自資學士學位課程

The concept of social communication is used heuristically in both the programme and the course since a solid academic paradigm of social communication is yet to form. It aims to capture the blurring conceptual boundary between existing communication institutions as well as education due to rapid change in media technology and people’s media practices. This course is designed to navigate students to attend to changes and transformation of media-related social practices to develop students' understanding and critical appreciation of the distinctive features of new/digital media and how these relate to 'old' media. The module is attentive to the complex inter-relations between 'new' and the established or 'old' media. It locates digital media as the latest of several waves of technology-enabled communication systems. With the method of case study, students are expected to integrate what they have learnt in other major courses for critically analyzing the factors, conditions, dynamics and consequences of changing media practices. Concepts and theories in sociology, politics and cultural studies will be introduced in due course. And students are expected to be able to analyze issues in media and communication in the sociopolitical and cultural context, and also to argue how to respond to the changes.

The course aims at developing students’ knowledge and skills of graphic design in digital environment. With understanding of design elements and principles, students will develop execution skills in manipulation of graphics, imageries and typefaces in order to present messages in digital media. This visual presentation serves as a process of problem solving in media communication.

This course is designed to enhance students’ understanding of the causes, processes and consequences of globalization. Globalization has reshaped contemporary social lives around the world. This course explores relationships between globalization, power, and inequality; issues of development and poverty, conflicts and violence, social justice, and cultural diversity; and how these resonate with the on-going process of globalizing culture and communications. Students will also reflect on ethical responses to globalization and the possibilities of alternatives.

This course aims at introducing the theories, models, and approaches on communication in health and illness contexts. Focus will be put on how health beliefs and behaviours are influenced by messages delivered from interpersonal, organizational, cultural and media sources. Communication in health care delivery, health care organizations, as well as health promotion and disease prevention will be explored. This course will look into how health communication is practised and examined at an individual, family, professional, organizational and societal level through a variety of perspectives.

This course aims at providing an overview of integrated marketing communication principles and strategies. Students will be introduced to the steps in planning and implementing integrated marketing communication campaigns and programmes. They will also examine the roles of various traditional and emerging media in the process of marketing communication. Special emphasis will be given to current media trends.

Through this course, students will acquire basic techniques necessary for audio and video production. Students will learn to develop various genres of media projects through the preproduction, production and postproduction stages. The course will build the visual literacy skills that help them communicate ideas through producing these projects. Students’ sense of accustoming their creative works to new media environment will also be developed.

Many media and communication students start their careers as journalists. Therefore knowledge and production skills of journalistic basics are necessary for the graduates of this school. This course is intended to provide students with a critical awareness of the current trends of journalism and a systematic understanding of news production processes, laying a foundation for their professional working practices in media after graduation.

The students will be equipped with writing abilities needed in non-governmental, commercial/business, public relations and media organizations. Students will learn various types of news, media and persuasive writings in handling different media situations, acquiring funding and publicizing their missions.

Technological change has been shaping a lot of professions. The course is designed to enhance students’ ability to collect, manage and evaluate data in a critical way and to apply data in support of evidence-based decision making. Students will team up to review a social issue on the data collected and stored, following by cleaning the data, and give suggestions on data presentation strategies based on data analysis and visualization. Each group needs to complete a creative project by analyzing, visualizing, and presenting data for one social issue.

This course offers practical training on the role of media practitioners in crafting and reproducing public relations activities and campaigns. In addition to a comprehensive overview of the challenges and realities of campaign planning in an international context, campaign planning models and skills set that make contributions to reputation building and management will be introduced. Focusing on strategic planning in practice, this course will empower students to generate publicity, attract media interest, and solve communication crisis through the strategic use of campaigning and management of traditional and new media platforms.

The honours project is designed to offer a summation of students’ ability to achieve the aims and objectives of the programme. It is the culmination of students’ academic and practical training in media and social communication. Under the guidance of an adviser, students will develop their project independently or in a small group and they are allowed to choose one of following four tracks: 1) digital production (non-fictional video/film), 2) journalistic production (written documentary or data-driven journalistic project), 3) campaign proposal for an actual client and 4) a scholarly research. Project guidelines with clear specifications on project schedule, requirements and structure will be introduced to students at the beginning of the course.

The students will learn basic concepts of research and research methodologies as applied in communication. This course provides an overview of the concepts, methods, and tools by which communication research is designed, conducted, interpreted, and critically evaluated. The primary goals of this course are to help students become a knowledgeable consumer and a limited producer of communication research as they develop skills in gathering, organizing, interpreting and presenting research information using competent and ethically defensible methods.

This course explores theories and research on why and how audience consumes media. Students will adopt various approaches to examine media consumption activities in relation to audience needs, desire and identity. Issues and topics will span across traditional to new, local to global media. Key topics will include gender, brand and fashion, popular culture, fandom, political parody and sufferings. Students will reflect on their own media consumption practices and their relation to values, attitudes and identity, as well as engaging with case studies of media uses in Hong Kong/Asia. Upon the completion of the course, the students will be able to reflect their own everyday media consumption activities and make informed consumption choices desirable to them.

This course explores the dynamics of public opinion and its forces that shape people’s social attitudes. The course will give an overview about the definitions of public opinion and theories of opinion formation, how public opinion is influenced and how it in turn influences governmental policy, and public opinion in specific issue areas of the changing society. Emphasis will be particularly placed on examining the strategies used by social interest groups to shape audience belief through influencing media and public agenda.

This course aims at giving students a broad overview of theoretical development encompassing different levels of communication including interpersonal, group, organization, mass and public communication. Students will also learn to apply and evaluate theories in various communication contexts. Students are encouraged to make ideas relevant to the context of Chinese society and Hong Kong experience in order to build a solid ground to meet changes arising from the increasing social complexity in the discipline of communication.

This course examines the laws, regulations and court decisions affecting the traditional and new media. Topics include defamation, privacy, court reporting, copyright and more. Students will be given the opportunity to analyze and explore a wide spectrum of contemporary court cases in Hong Kong, and the ethical dilemma that journalists and media workers facing in daily life. Special topics about media law in Mainland China will also be included.

Through this course, students will acquire a basic understanding of the process and characteristics of, and application in new media communication. The students will be taught to analyze the emergence of using new media in response to the dynamic changes in audience activity and technology. The course will then focus on how various media industry, including journalism, public relations and advertising, transform their media content and delivery on digital media platform. The course will end with providing hands-on experience to the students to produce their own content in digital communication, and with discussing the social and cultural issues encompassing the rise of digital media.