Interactive Media Courses
COM 500: Seminar in Media Law and Ethics
Covers the legal and ethical dimensions of media communications across platforms, with an emphasis on First Amendment, privacy and copyright issues. Students examine historical cases, analyze the contemporary evolution of law as it relates to technological development, and discuss ethical situations that arise from the confluence of accelerated technological development and the culture’s ability to understand its consequences, unintended or otherwise. Required for those without an undergraduate media law and ethics course or professional experience waiver. (July Term)
COM 510: Seminar in Media Writing
Clear, logical writing is necessary to communicate effectively to an
audience. This course focuses on background research, interviews, accuracy, attribution and styles of writing (print, broadcast, online, news releases).
Superior grammar and language skills are expected, and Associated Press style is introduced. Required for those without an undergraduate media writing course or professional experience waiver. (July Term)
COM 620: Digital Media Workshop
Provides concepts and applied skills related to visual communication, photo editing, audio processing, video capture and editing, and Web publishing. Students develop the ability to organize elements for a variety of visual effects and gain an understanding of how to use technology to create meaningful digital communication. (August Term. This course is required of all M.A. students)
COM 625: Digital Media Production
This course covers the fundamental practices associated with digital video production and storytelling. Students will receive hands on learning opportunities with cameras, sound and lighting equipment, and video editing programs.
COM 630: Theory and Audience Analysis in an Interactive Age
Introduces students to the intellectual logistics of graduate study in general, to the historical and contemporary body of research literature in the scholarly subject area of interactive communications, and to career opportunities. Students write research papers capped by a bibliographical essay that covers books, professional journal articles, or studies focused on interactive communications.
COM 640: Interactive Design
This course maps the divide between genres of communication traditionally taught in print or traditional forms of electronic communication to those that are now operating in digital environments where various “multimedia” are converging into a single, integrated meta-medium of practices, known as interactive writing and design.
COM 650: Producing Interactive Media
Covers the fundamental practices associated with interactive media production, including interface design, applied multimedia and usability refinement. In the effort to provide users with optimized opportunities for choice and control, students will apply design guidelines and production design trends emerging in various industries. Students will author interactive experiences and explore historical origins, as well as today’s best practices.
COM 660: Interactive Media Strategies
An investigation of strategic issues such as new design paradigms, project workflow, information design, interactive navigation, production methodologies, and an exploration of a full range of interactive media from web to screen devices to interactive objects and spaces.
COM 661: Intellectual Property Law
The intersection of law and technology has always been rife with legal dilemmas. New laws often come on the heels of new technology. This course introduces one of today’s flashpoints for this difficult relationship: the law of intellectual property. Digital technology makes it easier to create interactive media but perhaps also easier to violate copyright and trademark laws in the process. This course will examine intellectual property law for creative content producers, and address both practical considerations and public policy concerns.
COM 662: Multimedia Storytelling
Analysis of the effective use of online tools to tell stories in journalism, documentary, corporate and marketing applications that is then applied through interactive creations such as websites. More importantly, students experiment with diverse ways of using text, graphics, photos, sound and video to effectively transmit information and to interact with users.
COM 663: Virtual/3D Environments
A study of three-dimensional online environments, massively multiplayer online games and the phenomenon of real-time, online interaction. By examining emerging virtual worlds, students will explore how such realms and the accompanying toolsets can be leveraged in a communications capacity, whether to create an online political presence, disseminate news, or to be a virtual forum for marketing and commerce.
COM 664: Public Opinion Through New Media
With the advent of virtual communities, smart mobs, and online social networks, old questions about the meaning of human social behavior have taken on renewed significance. Although this course is grounded in theory, it is equally rooted in practice, and much of the class discussion takes place in social cyberspaces. This course requires active participation of students and a willingness to immerse in social media practices-mailing lists, web forums, blogs, wikis, chat, instant messaging, virtual worlds- for a part of every weekday during the semester.
COM 665: Visual Aesthetics
Principles and practices associated with design as both a physical manifestation of an artistic idea and a practical expression for communicating messages through images, icons and other elements that form the information architecture common to interactive media. Students analyze the aesthetics of artistic expression and further existing interface design skills.
COM 666: Interactive Media Management and Economics
Forms of interactivity are changing economic models for media companies, corporations, and non-profit organizations seeking to communicate with desired audiences. In turn, this changing economic model influences management strategies for interactive media initiatives. In this course, students will survey economic analyses of the media and advertising industries in market economies, using that information to understand media performance.
COM 667: Application Development
This class focuses on the creation of hybrid applications for tablets, smartphones and other popular mobile devices, building on previous experience using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Students in this course will create apps using various mobile frameworks, including Cordova, Ionic, Meteor, and learn how to use templates, CSS libraries, customized JavaScript libraries, APIs, and prototypes.
COM 670: Interactive Project for the Public Good
Students work in a team environment to create an interactive media project for the public good. In teams, they travel for approximately a week to a site to gather content through interviews, photos, audio and video needed for the project. They then return to campus to organize this content into a project that will become accessible to the public at large. Students develop, design and deploy original interactive projects in a deadline-driven setting. (This course may includes a domestic or international fly-in component.)
COM 671: Pro Seminar
This is a non-credit course designed as a general discussion session for interactive media students. It focuses on issues surrounding the program and also includes preparation sessions for the January fly ins (COM 670), discussions with media professionals and former iMedia students, sessions with staff member from Elon’s Student Professional Development Center, and instruction and writing preparation for the capstone proposal.
COM 672: Analytics and Search Engine Optimization
This course develops the ability to use content types, content quality and presentation strategically to engage audiences in online and mobile media.
COM 673: Data Mining and Visualization
This course develops the ability to find, clean, and manipulate data and then to create easy-to-understand visualizations of it that may then be used to by media organizations, businesses, governments or nonprofits.
COM 674: Digital Brand Communication
This course examines new media communication tools and how to communicate about brands successfully in the digital realm. The course covers such topics as sponsored search, advertising on blogs, advertising networks for websites, Twitter/Pinterest as branding tools, advertising and branding in the mobile space, social media, and web analytics. Students will gain an understanding of the new media landscape and develop some basic skills in digital brand communications.
COM 675: Game Design and Development
This course introduces students to the process of designing, prototyping, and developing games. Students will understand how games are designed through explorations of game theory and best practices, learn how to prototype games using both lowfidelity and highfidelity methods, and program games using industry standards for various output devices including mobile, desktop, and console environments.
COM 680: Contemporary Media Issues
Focuses on the historical and contemporary state of personal and public interaction with popular media, within the context of technological developments and their impact on society and culture. Students study journal articles, survey the research literature, and write papers on the historical trajectory of information consumption from the emergence of mass-produced paper-based texts to the development of the World Wide Web. Students should use this course to evaluate the current ethical, political, and economic controversies that will be a part of their daily lives upon entering media professions.
COM 681: Professional Apprenticeship
An off-campus, professionally supervised apprenticeship that allows students to work in a professional setting where they use their interactive skills as if the student were an employee in the corporate or nonprofit world. Students secure an internship with guidance from the graduate program director and coordinator of interactive outreach. Apprenticeships are three- hour courses, which means students work a minimum of 240 hours on site. Students enrolled in the apprenticeship work closely with the graduate program director on campus and with a site supervisor who is employed by the apprenticeship organization.
COM 691: Special Topics in Interactivity
Because of the fast-changing world of interactivity, special topics may arise periodically that warrant a special course for students. Special topics classes will be added to the curriculum in such cases as electives.
COM 695: Interactive Media Capstone
Students complete a capstone interactive media project accompanied by an explanatory paper. The master’s capstone project requires students to create an original, fully functional presentation for news, entertainment, informational services or strategic communications.