| Communication Arts |
CA 450 - Introduction to Public Speaking
Credits:
4.00
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. Not for credit if credit earned for CMN 500.
CA 501 - Internship/Communication in the Urban Community
Credits:
1.00 to 4.00
Provides opportunities for field-based learning experiences.
Connects students to the urban community and integrates
their classroom education within a business or
organizational setting where the communication practice of
their interest is the focus of everyday activity. 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 and are expected to promote critical
reflection on the connections between on-site learning
experiences and related coursework in the Communication Arts
curriculum. Open to matriculated students with a GPA of 2.5
or better and junior standing who have completed CMN 455,
456, and 457. May be repeated for up to 8 credits, with
4 credits maximum accepted toward satisfaction of
requirements for the CA major. Credit/Fail.
CA 502 - Image and Sound
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 503 - Techniques for News Reporting
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 504 - Film Criticism
Credits:
4.00
An 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 and CMN 455 or
permission. Special fee.
CA 506 - Gender
Credits:
4.00
How gender is created, maintained, repaired, and transformed
through communication in particular historical, cultural,
and relational contexts. Examines a variety of topics
including 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.
CA 508 - Conflict in Relational Communication
Credits:
4.00
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,
such as mediation, to resolve conflict. Develops the ability
to diagnose productive and destructive conflict patterns in
relationships. The course is both theoretical and practical
in orientation. A combination of lecture, discussion, case
studies, and in-class group assignments are employed.
Prereq: CMN 457.
CA 510 - Language and Interaction
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 512 - Scriptwriting
Credits:
4.00
Examines the preproduction 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 plus either CMN 455
or 456; or permission.
CA 513 - Radio News Production
Credits:
4.00
Theory and practice of producing news stories for radio.
Covers the 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. Writing intensive.
CA 514 - Fundamentals of Video Production
Credits:
4.00
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, CMN 455 or permission. Preference
given to CA majors. Special fee.
CA 515 - Advanced Video Production
Credits:
4.00
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.
Special fee.
CA 516 - Speechwriting
Credits:
4.00
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 plus CMN 456; or permission.
CA 520 - Special Topics in Applied Communication
Credits:
1.00 to 4.00
New or specialized topics in applied communication not
covered in regular course offerings. Topics vary;
descriptions listing course content and any prerequisites
are available during preregistration. May be repeated for
credit if topics differ for a maximum of 12 credits. Prereq:
contingent on topic.
CA 525 - Media Programming
Credits:
4.00
Process of program planning for electronic media. Covers the
contexts -- social, cultural, institutional, economic,
technical, regulatory -- within which decisions concerning
program selection, form, content, and scheduling are made.
Prereq: CMN 455 or permission.
CA 526 - Organization of Newswork
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 527 - History of Film
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 528 - Media Policy and Law
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 530 - Celluloid Relationships
Credits:
4.00
Considers the complex dialogue between filmic
representations of relationships and lived experience.
Topics include ethnicity, sexuality, class, gender,
friendship, marriage, family, conflict, and intercultural
relationships. Hollywood, independent, and foreign films
are screened. Prereq: CMN 457 or permission. Special fee.
CA 531 - History and Organization of Advertising
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 535 - Marital Communication
Credits:
4.00
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. Writing intensive.
CA 539 - Communicating in Families
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 550 - Special Topics in Communication Organization, History, and Policy
Credits:
1.00 to 4.00
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.
CA 600 - Research Methods in Media
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 601 - Research Methods in Relational Communication
Credits:
4.00
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 courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 457 is
prerequisite or permission.
CA 610 - Communication Technologies and Culture
Credits:
4.00
The role of communication technologies in shaping cultural
meanings and human consciousness. Covers the work of Innis,
McLuhan, Ong, Postman, Carey and others 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.
CA 611 - Theories of Relational Communication
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 612 - Narrative
Credits:
4.00
Considers the 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 research project. Prereq: any two
courses from both areas A and B for which CMN 457 is
prerequisite or permission. Writing intensive.
CA 615 - Film History/Theory and Method
Credits:
4.00
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.
CA 617 - Aesthetic Theory in Moving Image Media
Credits:
4.00
Major theoretical approaches to film and video as modes for
art, social communication, and cultural representation.
Provides access to the work of important film and video
artists and examines this work in relation to readings in
aesthetic and cultural theory. Prereq: any two courses from
both areas A and B for which CMN 455 is prerequisite or
permission. Special fee.
CA 618 - Documentary
Credits:
4.00
Exploration of the historical development, ethics, funding,
sociocultural significance, and communication strategies of
documentary film and video. May focus on 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.
CA 720 - Seminar
Credits:
4.00
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. Writing
intensive.
CA 795 - Independent Study
Credits:
1.00 to 4.00
Advanced individual study under the direction of a faculty
member. Content area and research project to be developed in
consultation with faculty supervisor. Prereq: permission.
May be repeated for up to 8 credits, with 4 credits maximum
accepted toward satisfaction of requirements for the CA
major.