Journalism Courses

Description: This course introduces students to a scholarly critique of journalism, both as a practice and as an institution. By interrogating specific readings, students are encouraged to consider the journalist as a cultural producer operating within overlapping social, political and economic contexts.

Component(s): Lecture

Description: This course introduces students to research methods with a focus on primary sources, such as official documents, legal and financial records, access to information requests, electronic databases, as well as in-depth interviews. These methods are treated as both sources of story ideas and as essential elements of good reporting.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This is a comprehensive lecture/laboratory course which lays the foundations for the writing and reporting demands of journalism. Students are introduced to the salient features of print and digital formats, and receive assignments in information-gathering and writing both in class and in the field.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This workshop course lays the foundation for the visual aspects of journalistic story-telling. Working with digital, single-lens reflex cameras, students acquire fundamental skills for the practice of visual journalism, becoming familiar with a variety of aesthetic, technical, ethical and theoretical concerns involved in the visual production of meaning.

Component(s): Workshop

Prerequisite/Corequisite: The following course must be completed previously: JOUR 502.

Description: This course is intended to consolidate the reporting and writing skills learned during the summer. Through lectures and laboratory work, students expand their knowledge of information-gathering and writing techniques, including short deadline news reporting and feature writing.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This workshop offers students the opportunity to perfect their reporting and writing skills and to undertake long form writing projects, ranging from beat reporting to magazine writing.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This workshop course introduces students to the fundamental concepts of editing news photographs. Working with actual news photographs and editing software, students learn to weigh aesthetic and technical considerations with the ethical and theoretical aspects involved in the visual production of meaning.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: The project is to be a comprehensive study and report on some area of modern media practice, or on the interaction of media and society. The subject and method must be approved in advance by the instructor of the course.

Component(s): Tutorial

Prerequisite/Corequisite:

The following course must be completed previously: JOUR 501.

Description: This course offers lectures and workshops in web editing and page design. Specific focus is given to design features related to journalism production and news platforms.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This course is an introduction to the use of technology across audio and visual news platforms, including audio, visual and digital equipment and software. Students learn the necessary professional, technical and aesthetic skills to produce editorially sound audio and visual stories.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This course examines the journalist’s responsibility in terms of both ethics and the law. It introduces students to a representative cross-section of ethical theories and codes and takes an intensive look at the most common legal issues affecting the practice of journalism.

Component(s): Lecture

Description: This workshop introduces students to the dynamic and aural elements of visual story-telling in the context of multi-platform journalism. Students acquire technical skills of video and sound capture through instruction that brings to bear aesthetic, ethical and theoretical considerations.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This workshop course covers a range of journalistic topics – hard news, general news, features, arts, sports – to emphasize the thematic particularities of visual story-telling. The course requires students to consider and incorporate the narrative and representative dimensions of visual journalism through a variety of assignments.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This workshop course introduces students to lighting techniques for both still photography and video story-telling. Students learn to weigh technical and aesthetic aspects of lighting with the ethical and theoretical dimensions involved in the manipulation or alteration of the shooting environment.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This course requires students to produce the Department’s Digital Magazine. The course replicates the working conditions and journalistic experience of a digital newsroom. Students are expected to work in editorial teams to create current and update multimedia content throughout the term.

Component(s): Workshop

• Students who have received credit for this topic under a JOUR 525 number may not take this course for credit.

Description: This is a workshop course in which students function as reporters, writers, news readers and editors in order to learn the skills necessary to produce daily newscasts.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This advanced workshop course covers the decision-making process for news, magazine and online photography, treating photo editing as a collaborative element of visual journalism. Moving beyond aesthetic and technical aspects, it situates editing within the larger context of news production, such as collaborating with reporters, editors and photo editors in the story-telling process.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This workshop allows students to perfect their skills in long format public affairs broadcasting in sound and pictures. Students learn the fundamentals of documentary production including story developments and treatment, cinematographic style, interviewing, editing and presentation.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This advanced workshop course concentrates on the photo story, the editorial essay and the documentary essay. The course emphasizes pre-visualization, planning, logistics and realization as well as optimizing series for newspaper, magazine and online publications.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This course gives students the opportunity to perfect their skills in writing and reporting for video journalism and producing news and public affairs programming.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This advanced capstone workshop focuses on students creating professional portfolios, helping them create and establish their individual brands as professional visual journalists.

Component(s): Workshop

Description: This course examines the way journalism is practiced in a selected country or tradition. The focus of the course may change from year to year.

Component(s): Lecture

Description: Using digital cameras and technology, students perform a variety of exercises and assignments to help them master the techniques used in planning, taking, and laying out news photographs.

Component(s): Workshop

• Students who have received credit for this topic under a JOUR 525 number may not take this course for credit.

Description: This course  introduces students to a scholarly critique of journalism, both as a practice and as an institution. Students examine specific readings from an overlapping social, political and economic context to consider the role of journalists as cultural producers.

Component(s): Seminar

Description: This course considers journalism through its organization as a cultural industry and critically evaluates journalism’s economic structures and the impact those structures have on journalism practice. Topics may include media economics, free-market theory, media ownership, the role of the government and the role of organized labour.

Component(s): Seminar

Description: This course examines a variety of research methods commonly used in the production and study of journalism, from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Emphasis is placed on primary sources, access to information requests, and electronic databases with a goal of helping students develop their own research practice.

Component(s): Seminar

Description: This course offers lectures and workshops in digital innovation and web design, with a focus on design features related to journalism production and news platforms.

Component(s): Seminar; Conference

Prerequisite/Corequisite: The following course must be completed previously or concurrently: JOUR 601.

Description: This course examines journalism as a cross-cultural and global practice, addressing such issues as media representation, multiculturalism, globalization and international news flows.

Component(s): Seminar

Prerequisite/Corequisite:  The following course must be completed previously or concurrently: JOUR 601. If prerequisites are not satisfied, permission of the program director is required.

Description: This course examines the journalist’s responsibility in terms of both ethics and the law. It introduces students to a representative cross-section of ethical theories and codes and takes an intensive look at the most common legal issues affecting the practice of journalism.

Component(s): Seminar

Prerequisite/Corequisite:  The following course must be completed previously or concurrently: JOUR 601. If prerequisites are not satisfied, permission of the program director is required.

Description: The course is an experiential workshop that blends journalism theory and practice. Students function both as reporters, in order to learn the skills necessary to produce robust audio stories, and digital researchers tasked with examining diversity and media representation issues arising in class to explore journalism’s mediating function in society.

Component(s): Seminar

Prerequisite/Corequisite:  The following course must be completed previously or concurrently: JOUR 601.

Description: This course concentrates on journalism’s use of all forms of language, from written text to sounds and images. Drawing from the literature on linguistics, semiotics, textual and discourse analysis, students consider ways in which journalists, through their use of language to describe and depict people, events, institutions and ideas, become implicated in the news they report.

Component(s): Seminar

Description: This seminar permits the in-depth examination of particular special topics in digital innovation in journalism studies. Topics vary from year to year.

Component(s): Seminar; Conference

Prerequisite/Corequisite: Permission of the MA Program Director is required.

Description: Students may enrol in a directed study under faculty supervision in order to undertake a specialized study of theoretical or research-related topics.

Component(s): Tutorial

Prerequisite/Corequisite:  The following course must be completed previously: JOUR 601.

Description: In consultation with the faculty advisor, the student reviews relevant literature pertinent to the research topic and writes a thesis proposal demonstrating knowledge based upon the review of the scholarly literature.

Component(s): Tutorial

Prerequisite/Corequisite: The following course must be completed previously: JOUR 650.

Description: The thesis is researched and written under the direction of a supervisor. Upon completion, it is submitted to the student’s Thesis Committee. The thesis is defended in an oral examination before the Thesis Committee.

Component(s): Thesis Research

Prerequisite/Corequisite: The following course must be completed previously: JOUR 650.

Description: The Research-Creation Thesis is specifically designed for students with media production experience who wish to complete an original media production using a suitable media platform, complemented by a text of approximately 10,000 words comprising a literature and media review, a theoretical and methodological contextualization, and a critical reflection on the project and its outcomes.

Component(s): Thesis Research

Prerequisite/Corequisite: The following courses must be completed previously: JOUR 601; JOUR 604; JOUR 605.

Description: Students produce an essay on a research topic developed in consultation with a  faculty member that explores a specific issue relevant to journalism studies. The final essay must be evaluated by a second faculty member. The essay's length is approximately 40 pages, which does not include a bibliography. The course is normally taken in term five of the students' degree.

Component(s): Seminar