Digital Media Strategy

This graduate seminar looks at attributes of various digital media platforms and recent research about the trends in and effects of digital media. Students will be asked to read, discuss, and write about trends in the digital environment. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This core course teaches theories and skills for the effective analysis, creation, curation, and publication of writing in digital and networked spaces (blogs, wikis, social media correspondence, standalone websites, etc.). This course may be taken as a cross-listed course during a BC student's senior year. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course teaches theories and skills for the effective capture, processing and editing of photo, video, and audio messages. The course will be taught as two 2-week intensive workshops in audio and video production. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course teaches concepts and strategies for effective storytelling in multimedia contexts using text, moving and still images, and sound. Guided by design thinking, students will examine how organizations tell stories and interact with users through hands-on exercises and projects. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course will teach students to apply a holistic, user-based approach to the website design process, in order to ensure that a user's entire experience with a website--how the website looks and how it works--is favorable. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course will address the strategies of working as a consultant independently, in a larger consulting firm, or in a specialist role in an organization. Specific topics will include: general knowledge about organizational structure and function (types of organizations, business financials, basic operations), skills needed to create/maintain a consulting organization (business creation fundamentals, budget creation, contract negotiation, relationship management, and risk management), and practical consulting skills (client interaction, problem analysis, project scope definition, solution testing, testing and presenting prototypes, and project management). Students will have the opportunity to apply their skills learned in previous courses over a semester-long small group digital media project. Currently this final project is visualized as creating 30 second videos intended to be posted on social media that introduce the client organization and their products/services. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course offers an in-depth exploration of public relations theories, strategies, tactics and tools. The course will provide opportunities to apply theoretical concepts for critically evaluating strategic communications. The course will examine how these theories help us understand communication processes in digital media environments. The course will also explore how these communication strategies inform relationship-building, particularly in the areas of reputation creation and crisis management. Students will analyze texts, case studies, and online blogs and will apply their knowledge by creating a public relations plan for an organization or event. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course covers strategies for identifying and reaching potential target audiences on various types of online platforms (e.g. Search Engine optimization). Basic web analytics techniques will be covered, as well as analytics reporting strategies. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course will provide the student with an in-depth understanding of the theories and current research in digital persuasive communication. Students will evaluate the utility of a variety of theoretical perspectives as applied to areas including the following: consumer-generated content, public relations, social media campaigns, in-game advertising, advergames, and cross-media communication. The course will emphasize an understanding of attitude formation, change, and reinforcement as well as the relationship between attitudes and behaviors. Students will learn to use theoretical concepts in the practice of digital persuasion. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

The Program Coordinator will put out a call for digital media projects from local organizations. The students in this course will hear proposals from those organizations and select a project client. They will meet with the client to develop a detailed initial project proposal. They will submit the proposal to the Program Coordinator. The proposals will be evaluated (in consultation with the Program Director) based on the criteria laid out by the faculty advisors for the program. The course will culminate with a proposal presentation to faculty advisors. Projects might be part of the broad categories of: a web redesign, a social media campaign plan with audio/visual materials prepared, or a series of multimedia messages (videos, podcast, infographics) aimed at a particular audience. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

This course will support student work in completing the field implementation of their master's project. Each student will work early in the semester to finalize their proposal with their faculty advisor and client. They will also solicit two additional faculty members to sit on their master's committee and serve as mentors throughout the project. Committee members may be any full-time, tenure-track faculty member at the college approved by faculty advisors. Students will be required to make periodic progress reports to the Program Coordinator and attend several class meetings that will help clarify the field experience process. The Program Coordinator will be available to help students communicate with clients and to obtain the resources they need for their projects. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.

Students will write a final report about their Master's Project and give a campus presentation of their work. Grades will be assigned based on the quality of the work produced and the student analysis of the project's success. Off-Campus Distance Electronic Synchronous Remote Delivery.