JDM Course Description
JDM Course Description
JDM 220 Reporting Practices (3 credits)
Students are instructed and trained in reporting and writing basic texts in the form of news stories. The course introduces students to the language, practical conventions, contexts and functions of the news genre and practice as a step towards further specialization. The emphasis will be on style, content, clarity, registers, positioning, reception, accuracy and responsibility in handling news forms, functions, and structures. Preliminary framework is developed about how news is gathered, put together and directed at specific readerships.
Prerequisite: ENG 201, ARB 201
JDM 230 Newspaper Journalism (3 credits)
This course prepares students to have a thorough grounding in the best practices of professional journalism. It allows students to acquire a combination of skills relevant to print journalism. It will include training in reporting, interviewing, writing, editing, research and newspaper production with a concern for critical and ethical reflection. Students will aim to produce news pieces and feature articles that are suitable for publication
Prerequisite: ENG 202
JDM 250 Editorial and Feature Writing (3 credits)
Students are trained on the principles, problems, and techniques involved in writing editorials and features. They will also be given the opportunity to write compelling features that are sourced from a range of news types. The course introduces to students the role of scenes, vignettes, time or place anchorages, ongoing new events, and offbeat angles. Students will be also trained on determining the relationship between editorial/feature content and audience market. The course will be grounded in a workshop environment in which students become having more profound understanding of this craft, critiquing their own and each other’s features.
Prerequisite: JDM 230
JDM 260 Multimedia Journalism (3 credits)
The course offers students an introduction to the theory and practice of multimedia journalism. The purpose is to equip them with the perspectives and tools necessary to work in a multimedia environment. Students are expected to have an understanding of how the combination of offline and online channels of communication have impact on crafting multimedia content. In effect, the course will allow students to integrate their various types of journalistic practices in newspapers, radio, TV, web, and mobile production. The aim is to enable students to become competent with the latest convergent platforms that are driven by the new digital technologies.
Prerequisite: COM 214
JDM 290 Newspaper Editing (3 credits)
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the concepts and skills involved in editing news in the context of print journalism. In light of an executive editing cycle, students will apply editing and copy-editing principles and techniques, including sub-editing, headline writing, photo selection, thematic typography, layout distribution and form and content synchronization. Students will also be expected to know about the management side of the editing process and will have opportunities to participate in workshops in order to carry out tasks to deadline in a simulated sub-desk environment.
Prerequisite: JDM 220
JDM 300 Digital Journalism: The convergent storytelling (3 credits)
This course acquaints students with the most up to date methods of reporting online, from podcasts and blogs to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It enables students to develop a cross-media mode of journalistic thinking that will result in stories suitable for a fast-paced, multitasking and mobile audience. Students are expected to organize, report and produce short-form spot news and long-form features as well as to decide on the effectiveness of the visuals on enhancing the visitor’s understanding and interactivity of the news story. The topics include a comparative analysis between news writing in paper-media versus online, a review on the various techniques to write stories online, publishing online, online collaboration techniques, and netiquette. Students will conduct real case studies analysis and will work on two main projects, the first is creating and maintaining a personal blog and the second is based on a team-built journalistic web site.
Prerequisite: JDM 260
JDM 310 Satellite Journalism and Globalization (3 credits)
The course arises from the significant development of the satellite technologies in transmitting audio-visual messages to heterogeneous audiences across the globe. The purpose of the course is to meet the increasing demand for journalists who are ready to work in TV studios correlated to concur with different timelines, unique broadcasting distribution, differentials in spatial destination, and exclusive discursive engagements with the “Other”. Students are expected to carry out institutional and discursive analysis of one of the national, regional, or international ‘satellite’ TV stations and deliver a presentation about the results of their assessment of the station’s journalism practices.
Prerequisite: JDM 300
JDM 320 Reporting Conflict (3 credits)
The purpose of the course is to provide an opportunity for students to specialize in conflict reporting. Students will examine different socio-economic and politico-cultural cases of conflicts as content for reporting and news coverage and broadcasting. With such examination, students should acquaint with the specificity of forms, styles, structures, and functions news reporting associated with events of conflicts. A reporting case study analysis and assessment should be undertaken as part of finishing successfully the course.
Prerequisite: JDM 300
JDM 330 Investigative Journalism (3 credits)
The course focuses on the methods and skills that allow students to specialize in one of the indispensable news and features genres. Students will have an opportunity to learn the strategies and tactics of conducting different methods of tactful, dialogical, and steering enquiries that shed the light on new angles and perspectives of news stories. Furthermore, students will also learn the most effective and efficient discourse articulation of reporting that can create impact and change on the original problems.
Prerequisite: JDM 300
JDM 340 Journalism in Global Contexts (3 credits)
The purpose of the course is to provide students with the necessary conceptual and technical knowledge to report effectively on, or for, societies other than their own and to report confidently on major international institutions and issues. The course will assess the cultural and professional challenges involved in delivering targeted communication between societies; how new convergent technologies have shaped foreign correspondence and news categorizations (local vs global); who and how the international news agenda is set; the major national, regional, and international actors in the world and globalized affairs; and the new trends of international issues in the formation of digitized movements
Prerequisite: JDM 300
JDM 370 Essentials of News Photography (3credits)
Students are introduced to the theory and practice of news photography. Students are trained to use still cameras to record news events and create feature photos for print media. Topics also include discussion of modern photographic methods and analysis and use of the various techniques of photojournalism.
Prerequisite: JDM 230, JDM 260
JDM 380 Seminar in Journalism and Digital Media (3 credits)
A variable content classroom course in Journalism and Digital Media in which students pursue topics or subjects of current interest that are not part of the regular curriculum. A specific course description will be published in the course offering schedule.
Prerequisite(s): Consent of Advisor
JDM 400 Introduction to the Sports Report (3 credits)
The course is one the technical electives that aims to develop core skills of sports journalism for students on their third year of study. Students in this course will be able to produce and deliver sports news stories, broadcast sports reports and match reports on radio and television newscasts. Local, regional, as well as international sport reports will be critically analyzed. The course emphasis is on sports writing (reporting and editing) for broadcast and studio work.
Prerequisite: COM 240 and Junior Standing
JDM 440 Journalism and Society: The Lebanese Case (3 credits)
The course provides a framework of analysis and assessment of the impact of journalism on society. Students are exposed to a range of theories on the nature and direction of the influence shaping the relationship of journalism as an institution and society. The Lebanese context of journalism development is examined in detail with an emphasis on the historical impact that the Lebanese thinkers and philosophers have had on modern journalism. The course will also explore the role of journalism as one of the primary communication systems in the creation of the Lebanese culture and its relationship to world culture.
Prerequisite: Senior standing
JDM 460 Newsroom Management (3 credits)
This course provides students with the skills, knowledge, and techniques necessary to manage a newsroom. Several platforms are analyzed including print, broadcast and online. Case studies, techniques and strategies for addressing team-building issues in an ethical context are used surrounding newsroom leadership. Students are encouraged through critical-thinking and problem-solving skills to analyze supervision and leadership issues facing managers in a typical newsroom setting.
Prerequisite: Senior Standing
JOR 490 Independent Study in Journalism and Digital Media (3 credits)
Students are trained to be independent in their quest to research contemporary subjects in Journalism and Digital Media. With the supervision of a faculty member, students are responsible to deliver a research project related to any of the Journalism and Digital Media topics. A formal report and oral presentation shall be scheduled to fulfill requirements of the course.
Prerequisite: Senior standing
JDM 497 Professional Placement (3 credits)
Students in their junior year are required to work on part time or full time basis in order to experiment with and practice what they learned in class. A student presents a formal report by the end of this training period, followed by delivering a public presentation about her/his experience at work.
Prerequisite: Junior Standing and Consent of Advisor
JDM 499 Journalism and Digital Media Capstone Project (3 credits)
Students are prepared in this course to deal efficiently and effectively with the fundamentals of systematic research. Students are expected will to identify an adequate research opportunity and prepare a formal research project that shall constitute the capstone requirement for their graduation. The course topics that are delivered include design philosophies, problem conceptualization, problem definition, project planning and budgeting, development of specifications, and effective utilization of available resources. A formal oral presentation is required under the supervision of a formal judging committee formed from the faculty members.
Prerequisite: Senior Standing