Course List

This course introduces contemporary functional models of human communication, and proposes a Christian alternative perspective in which we are called to bless and serve society through a wide diversity of communicative forms. Guest speakers apply this perspective to a broad array of communications disciplines, and students use the model to critique communication exchanges varying from intimate interpersonal communication to mass media products.

This course will examine the global film industry as both an art form and a business. Students will experience selected motion picture production activities in order to enhance their appreciation of the industry. This class will include lectures on film, viewing and discussion of film and practical experience in motion picture production. As a final project each student will produce their own short video.

This is an applied writing course about news journalism in a variety of media, its function as business, art, and public service, and how the character of "The News" changes with new technology and social media. It examines what is included and excluded from "The News" and the impact of those choices on news consumers. Interviewing, journalistic ethics, liability, writing news stories and opinion pieces, and critical reflection on the role of "The News" in society will all be introduced. Media professionals in news-related careers will present. Students will contribute to the King's student newspaper.

This applied writing course introduces students to the technical aspects of the production of college student publications, including type composition, proof-reading, layout, and desktop publishing. Students will study newspaper format, design, and style, and will be introduced to the task of editing. The lab for the course involves membership on the staff of a student publication and either writing for the publication or participating in the technical production of the publication.

This course is an introductory exploration of the documentary genre, covering both the history and form of documentary film through of a survey of significant films and filmmakers, as well as initiating students in the basics of their own documentary projects. For much of its history, documentary has taken a back seat in pop culture behind fictional film and TV, and even though the last 25 years has seen a surge in interest, documentary can be described as insignificant to a large portion of modern audiences. Still, the adoption of many documentary characteristics by fictional genres, and the question of reality displayed in Reality TV and Alternative News, reminds us that documentary is at the forefront of all screen-based media, defined as "the creative treatment of actuality." The increasing accessibility of cameras and filmmaking technology also means that more and more people are creating screen-based media, and participating in an increasingly diverse and global conversation. This course seeks to explore questions around documentary film's relationship to truth-telling, the human voice, and the complications of filmmaker bias. Unsurprisingly, biblical themes overlap with this medium in significant ways, including bearing witness and speaking truth to power, and the course will articulate a Christian vision for engagement in documentary film, both as audience and as content creators. This course includes a lab component that will begin later in the term, in which students will learn basic tools of documentary production. They will produce and present an interview, a group short doc, an individual short doc, as well as pitch a treatment for an original feature length documentary film. In the spirit of the theme of the course, the instructor's bias transparently offered is that documentary film is perhaps the most interesting creative medium there is right now, and the hope is that students will discover the primacy of the documentary for our screen-saturated present.

An opportunity to do intensive study of a special topic or applied communications project of particular interest to the student. Students work closely with a Communication Arts, Drama, or Visual Art faculty member in tutorial meetings. For directed studies in communication, students must apply in advance to the cooperating faculty member, and propose a subject of study.