Study Abroad

Two January Term study abroad courses are offered by the Journalism & Mass Communication Department:

Gender, Race and Mass Media in London (UMAIE) -- January 2008

This course explores the crucial roles journalistic, advertising and entertainment media play in creating, reinforcing and disseminating cultural values about gender, race and ethnicity. Students can observe in the media how racial and ethnic groups are treated in a society that is struggling with shifts in its traditional identity. A broad array of advertising messages allows students to document how gender roles and sexual identities are portrayed.

Specifically, in this offering of the course, we use the city of London as a kind of living laboratory to examine how the tensions of heritage and diversity are exacerbated or addressed by mass media content and public expressions of culture in an increasingly multicultural city.  We systematically compare our own experiences with US media content and public culture to our newfound observations of media content and public culture in London.  New cultural identities are being formed in London, one of the world's great media capitals, and students investigate this firsthand.

The course enrolls 26 students and is taught by Dr. Kris Bunton and Dr. Wendy Wyatt.

Visual Communication in Europe (UST) -- January 2008 and 2009

This course introduces students to the vocabulary, theory and principles of visual communication by examining their application in painting, architecture, illustration, photography, graphic design, typography, video, film and other media.  The goal of the course is to teach students to identify and analyze the predominant styles of imagery we encounter in the media and the world around us.  In doing so, students will observe and study how visual images communicate within their historical, social, cultural, religious and political contexts.  The course also considers how and why these images are appropriated and reappear in new communication contexts today.

While in Europe, students make extensive use of galleries, exhibitions and museums in various cities, including Florence, Rome, Venice and Pompeii. The course is an intensive version of the course required for Journalism majors.

The course enrolls 12 students and is taught by Dr. Robert Craig.