Digital Journalism
The Bachelor of Arts degree in Digital Journalism is an interdisciplinary, rigorous, 12-course program designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to thrive in the quickly changing media landscape. The curriculum offers a solid foundation by training students in news writing, multimedia production, data-driven storytelling, and ethics. The extended list of electives allows students to customize their pathways for their pursuit of journalistic storytelling – feature writing, sports writing, podcasting, broadcast journalism, etc. The skill sets students will gain from the program will prepare them for professional careers in print and online journalism, broadcast journalism, technical writing, freelance writing, public relations, social media, marketing, law, and other fields.
By completing a major in Digital Journalism, students will be able to:
- Demonstrate their ability to identify bias or misinformation and synthesize information from varied sources, including research, interviews, eyewitness accounts, analyze its veracity and usefulness; and build it into stories to help their audience understand an issue.
- Gain skills in using industry-standard journalism tools and software for content creation and data analysis.
- Understand the ethical responsibilities of a journalist, including accuracy, fairness, and impartiality, as well as media-related legal framework, including those pertaining to freedom of the press, libel, and privacy.
- Describe how the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and experience they develop in the program can be used in non-journalism settings such as law, public relations and marketing, and a variety of writing careers.
- Demonstrate their ability to write and communicate clearly across multiple platforms.
- Adapt to emerging technologies and media trends by integrating new tools and platforms into journalistic practice.
The curriculum is accompanied by a vibrant student media scene on campus consisting of the Fairfield Mirror and WVOF. Students may start the Digital Journalism sequence as early as their first year and are encouraged to join the student press as early as possible.
DJOU 1860 News Media and Society 3 Credits
In this course, we will explore “news” as a social artifact, and the news media as social institutions from historical and international perspectives. We will study both professional news stories and scholarly research on the news media to understand how the news media defines and molds political and social conversations and trends, and how the make-up of society and the newsroom itself can feed into the process of news production. We will also examine how news production, with ever-progressing media technologies, interacts with other social institutions to maintain or harm the ideal of a democratic society.
DJOU 1870 News Writing I 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1001.
This introductory course emphasizes the techniques used by reporters to collect information and write stories for newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and broadcast outlets. Students learn to gather information, interview sources, write leads, structure a story, and work with editors. Students analyze how different news organizations package information, hear from guest speakers, and visit working journalists in the field. Students develop a higher level of media literacy and learn to deal with the news media in their careers. Previously ENGL 1870.
DJOU 1872 Introduction to Sports Writing 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1001.
Sports writing is one of the things keeping local media alive. For every story on ESPN.com or The Athletic that one sees about a professional sports contest, there were likely thousands published on smaller platforms about local high school football, small Division I basketball, or even middle school soccer. In this course, students will learn the basics for covering sports primarily for sports websites and local and regional newspapers. They will also study the evolution of the daily sports reporter, from how it originated in the 1900s to how and why it has changed significantly in the last decade alone. Previously ENGL 1872.
DJOU 2370 News Writing II: Digital Design 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1870.
The journalism world is in the middle of a transformation in the way stories are conceptualized, generated and communicated. Digital Journalism will help students discover how to take advantage of the multimedia possibilities in this new world of online story telling. This intermediate writing and multimedia course will allow students to build more complex and engaging story packages, taking advantages of new computer tools like the Adobe Creative Suite. It also will introduce students to the literature of publication design and help them develop an appreciation of the contributions that various world cultures have made to communication and design aesthetics. Previously ENGL 2382.
DJOU 2380 Journalism Editing and Design 3 Credits
Editing skills are in high demand in today's journalism job market both for traditional and online sources of information. This intermediate level course emphasizes conciseness, precision, accuracy, style, and balance in writing and editing. The course includes researching and fact-checking, basic layout and design, headline and caption writing, and online editing. Previously ENGL 2380.
DJOU 2382 The Power of Podcasting 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1001.
This course focuses on the power of the heard word, of audio storytelling. In this course, we will listen to the best podcasts available, and study them to find out what makes them so effective. We'll try to understand why we care so much about the people in the stories that are told, and then we will attempt to do our own audio storytelling. By the end of the semester, we will have created our very own multi-episode podcast that aims to do the same things that "This American Life," "Radio Lab," "Serial," and others do: hook listeners. Previously ENGL 2382.
DJOU 2384 Media Law and Ethics 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): DJOU 1870.
This course is an introduction to news media related law, policy, and ethical issues. It surveys how the U.S. constitutional law impacts media practices from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Some key topics include the First Amendment, privacy, intellectual property, commercial speech, privacy, and open access. The course also examines how traditional journalistic ethics (fairness, objectivity, responsibility, and credibility) intersect, or don't intersect, with the law. Students will discuss new legislative and ethical issues raised by technological innovations and socioeconomic shifts. Previously ENGL 2384.
DJOU 3320 Writing the Feature Story 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1870.
Students learn how to generate and develop feature story ideas, including human-interest stories, backgrounders, trend stories, personality profiles and other softer news approaches for use by newspapers, magazines, and web sites. The course stresses story-telling techniques and use of alternative leads. Interviewing, web research and rewriting techniques are stressed. Previously ENGL 3320.
DJOU 3330 Big Data Storytelling 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1870.
This intermediate course synthesizes cutting-edge big data technologies and traditional news writing and aims to produce compelling stories by mining the enormous public data provided by government and non-profit organizations. Other than overviewing the construct of big data, its origin, and social impact, the course offers hands-on training on using intuitive tools to produce engaging data-driven stories. Students will walk through the entire production process: data access, retrieval, cleaning, analysis, and visualization. Principles of information visualization and interface design will be applied throughout the course, accompanied by in-depth discussions on legal and ethical challenges facing big data story telling. Previously ENGL 3330.
DJOU 3340 Photojournalism 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1870.
Photography is derived from the Greek words for light and writing. Just as a journalist masters the art of words, a photographer masters the art of writing with light. A photographer tells a story with a single image, or multiple images, which impact the readers with a wide variety of human emotions. This course is about reporting with a camera, the visual aspect of journalism. Some technical aspects will be covered, but the majority will be hands-on assignments that are typical of newspapers, magazines, and web sites. There is substantial reading on photojournalism, plus a variety of writing assignments. Previously ENGL 3340.
DJOU 3350 Issues in News Writing 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1870.
This intermediate course will focus on a different dimension of news writing each semester. Guest speakers will help students develop an ethical decision-making approach to journalism and deepen their understanding of the role of the press as a government watchdog. Students may take this course twice under different topics. Previously ENGL 3350.
DJOU 3370 Sports Journalism 3 Credits
This course instructs students in the skills necessary to be a member of the ever-growing field of sports media, while simultaneously examining how early 1900s sports writing grabbed a foothold in the American public's consciousness and eventually paved the path to today's Golden Age of sports journalism. Students will learn to cover a wide variety of sports, and will report and write everything from game stories to opinion pieces to in-depth, multimedia feature stories focused on the sporting world. Previously ENGL 3370.
DJOU 4951 Journalism Practicum 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1870, junior standing, one semester on Mirror.
Students apply the material learned in class by working as a reporter, photographer or editor with the campus newspaper, The Mirror. The course is designed for Mirror editors or students with equivalent experience. Previously ENGL 4951.