Course overview
This course will provide graduate journalism students with a foundation in scholarly research in Journalism Studies. It integrates theory with practice, as well as case studies, to provide students with the knowledge and expertise they need to critically engage with the circumstances, challenges, and opportunities of present-day journalism. The topics addressed include an introduction to research and referencing, writing a literature review, discussions on various scholarly approaches such as qualitative, quantitative and critical studies, and social action research. The course will enhance the capacity of students to analyse, interpret and integrate scholarly findings into their work, advancing an understanding of the role and relationship between journalistic research and practice.
Special Note
This elective is open to both 1st and 2nd year students. However, this course is mandatory if you are planning to do an Academic Thesis or Final Research Project in your last year.
Course overview
Imagine Journalism Studio is a course for students who are interested in studying leading innovations and innovators in the field, making a difference and experimenting with and through journalism.
The course is designed to prepare students to launch and/or run their own journalism startup. Most journalism courses focus on the norms and practices of content creation, production and representational critique. This course focuses on journalism startups and innovation from practice, organizational, audiences, leadership, theories of change, entrepreneurship and critical perspectives. While technology and technological change are often privileged as antidotes in contemporary discussions of the current journalism crisis, this course takes an integrated approach to the role that technologies, social, cultural and economic structures play in understanding journalism and organizational
success.
Students will study the continuity and changes of what journalism is, could and should be, emerging and contested relationships with global audiences and diverse publics, digital technologies and what actually constitutes innovation, as well as shifting labour conditions for journalists and for-profit journalism economic decline. Students will concurrently work individually or in teams to conceive, research, design and prototype an idea for a journalism project – a startup, product or service – to help meet the information needs of communities.
Special Note
This elective is open to both 1st and 2nd year students.
Course overview
This course offers students a unique opportunity to study and practice reporting in Indigenous communities in the Lower Mainland. Students will learn about local First Nations cultures and history; examine representations of Indigenous peoples in Canadian media; and discuss strategies for in-depth coverage of Indigenous issues. Students’ past work has been published in mainstream media outlets alongside our own multimedia website, www.indigenousreporting.com. Students will explore a new reporting theme each year.
Special Note
This elective is open to both 1st and 2nd year students.
Course overview
Social media have become key components of the digital media environment by offering people opportunities to produce, share, and interpret content, as well as to interact with one another. Journalists are among those who have taken advantage of such opportunities, expanding journalism beyond traditional media outlets and designated news websites.
This course focuses on what journalists and other users do on social media. We will learn concepts and issues related to social media and will gain practice with social media
storytelling. After learning what constitutes social media and how they have developed, we will identify and explain shifting norms and practices of journalism, user engagement with the news, and disinformation and misinformation in the digital media environment.
The course will also offer an insight into politics and social media, social movements and protest, and dark sides of social media, such as harassment. On the practical side, we will learn how to craft posts for different platforms and how to engage with users. We will also write texts and create videos. The course allows you to pursue your interests and to develop knowledge and skills that will help you navigate the challenges and opportunities of the evolving digital landscape.
Special Note
This elective is open to both 1st and 2nd year students. It is cross-listed with JRNL 420 and co-jointly taught with 4th year Bachelor of Media Studies students.
Course overview
When Black Lives Matter gained global momentum in 2020, the movement brought significant public attention to how Black people are dehumanized across the diaspora. But outside of this narrative’s circulation on social and traditional media, on what other terms are we cultured to understand Blackness as a form of racial categorization?
This course explores the manufacturing of and reaction to Blackness within public discourses: in digital memes and hashtags, film, university classrooms, news media, truth-based
discourses, music, and more. We will examine ways Blackness has been coded, (mis)represented, and documented across time and platforms. Taking a diasporic approach, our points of focus will emerge mainly from local and North American contexts, the Caribbean, and the African continent, but will also consider the intersections between race and color, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, (dis)ability in Asia and Europe as well.
Special note
This elective is open to both 1st and 2nd year students. It is cross-listed with WRDS 498G. Journalism students should enrol in the JRNL 520G section of the course
Course overview
In recognition of the importance of combining theory and practice, our students must complete a 12-week professional internship before graduating. Learning on the job is a crucial part of a professional degree program since there are many aspects of journalism that cannot be addressed solely in the classroom. The internship is usually undertaken in the spring and summer after the first two terms of the program are completed. After the internship experience, news organizations provide written evaluations as do students who also share their experience and offer advice to incoming students.
Internships provide students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned in the classroom, both the theoretical and craft aspects of journalism, to the actual day-to-day work of reporting and writing and producing news and information for an audience. In addition to helping students enhance their journalism skills, the internship placement has proven to be an opportunity for students to acquire a portfolio of work and to develop professional relationships with editors and reporters.
Students have interned in Canada and around the world having won placements in organizations such as:
- CBC radio, television and online
- The Globe and Mail
- South China Morning Post
- The Georgia Straight
- Canadian Geographic
- Business in Vancouver
- VICE Canada
- The Tyee
- The Saudi Gazette
- Greenpeace
- Al Jazeera
- The Narwhal
Students have worked as reporters, researchers, associate producers, online editors, field producers and copy editors.
Course type
This is a 1st year core course.
Course overview
The course will offer an understanding of the Canadian legal system and the workings of legal proceedings, aimed at journalists reporting on the Courts. It will explore the ways in which reporters cover the courts and sometimes become involved in issues over access and openness. The course will cover the legal restrictions upon reporters, including defamation, contempt, publication bans, privacy, intellectual property and freedom of expression issues. Current cases in the news as well as those affecting journalists, along with example stories raising legal issues will be used as lesson examples.
The course uses a combination of instruction on the law and working through practical examples. The objective is for students to learn to spot and deal with the legal issues in each situation from an early stage and to report on legal matters with an accurate context. Discussion about important legal and philosophical questions is encouraged.
Course type
This is a 1st year core course.
Course overview
This course will look at the role imagined for journalists and media organizations in a democracy, and consequent professional norms, practices, obligations, dilemmas, and expectations.
Using a variety of texts and case studies, this course will discuss, study, and debate journalism ethics and leadership as they relate to this changing media landscape. We will address long-held journalistic tenets of objectivity, accuracy, verification, and accountability as they relate to both digital and traditional forms of media. We will also explore what these traditional norms and practices mean in a rapidly expanding, global world where accountabilities and sensibilities shift based on diverse and dispersed audiences.
Course type
This is a 1st year core course.
Course overview
This course is designed to help you think more broadly about journalism and who you are as a journalist. In this course, we will discuss questions such as why journalism matters? Who is a journalist? What factors influence news production? How do journalists function in different media and political systems? Why does journalism matter in any given society? What are the main issues facing journalism today? And other essential concepts and questions regarding journalism. Journalism is changing (more so during the pandemic than ever before), and you are caught up in it. This course aims to give you a firm grounding in the concepts and traditions of journalism as you know it while looking forward to thinking about journalism and its methods when considering breaking news situations.
Knowing fundamental journalistic and communication theories help enhance your practical abilities by providing useful roadmaps to navigate the world around you. To become a good journalist, you need to think critically about your surroundings. Being a critical thinker does not mean you criticize everyone and everything. Our aim here is to stimulate your thinking about the news and how it’s formed. Thinking about questions such as why is a news story covered a certain way? Or why is a particular group marginalized or a specific topic ignored in the media? This class is designed to help you clear answers to such questions using theory and relevant current affairs examples to discuss and analyze the news.
Course type
This is a 1st year core course.