Media & Perform. Arts
Broadcasting & Digital Content Production Concentration
CA 205 Broadcast Announcing
CA 221 TV Studio Production I
CA 301 Broadcast Journalism
CA 309 Radio Broadcasting
CA 310 Writing for Broadcast Media
CA 315 Electronic Field Production
CA 325 TV Studio Production II
CA 330 Event Based Video
CA 407 Broadcast Media Programming
CA 419 Digital Video Editing
CA 420 Video Magazine Production
GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS
Humanities (30 Credits)
*ENG 101 College English
*ENG 102 Intermediate Composition
*Literature: Two courses from ENG 201, 203, 205, 207 or 221
Philosophy (Ethics recommended)
Religious Studies
Art, Music, Film or Theater
*CA 101 Speech Communication
*Single Foreign Language (6 cr.)
*Must be completed within the first 4 semesters.
Social Science (9 Credits)
American History or Political Science
European or Non Western History
Economics, Geography, Psychology or Sociology (Psychology recommended)