Recent Trends in Communication Curricula (CC)
Many Departments of Communication seek to harness technology for appropriate use in communication and help prospect communicators become comfortable with digital media. We can practically identify many recent trends concerning academic efforts to adopt communication curricula to the new communication technologies. These include:
A. New Courses:
The Faculty of Communications of the University of Western Ontario opted for a special course simply called: Multimedia. The course description states that “students will be expected to learn software systems that incorporate text, graphics, still an full-motion video as well as journalistic techniques such as writing and research with the end objective to produce a multimedia presentation.” (10) The Graduate School of Media and Governance of Keio University in Japan offers a new course called Cyber-Gaming. The topics of the course include: Cyberspace, Virtual Community, Cybercafe, Cyburban Gaming, Multimedia and Edutainment, Media and Game Culture, Design of Gaming Space, Academic Association on Network, etc. The course description recognizes that it is difficult to define the meaning of a game, but such game is said to be characterized by the words like a rule, player, strategy, spade, score, punishment, fiction, fantasy, play, competition, discovery, and surprise. (11) The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication at Arizona State University offers a graduate course on multimedia called: Cable Television and Telecommunication Systems. The rest of the program still subscribes to the main stream of journalism education with such courses as Communication Theories and Process, News Writing and Reporting, Public Relations Techniques, Mass Media and Society, Political Communication, International Communication, etc. (12) | The Department of Journalism of the University of North Texas offers a classical course called Microcomputer Applications in Journalism . The course content includes “on-line data applications for reporting, advertising, public relations and publications. Journalistic applications of project management, telecommunications and database publishing.” (13) The Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Southern California offers a variety of courses on multimedia both at the undergraduate and the graduate levels. These courses include Introduction to Communication Technology, Communication in the Virtual Group, The Culture of
the New Media, Information Management, Social Dynamic of Communication Technologies, Virtual Groups and Organizations, The Arts and New Media, Communication Law and New Technologies, Communication Technologies, Telephone-Data-Video Telecommunication System, etc. The content of these courses involves impact of these new communication technologies (cultural, social, political, and economic), issues and implications of these technologies, the basics or principles of multimedia and the technological concepts of multimedia. The content also involves the legal dimension of multimedia including computer regulations. The courses in questions put special emphasis on multimedia effects on society and culture. This concern, which dominated communication research of mass media, has now been transferred to the multimedia. Although research on such effects and the methods to be used for such research are relatively new, the direction of such process of inquiry is in our view encouraging and put the multimedia in line with mass communication perspective. The courses also address the basic issues of multimedia such communication processes, information maintenance, privacy and access, artificial intelligence, virtual communities, virtual reality, etc. The technical dimension of these courses embraces both basics of multimedia as computer communication networks , audio and video interactive technologies, etc. and the technological concepts such as frequency, electricity modulation, digital conversion, video telecommunication system, etc. The Columbia School of Journalism offers Basic New Media, Advanced New Media and Exploring New Media. The courses explore the conceptual background of the new media and provide “hands-on experience with the tools that create digital multimedia titles.” This experience includes “digital image editing, World Wide Web site creation, and interactive site design.” The courses also provide ways to explain complex social issues using advanced new media tools: “animation, guided chats, reader-customized stories, and interactive 3D.” Students learn how to produce their own web pages explaining issues of their own choosing. (14)
B. New Curricula:
The School of Design and Media (UK) offers a Master Degree in Hypermedia Studies. The program is designed to incorporate the hypermedia philosophy in all its dimension. The theory modules involve the history of convergence, contemporary debates in hypermedia and digital artisanship. The practical modules include interactive media design, virtual communities and specialist training in advanced hypermedia design skills for the Net, CD-roms, 3D modeling and virtual spaces. (15)
C. Centers for Multimedia: Center for the New Media, Columbia University:
The Center for the Media of Columbia University offers New Media Workshop where students “learn to report and create stories using multimedia tools and techniques.” The Center also offers Exploring New Media. This course provides students with “a conceptual map of the new media landscape.” Students review the latest technological trends and demonstrations as well as the cultural and commercial impact of new media. This process is conducted through a series of special guest visits, lectures and demonstrations. Furthermore, students are expected to view new media as a BEAT and “develop a sense of the scope, depth and limits of news coverage of new media technology, as well as the prospects for the future of new media.” (16)
Hypermedia Research Center:
The School of Design and Media in UK established the Hypermedia Research Center. The Center has been carrying out theoretical and practical work into digital technologies. (17)
D. Multimedia Laboratory:
The Center for the New Media of Columbia University established a News Laboratory which facilities collaboration among various components of the new media industry. Students come from different disciplines: Journalism, Engineering, Computer Science, Business, International and Public Affairs, and Education. In the Laboratory, they all work to develop and test new media applications for journalism and storytelling and also see what the next generation of newsroom technology is likely to be and how it is likely to affect the way they work. Students from other fields work on applications appropriate to their related field of study (e.g., a student in business may develop a business plan for a content-based search engine for the World Wide Web).(18)
E. Joint Venture:
Most recently, the Journalism School at Missouri entered a long range partnership in media technology with the International Business Machines Corp. and gained more that $2 million in the Latest IBM computers and related hardware and software. In the wake of this new effort, the school has established the National Institute on Computer Assisted Reporting. (19)
F. Communication Classes on the Websites:
The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point offers communication classes of the WWW both On-Campus and Off-Campus. These courses include Film Hisoty (1940-Present), Global Communication and the Information Age, Interpersonal Communication on the Internet, Technology and Leadership, Desk Top Publishing, and Creative Problem Solving. (20)
G. Academic Communication Sites on the Internet:
Most Schools of Communication around the globe have established extensive presence on the Internet. Most of these are US schools, but there are others from Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. These Websites provide a healthy amount of educational resources for students and lecturers. The recent survey by the Institute For Learning Technologies (ILT) of Columbia shows that most colleges in the US already are connected to the Internet. Although most of the information that a WWW site provides already exist in published form, WWW still is another source of information through which an institution may contact potential contributors, prospective students, new faculty, etc. The survey found few academic institution use hypermedia qualities that are the basics of multimedia technology such as photos, mail-to feature, clickable maps, and online applications. (21) Academic communications sites around the world consist of major US
schools/colleges/departments of communication such as the reputed Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University, Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University, the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California at Berkeley, School of Journalism of the University of Missouri, The Annenberg School of Communication of the University of Southern California, etc. The sites also include institutions outside the US such as the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of Western Ontario in Canada, the Graduate School of Media and Governance of Keio University in Japan, the Center for Media Resource in Hong Kong, etc. (22)
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