Media and Communication (GLMC1-CE)

This foundational course is designed to introduce students to critical practices of professional writing, focusing on professional documents across digital and traditional formats. Students will practice writing and editing common professional documents including emails, contracts, performance reviews, project proposals, and training documents. Focusing most deeply on writing mechanics, grammar, and the revision process, students will develop writing and editing skills, as well as the language to discuss writing and advocate for revisions. With an introduction to style and rhetoric techniques, students will also discuss corporate style guides and copyright responsibility issues.

In this course, students will continue to practice professional writing skills while developing communication leadership knowledge. Students will learn to evaluate, assess, and develop effective business writing in a variety of documents intended for internal and external audiences. In addition, students will build the knowledge, skills, and vocabulary to organize and participate in business meetings and negotiations, with an emphasis on collaborating internationally and reporting outcomes. Across a longer communication campaign activity, students will plan and draft strategic content with consideration for tracking and evaluating the impact of its publication. Students will work to evaluate and communicate a professional identity internally and externally, while reflecting on and practicing core business writing skills.

This course prepares students to write effective and engaging content across new and emerging communication technologies. Students learn to craft compelling narratives that match the tone and intentions of a company, brand, or communication campaign. Students will build understanding and skill in the type of storytelling that influences, informs, persuades, and convinces. This includes the appropriate use of storytelling and narrative elements in writing for digital media and promotional copy (such as advertising and public relations pieces), as well as traditional corporate documentation (such as annual reports, policy guides, and dynamic stakeholder presentations). In addition, attention is given to understanding the affordances and challenges of developing multimodal content that incorporate text with images, graphics, video, purposeful links, and other interactive elements. Students will consider content strategies aimed at leveraging social media platforms and maximizing audience engagement.

In this course, students learn to critically evaluate communication strategies with an emphasis on leveraging social media platforms and practices. Students will continue to build the knowledge, skills, and oral proficiency to organize and participate in global presentations, including developing outcomes reports, negotiations, and client pitches. Students will plan, draft, and pitch strategic content for social media and viral marketing campaigns. In addition to learning to track and evaluate the impact of published digital copy, students also will learn to match the selection of social/digital media channels with a target audience’s habits and expectations. Across this course, students will craft a range of digital writing samples that incorporate content strategies aimed at maximum customer/client online participation and engagement. They will compose multimodal content (text with images, graphics, video, and links) for social media and viral marketing campaigns to improve the effectiveness of their presentations.