JOUR 3102: Visual Journalism
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Basic Information
Prerequisites
Course Description
Expected Competencies
Competency Goals
Assignments and Activities
Workload
JOUR 3102: Visual Journalism (3 credits)
- Multi-section course.
- Lecture twice a week.
- Lab session once a week.
Prerequisites
- Major status
- JOUR 3004W (or concurrent registration)
Course Description
Visual Journalism is a course designed to introduce students to the use of visuals in news-gathering efforts. Students are introduced to journalistic storytelling in multiple visual media. Through a series of hands-on news assignments, students learn the fundamentals of photojournalism, video shooting and editing, and design principles for the web and print.
Expected Competencies
All students should have the following skill:
- An understanding of different media forms
- A basic knowledge of computers and file storage
- An ability to set up a news story (i.e. make phone calls or personal visits to potential subjects of a story)
- A working knowledge of fundamentals of English mechanics, including sentence structure, spelling, and punctuation
- An ability to work quickly under deadline – either with words or images.
Competency goals for 3102
In Visual Journalism, students will be expected to learn and apply in their work:
Photojournalism- Photographic principles: composition, rule of thirds, depth of field and focal point and how to apply these principles in a photo essay.
- Basic knowledge of cameras and lens.
- Introductory proficiency in Adobe Photoshop.
- Principles of visual grammar: sequences, screen direction, transitions, cutaways and jump cuts and how to apply these principles in a video story.
- Basic knowledge of video production and use of wireless microphones.
- Introductory proficiency in Final Cut Pro.
- Design principles: unity, emphasis, balance, and rhythm in one news layout (either a newspaper special front section or magazine layout).
- Application of typography.
- Introductory proficiency in Adobe InDesign.
- Web design principles: interactive media, links, animation and how to apply these principles in the design of a web site.
- Knowledge of computer compression, formats, and media management and how these issues confound web design.
- Introductory proficiency in Dreamweaver.
While the main focus of the course is on understanding and producing visuals for news stories, certain topics beyond the four media and their application in news-gathering, other topics covered in class discussions are:
Ethical/Legal issues in news gathering efforts overall and for visual journalists specifically.
Information graphics attributes and strengths. Discussion centers on when a graphic is the best tool to tell a story and which graphics are best in certain situations.
Telling non-visual stories visually is sometimes the job visual journalists are handed. Class discussions will explore how to conceptualize a non-visual story visually.
Visual analysis is also discussed to expand students’ ability to deconstruct an image in a news context. Key to this discussion is why certain images are selected by the photographer and the photo editor.
Assignments and activities
Visual assignments: Students demonstrate working knowledge of news gathering in the four media through a series of assignments: one photo essay (of at least 7 images) that tells the story of one person; one video story (at least one minute and thirty seconds of length) that is engaging; one print layout (either a special section newspaper layout or a three page magazine layout) that is visually compelling; and one interactive website (at least three pages deep). The website is an accumulation of the semester’s work and can either be on story or a refection of the stories the student produced in the semester’s long work.
Writing assignments:While most of 3102 is centered on the visual projects, there are two written assignments. One assignment directs students to find and analyze a political image (one page) and the first assignment of the course asks students to find a non-visual story in the newspaper and discuss ways they would make the story visual.
Quizzes/Midterm/Final: At the determination of the instructor, students will either have one midterm and one final or four quizzes throughout the semester. These exams are given to assess knowledge of the principles after the projects are completed and serve as a test of the student’s adoption of visual journalism jargon and application of theory, principles and ethics to real world news situations photojournalists face.
Workload and Expectations
Visual journalism tests students understanding of the course material through both visual and written assignments as well as exams. In this manner, a student who has had limited exposure – or confidence in – visual production need not be completely overwhelmed by the assignments alone. The class is structured so that the grades account for the total grade in the following manner:
- Visual Projects (print, photography, video, web assignments): 48%
- Exams and written assignments: 47%
- Class participation: 5%
It is an expectation that students workload outside of class should be about 9 hours a week. However, this weekly total varies during the semester. In particular, during the video portion of the class students should expect to work more than 9 hours as the deadline approaches. However, other assignments such as the photography assignments and the web project demand less outside of class work.