MA COURSE DESCRIPTION
COMS 600 DISSERTATION
Course description
Students will be required to undertake a scientific research on a specific and relevant issue of policy and/or practice within or affecting the media and communication industry or professionals. The dissertation topic and study which would be approved and written under supervision must make a critical conceptual, empirical, and/or practical contribution to knowledge in the field. The dissertation report must detail the problem, theoretical lens, existing knowledge on the issues explored as well as the methodological procedures followed in gathering and analysing the evidence.
COMS 601 COMMUNICATION THEORIES AND MODELS
Course Description
The course is intended to offer a broad overview of a core of theories related to communicative behaviour. Empirical research in media and communication, including the development of theories, will be used to explain and address the process of communication and current issues related to it. Topics to be treated in the course will cover, among others, communication effects theories and models, audience behaviour theories and models, and mass communication and social change.
COMS 602 DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION
Course description
The course analyses the relationship between communication and development particularly within the African context and reviews the historical development of the concept “development,” its principal characteristics and theories and approaches used to conceptualise, design and implement communication support programmes for development. Topics include modernisation and diffusion paradigms, alternative approaches (including globalisation and systems theory and participatory approach), designing and implementing communication strategies, and monitoring and evaluation of development communication interventions.
COMS 603 COMMUNICATION RESEARCH METHODS
Course Description
The course focuses on the key principles of scientific media and communication research. Students are introduced to the philosophy, logic and rules of empirical research with a view to enabling them to conceptualise and plan for research project implementation. Course content is focused on both macro-level considerations for conducting social science research, as well as corresponding tactical methodological issues. Topics include social science research philosophy and methodological approaches, research design, sampling, data collection, instrument development and methods options (survey, content analysis, in-depth interviews, ethnography, discourse analysis etc.).
COMS 604 DATA ANALYSIS
Course description
Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches have time-honoured procedures and rules of analysing and making sense of data. In this course, the tenets that define activities in the post-data collection phase of communication research will be explored. Students will learn to clean and prepare data for analysis and use relevant software and processes to draw conclusions from data. Topics include quantitative data coding and entry, descriptive univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis, basic inferential tools for testing hypotheses, data transcription and coding, memoing, creation of thematic categories and triangulation.
COMS 606: COMMUNICATION ETHICS AND LAW
Course description
The course explores ethical and legal dimensions of media and communication practice. It will also focus on the ethical and legal responsibilities of communication practitioners such as journalists, public relations, and advertising practitioners. Topics include theoretical foundations of ethics, models and stages of ethical decision-making, defamation, libel, laws on protection of sources, copyright, and ethical dilemmas in communication professional practice.
COMS 607 STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
This course explores the field of strategic communication to help students understand the sub disciplines in it and the principles that guide practitioners’ work. It examines different strategic communication approaches and tools and their place in helping organisations develop, manage and maintain relationships with their targets and stakeholders. Topics include the meaning and purpose of strategic communication, strategic communication tools and activities, mapping organisational audiences, considerations for designing strategic communication activities and ethical issues in strategic communication.
COMS 608 PRINT JOURNALISM
Course Description
This course introduces students to the basics of journalism theory and practice. It is designed to provide students a conceptual framework for defining news and understanding how it is covered. It also places emphasis on the techniques of gathering information and writing for print media such as newspapers and magazines. An important aspect of the course are the practical writing exercises which enable students have hands-on experience in writing, blogging and producing a newspaper. Topics include news judgement, news gathering, interviewing skills and writing the story.
COMS 609 GRAPHICS OF COMMUNICATION
Course Description
This course is designed to enable students to understand the principles of graphics and to demonstrate hands-on knowledge of their application in creating media products. It is oriented towards enhancing students’ ability to use visual elements such as images and infographics to tell stories in their own. It lays emphasis on solving visual problems through ideas and provides introductory guidance in implementing those ideas in a professional fashion. Topics include page design development, infographics, packaging information design and thumbnails for video sharing sites (e.g. YouTube).
COMS 611 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Course description
This course introduces students to the field of international communication, its history, theory and literature, and is designed to develop in students an understanding and critical appraisal of international communication subjects from diverse theoretical perspectives. Topics to be covered in the course include comparative media systems, theories of flow of international communication, globalisation and the information society, cultural hegemony, cultural appropriation, intercultural communication, global activism and global citizenship.
COMS 612 BROADCAST JOURNALISM
Course Description
This course is designed to introduce students to professional broadcast news writing and reporting. Students are taken through the principles and techniques of broadcast journalism as well as skills in broadcast content production. It examines key characteristics of the broadcast medium that differentiates it from other media of mass communication and discusses how these characteristics determine its style and language. Topics include sound and visual elements as key to broadcast journalism content, news gathering and writing, and editing sound and visual content.
COMS 613 COMMUNICATION AND PUBLIC OPINION
This course is designed to establish the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of public opinion as a form of communication. It explores the processes of opinion polling as a means of gathering information from organisational targets and stakeholders that enable effective decisions and actions. Topics to be covered in the course include the nature, formation, and ramifications of public opinion, implications of public opinions for organisations including commercial businesses, political parties, social enterprises etc. and the methodology, principles, and protocols of polling to support journalism and other communication practices/disciplines.
COMS 614 PUBLIC RELATIONS
Course Description
This course is designed to expose students to the field and practice of public relations (PR) by examining its evolution and principles, and their applications to solving organisational problems. It discusses PR roles and functions and challenges, opportunities and possibilities that attend them. Students will also learn to think critically about ethics and legal implications of some PR practices and gain experience through hands-on experimentation with public relations programme planning, implementation and evaluation. Topics include definitions, roles and functions of PR, PR theories, PR programme planning, Issues and crisis management, corporate image management and corporate social responsibility.
COMS 615: POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND PERSUATION
Course description
In this course, the practice of politics is viewed broadly as a communicative and mediated set of events practiced by different stakeholders within the political sphere. The course examines how stakeholders in politics – political actors, the media and the public – interact and co-influence the distribution of political power. Topics to be addressed include political campaign strategies and tactics, channels of political communication, public speaking, political campaigning and political advertising.
COMS 616 ADVERTISING
Course description
The course is practical and oriented towards providing hands-on skills for advertising execution and management. It explores advertising as both a professional field and explores the parties involved in it and their roles. Students learn the practical routines of advertising practice and apply them to plan and execute advertising campaigns. Topics include definition and functions of advertising, advertising agency structure and function, advertising briefs, task analysis and definition, objectives, audience definition, creative strategy, message development and production, media planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, and ethics in advertising.
COMS 617: MEDIA AND INFORMATION LITERACY
Course description
This course is designed to facilitate students’ understanding of critical issues and approaches to the production, accessing, use, evaluation and sharing of media and information. It explores the goals and methods of various media industries, as well as the effects of media on individuals and society. Topics include understanding the media and information ecology; understanding media as industry; understanding media audiences; protocols for accessing, evaluating and using media and information; protocols for the ethical creation and sharing of media and information; cyber safety and bullying; misinformation.
COMS 618: DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
Course description
This course examines the strategic adoption, use and implications of digital technologies/media by media and communication professionals. Students will also learn about how new media are redefining protocols for ethical communication. Topics include Trends in digital communications, digital media tools and applications, online communication planning and execution, search engine optimisation and engaging online communities.
COMS 620 SEMINAR
The seminar provides a platform for discussions on student research/projects, and an opportunity to interact with communication/media professionals on their experiences, and reflections on trends in media and communication policy and practice. Interactions with professionals are geared towards helping students acquaint themselves with industry trends and also to develop their research ideas. Seminar is also a forum for conducting internal assessments of student research competencies, progress, and generally facilitating their acquisition of strong research skills.
COMS 622 MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Course description
As a distinct field in management, the media management course is designed to develop students’ knowledge and understanding of the principles and practices of management. The course focuses on the management functions, practices and management structure of news media organisation including patterns and models of ownership, financing, human resource management, programme decision-making, market analysis, production and distribution, and regulatory framework media regulation. Topics include theoretical approaches to media management, economics of media and media firms and environmental factors shaping strategy and performance.
COMS 624 GENDER AND COMMUNICATION
This seminar-styled course is designed to help students understand the ways in which gender and its intersections with race, ethnicity and class, are enacted, represented and contested in communication. The foundations of the course will be laid with an understanding of the social constructions of gender and attendant privileges and inequalities, especially but not exclusively, within the African context. It explores covert and overt ways through which power is produced, perpetuated, and contested through various communication contexts, particularly in the media. Topics include definitions of gender, gender theories and historical discourses, and current issues and practices of gender in communication.
COMS 626 HEALTH COMMUNICATION
This course provides students with an overview of theory and practice in communication and behaviour change inhealth programmes, and critically examines the different steps in designing communication interventions that drive positive health outcomes. The topics to be covered include behaviour change models, formative research,designing a health communication plan as well as the management, monitoring and evaluation of health communication interventions.
COMS 628 MASS MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY
Course description
This course takes a critical look at how the media interrelates with society by focusing on the history, content, economics, and effects of the media. It will also explore how evolutions in media technology are shaping social interactions and their consequences. Topics to be treated include: definitions and concepts on multi-cultural communication, media and socialisation, media evolution in Africa and Ghana, media and technology, the economics of media, media representational practices, and media’s intersections with conflict, gender and religion.
COMS 632: POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COMMUNICATION
Classical approaches to theorising communication and media systems have tended to derive from the structural functionalist analysis perspective. This course challenges this dominant approach by examining the contemporary institutional and power relations that intervene in the generation, consumption and distribution of media products. In addition to scope and methods of the theory of political economy of communication, topics to be covered include political economy of the internet and digital journalism, media ownership, profit imperatives and the role and influence of advertising and public relations, and the implications of ideology and policy on the media and communication industry.
COMS 640 INTERNSHIP
The internship is designed to give students the opportunity for hands-on experience in industry. Internships span two months during which students are being embedded within media/communication organisations or units and learn the daily routines of various communication roles as well as the considerations that guide their choices and actions. At the end of the internship, a standard report is submitted by the host institution or organisation, assessing the performance of the intern, and making recommendations that might inform future teaching orientations. Each student will also be required to submit a written report on their internship experience.
COMS 650 PROJECT
A project may take any form depending on a student’s interest and/or area of concentration and must contribute to the field of journalism in a practical way while at the same time be informed by sound research. The project can take the form of a professional creative product such as a well-researched radio or video documentary, a themed magazine or newspaper article series, an investigative article series, photo essays, a personally designed and created news website, video portraits or practical guides/handbooks for working with media professionals. The project must have substance, be innovative and be of professional quality.