Major Requirements

All SJMC majors must complete the Requirements for SJMC Majors. In addition, Magazine and Brand Media majors must complete the courses outlined below.

Required Magazine and Brand Media Courses

• JMC 057 Intro to Video Production - Introduction to planning and producing video segments and programs, for television and digital distribution. This course will provide students the technical background to integrate production elements into other SJMC classes and serve as a prerequisite for the more advanced digital media production courses. Pre-req: JMC 031
• JMC 058 Foundations of Visual Communication - Survey of visual communications, including basic page/screen design, type and typography, color, illustrations, and concepts. Each topic is approached both analytically and aesthetically. Laptop required (minimum: i3 processor, 4 gigs of ram, 200 gigs of free storage space, Wireless N.) subscription to the Creative Suite. Pre-req: JMC 031
• JMC 070 Media Editing – Editing for newspapers, magazines and websites. Heavy emphasis on grammar, usage and Associated Press style. Also includes editing for accuracy, organization, structure, clarity, cultural sensitivity and fairness; headline and cutline writing; coaching writers; and law and ethics. Pre-req: JMC 054
• JMC 119 Brand Media Planning – Overview of the magazine industry includes its history, ethics, and social influence, including racial, ethnic and other demographic shifts; market considerations such as advertising, audience research, circulation, marketing, and ancillary revenue; and editorial philosophies and formulas, design principles, and production. Students put concepts to practical use in detailed business plan, including 5-year budget and 18-page prototype for a magazine they create. Pre-reqs: JMC 054.
  
• Advanced Digital Skills Class, Pick One
  • JMC 105 OR JMC 195
  • JMC 105 Web Content and Development – Introduces students to the basics of designing pages for the web. Students will learn to write HTML and CSS. They will create a website using a content management system (WordPress). Topics explored include search engine optimization, social media, web analytics, and current trends in digital media. 
  • JMC 195 App Design and Development - This interdisciplinary, team-taught course focuses on the strategic design and development of mobile applications for Android devices. Integrating students from journalism, graphic design and computer science, this course is designed to promote collaborative learning and to simulate a professional environment. You will become versed in the application ecosystem, user experience design, and audience development through firsthand experience in short exercises and more extensive projects while also honing your communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Upper Division Writing Electives (Pick 3 Courses) Prereq: JMC 054
  • JMC 103, JMC 120, JMC 161, JMC 168, JMC 173
  • JMC 103 Public Affairs Reporting - Advanced course in news reporting and writing focused on government agencies and other institutions that involve public life. Emphasis on textual and audio storytelling, with frequent practice writing and producing for the immediacy of web and mobile as well as with writing and producing with depth, context and perspective. Exposure to advanced reporting and writing techniques, including public records and databases; basic principles of audio storytelling; operation of audio equipment and editing software; technical and artistic fundamentals of gathering and editing audio; and preparation of packaged stories for web publication. Discussions of ethical, legal and other important current issues of the news media and society. Pre-requisites: JMC 070, 098 Must be a junior. 
  • JMC 120 Magazine Freelance Writing – Article writing for specifically targeted media outlets, from print magazines to consumer websites. Includes intensive editing of student work in and outside of class; critiques and analyses of professional work; and strategies on targeting and pitching of potential outlets. Students research, write and rewrite multiple pieces, from profiles to features, essays to reviews. Pre-req: JMC 63, 91.
  • JMC 161 Advanced Magazine Staff Writing - Professional approach to writing as part of a magazine staff includes story pitches, interviewing, research, writing, peer editing, rewriting, fact-checking, proofreading. Students identify an audience and develop an editorial philosophy and formula to serve that audience. Article writing includes briefs, blogging, profile, travel, features and multimedia production. Prereq: JMC 054
  • JMC 168 Advanced Reporting - This is an intensive, hands-on, real-world reporting and writing course that will nudge you off Tik Tok and beef up the basic skills you learned in JMC 054. The point here isn’t teaching but learning. That means you’ll learn by doing, by making mistakes, by considering new ideas, by exchanging feedback with your classmates and instructor and, above all, by being curious. Sometimes the room will feel more like a newsroom, where the instructor plays the part of an assignment editor and the students will stand in for reporters. Expectations will rise as the semester proceeds, so let’s get busy. 
  • JMC 173 Reporting for TV and the Web - This course focuses on reporting public affairs, particularly governmental, for news programs sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Prerequisite: JMC 063 or JMC 100.
• JMC 172 Journalism Capstone – Senior journalism capstone in which Magazine Media, News and Digital Media Production students collaborate as a professional staff to produce a web publication, including all editorial, multimedia, design, production, marketing, promotion and distribution activities. Pre-req: JMC 040, 055, 070, 2 Adv, Writing Electives; senior status.
• JMC electives – up to 5 credits

See the Forms page for downloadable checksheets.