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School of Journalism and New Media
University of Mississippi

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Enroll now in summer courses from the UM School of Journalism and New Media

Posted on: May 20th, 2020 by ldrucker

Are you feeling a little bored? Why not get a head start on some of your classes?

Many courses offered this summer by the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media are required classes for journalism and IMC majors.

For summer classes, you have until the day they start to enroll, so why not include learning in your plans for summer fun?


Full Summer


Bobby Steele – IMC 104 Web 1 – Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communication
– Integrated marketing communications is a versatile field. This class required for IMC majors introduces the basic disciplines of IMC – advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, database marketing, internet marketing communication, and relationship marketing.

IMC 395 – Internship I – Internship experience in media, such as public relations and advertising.

IMC 495 – Internship II – Internship experience in media, such as public relations and advertising.

 

First Summer Session

 

Mark Burson IMC – 455 Web 1 – Integrated Marketing Communications – This class required for IMC majors is a capstone course involving tactical application of IMC skills and disciplines that is designed to develop team-building skills. Alternative and competing IMC campaigns will be presented and judged by both professor and client.

Roy Frostenson – JOUR 101 Web 1 – Media, News & Audience – This class required of all majors is an introduction to various facets of communication from the world of news media to the persuasive realms of marketing, advertising, public relations, and social media. This course will also strengthen your knowledge of the media and communication industries, their history and current practices, their content, and their effects on us as individuals and society.

Creative Thinking

Creative Thinking

Emily Bowen-Moore – JOUR – 273 Web 1 – Creative Visual Thinking – Ready to think visual? This class required by all students except those enrolled in the broadcast journalism emphasis is an introduction to communication design that explores different media and how visual elements are used to communicate. It focuses on the vocabulary of effective visual presentation and the analysis of visual messages across media platforms.

Mark Dolan – JOUR 345 – Digital Media Diversity – Explores the origins, theory, and applications of diversity in digital media content and opens pathways among students and instructors to understand digital representations of race, sexuality, gender, disability, ethnicity, and class, underscoring and enlarging historical narratives of communication, the nature of audience and content creators within digital spaces. This class fulfills the diversity requirement.

 

Second Summer Session

 

Brad Conaway – JOUR – 310 Web 1 – Social Media in Society – This class takes a critical approach to understanding the relationship between society and social media. The course will explore the development of social media by situating them in broader social, political, historical, and business contexts. We will examine how the emergence of social media technologies are discussed, the ethical and legal challenges surrounding these technologies, and how social media affect various aspects of our lives including our social relationships, identity, privacy, and work.

LaReeca Rucker – JOUR – 361 Web 1 – Journalism Explorations IBlack Mirror, The Twilight Zone and Media – The British science-fiction anthology series “Black Mirror” is set in the near future explores the potential consequences of social media and future technology. Each episode has a different cast with a unique story and, like most science fiction, it offers a prophetic warning about what could happen if we lose control and allow technology to control us.

Some might say we are currently living in a “Black Mirror” moment. Recognizing the show’s potential as a discussion starter about modern and future media, students will watch specific episodes of “Black Mirror” and think critically about the program. Through class discussions and writing exercises, they will envision the future of social media and technology. Some selected content will be hosted on our Black Mirror Project website.

This mind-bending class will also analyze topical developments and news stories related to the impact of social media on society. Students will read academic articles that have been written about “Black Mirror” and “The Twilight Zone.” Other science and speculative fiction movies and television shows will be examined. We’ll speculate about what the future holds, good and bad, with media and technology. And we’ll discuss what we can learn about journalism and a free society from science fiction visions of dystopias.

Black Mirror

Students who take this class will receive daily lesson plans on Blackboard with work they should complete before the following day. They may be asked to give short video presentations via Zoom, or to upload a video to YouTube so that other students can view their presentations. We also plan to have weekly, nationally-recognized speakers who can share their thoughts on the media and technology topics we discuss that will be broadcast in an optional live Zoom meeting or via video.

Students will be asked to complete some writing projects that could be featured on our “Black Mirror” website: https://blackmirrorideas.wordpress.com/ They will be asked to engage in discussions in our Blackboard Discussion Forum with their classmates. We’ll also use social media platforms, such as Twitter, to communicate on some assignments. And we will (optionally) explore virtual reality, so it might be a good idea to purchase some inexpensive ($10 or less) VR glasses.

Iveta Imre – JOUR 362 – Journalism Explorations IIVideo Storytelling – Video storytelling is an essential skill whether you are going into film or TV, social media or advertising, PR or journalism, and the goal of this class is to give students a fundamental understanding of how to use video to tell a quality story. Students will learn to research, report, shoot, and edit short, focused video stories designed specifically for the web.

Imre said students will be doing fun projects, such as creating a silent movie for which they will edit a story only using visuals. They will also learn best practices for videos for social media. Students will experiment with video storytelling for TikTok. They will learn video and audio editing, and the class will culminate in creating a mini personal story or a mini documentary. At the end of the semester, they will have a class film festival with surprise awards for the best in show videos.

Bobby Steele – IMC 104 Web 1 –  Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communication – This class required for IMC majors introduces the basic disciplines of IMC – advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, database marketing, internet marketing communication, and relationship marketing.

Christina Sparks – IMC 304 Web 1 – Account Planning – This class required for IMC majors presents principles and practices of the account planning process to develop skills, insights and strategies to use in different methods of influencing consumers’ behavior. Students will hear real-world examples of the instructor’s time as an account planner at Ogilvy.

Account planning is the study of branding, positioning, research, analytics, insights, and measurements involved in the creation and evaluation of an advertising or communication campaign. Account planners are known as the voice of the consumer within agencies. They are the brand marketers, consumer experts, strategy developers, data analysts, program effectiveness measurers and general thinkers behind communications. Concepts learned in the course will be applied in a planning project.

design

Darren Sanefski – IMC 305 Web 1 – Visual Communication – This class required for the graphic design specialization emphasizes creation, utilization, and critique of visual components of IMC at professional levels. Students will learn basics of design software for IMC purposes and applications in print, online, and video, as well as packaging and retail environments.

Mike Tonos – IMC 390.1 – Advanced Writing: Integrated Marketing – This class required for IMC majors explores advanced writing in integrated marketing types of advertising; concepts of creativity, copy structure, and style; emphasis on creative thinking and clear, precise writing in preparation of advertising for print and broadcast media and copy for presentations and direct mail.

John Baker – IMC 404 – IMC Research – This class required for IMC majors explores the theory and practice of qualitative and quantitative research applied to multiple marketing and communications challenges and tasks.

 

August Intersession

 

Bobby Steele – IMC 104 Web 1 – Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communication – This class trequired for majors introduces the basic disciplines of IMC – advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, database marketing, internet marketing communication, and relationship marketing.

University of Mississippi journalism professor’s Black Mirror Project mentioned in Harvard Political Review

Posted on: January 1st, 2019 by ldrucker

Last week, Netflix dropped the first feature film released by the popular, science fiction anthology series “Black Mirror.” “Bandersnatch” is the story of a “programmer creating a video game based on the fantasy novel of an unhinged genius,” Mashable reports.

This is exciting to fans and some University of Mississippi students because the UM School of Journalism and New Media has its own class that incorporates episodes of “Black Mirror.”

Harvard Political Review recently mentioned The Black Mirror Project created by a University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media journalism professor that envisions the future of media through the lens of the science fiction television series.

After learning about the history of media, professor LaReeca Rucker asks students in Journalism 101 to envision the near future of media after watching several specific episodes of the series. They are asked to use their imagination to write a synopsis of their own “Black Mirror” episode. The most creative and original responses are published on The Black Mirror Project website: https://blackmirrorideas.wordpress.com/

“Black Mirror” is a British science fiction television anthology series set in the near future that explores the potentially dark consequences of technology and social media. Each episode has a different cast with a unique story and, like most science fiction, it offers a speculative warning about what could happen if we lose control and allow technology to control us.

The show, created by Charlie Brooker, was first broadcast on British television in 2011. It is now a Netflix original series, and some have called it a modern day “Twilight Zone.” Recognizing its potential for the discussion of modern and future media, some colleges and universities across the country have incorporated “Black Mirror” into their journalism and communications classes.

 

Harvard Political Review recently published the article Primetime Paranoia that mentions Rucker’s “Black Mirror” Project. The article explores “Black Mirror” and modern anxiety.

It reads, “At the beginning of most Black Mirror episodes, viewers enter a near-future world with a technology that appears novel, even benign. Then this technology goes horribly, unpredictably wrong. In this chaos are echoes of our paradoxical anxiety, which grows worse and worse in a world becoming better and better. Black Mirror has resonated. The series has earned huge ratings, prestigious awards, and praise from figures ranging from Jordan Peele to Stephen King.”

The School of Journalism and New Media also plans to offer a different, but similar “Black Mirror” class this summer as an elective. Those who are interested may email Rucker at ldrucker@olemiss.edu.

Read the Q & A with Rucker about “Black Mirror.”

Q: What is the Black Mirror Project? Why did you get involved with it, and what results has it borne?

A: The Black Mirror Project is a website I created and an ongoing assignment I give my mass communication students each semester. After they spend most of the semester studying the history of media, we shift the focus to the future of media. I assign four specific episodes of “Black Mirror” for them to watch and ponder.

I have always been a fan of science fiction, and when this series came out, I thought it was mind-bending. I also liked that the first season of the series focused a lot on social media usage and offered some scary episodes regarding social media that seemed very plausible. I like that the show is set in the near future – not hundreds of years away. I think that makes it more frightening and relevant.

As a result of starting this project, I have been contacted by people from several different states and countries who have used “Black Mirror” in their college and high school classes. Some have reached out asking if they can submit their students’ Black Mirror Reflections to be published on our website, and I have encouraged them to do that. I love collaborating with others.

 

Q: How have you integrated Black Mirror into your teaching, and what does it add to your classroom?

My students are asked to write a Black Mirror Reflection by thinking about the episodes of the show they have been assigned while pondering technology and social media in the near future. Then they are asked to research the future of technology by Googling and reading several articles on the subject, and talking to friends, family and professors to get ideas.

They are asked to imagine that they’ve just been hired as a writer for the show. It’s their job to come up with a storyline for their own episode, but they only have a week to do it or they (fictionally) get fired. They are told to imagine it will be featured in the next season of “Black Mirror.”

Students write a one-page, double-spaced report describing their episode and the characters they imagine starring in it. They discuss what technology is used and how? They think about a scenario involving technology and social media, and take that idea to an extreme. That’s the story.

I read them and select the best ones to publish on our Black Mirror Project website. You will find a collection of creative “Black Mirror” responses there. I think the exercise helps students begin to think about their personal relationship with technology, social media and electronic communication. Some have said it was “eye-opening.”

Q: In what way is Black Mirror a “modern day Twilight Zone,” as the Black Mirror Project website says? Does the show diverge from the Twilight Zone in any noteworthy ways?

I think one of the differences is that “Black Mirror” seems to be set in the near future. To me, that makes it more frightening and plausible because many of the episodes involve scenarios that we are on the verge of experiencing now. While some of “The Twilight Zone” episodes were like this, many were set many years in the future and were often more fantastical than reality-based.

I wanted to show students several episodes of “The Twilight Zone” that could be compared and contrasted with “Black Mirror,” hoping in my research I would find some “Twilight Zone” episodes from more than 50 years ago that had envisioned the future spot on, but I had difficulty finding episodes that I thought would be a good fit. However, the Harvard Political Review article does offer up a lot of interesting points about what the “The Twilight Zone” has meant to our culture.

I do show one “Twilight Zone” episode called “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” that is about the idea of beauty and perfection, which is still very relevant to viewers today.

I think the scenarios that “Black Mirror” presents are warnings about the near future in the same way “The Twilight Zone” warned us about our world. They both were important shows with confrontational, yet helpful messages that we should pay attention to.

Science fiction is prophetic vision.