COMM 280C: Magazine Production: Advanced Staff
Citrus College Course Outline of Record
| Heading | Value |
|---|---|
| Effective Term: | Winter 2021 |
| Credits: | 3 |
| Total Contact Hours: | 90 |
| Lecture Hours : | 36 |
| Lab Hours: | 54 |
| Hours Arranged: | 0 |
| Outside of Class Hours: | 72 |
| Prerequisite: | COMM 280B. |
| Strongly Recommended: | COMM 101, ENGL 101 or ENGL 101E. |
| Transferable to CSU: | Yes |
| Transferable to UC: | No |
| Grading Method: | Standard Letter |
Catalog Course Description
Advanced level lecture/laboratory journalism course that produces the college magazine, Logos, and its website and social media presence. Senior staffers learn and put into practice the "watchdog" function of journalism. Working in teams, and in collaboration with the other student publications classes, senior staffers produce in-depth, investigative and enterprise story packages that may include a main article, sidebars, photos, charts and graphs, and/or illustrations for publication. 36 lecture hours, 54 lab hours.
Course Objectives
- Advanced journalism students demonstrate professional-level techniques for gathering information, including engaging in computer-assisted research.
- Advanced journalism students demonstrate professional-level photojournalism and design skill sets while producing a student magazine for print and/or digital delivery, within predetermined deadline.
- Advanced journalism students work collaboratively with and mentor beginner and intermediate journalism students in researching and reporting in-depth, magazine-length stories.
Major Course Content
- Organizational structure of the student magazine
- Role of faculty advisers, lab supervisors, and student editors
- Duties and responsibilities of senior staff members
- Publication schedule and deadlines for print and online publications as well as social media presence
- Procedures and policies: Student Publications Staff Manual
- Advanced story research techniques
- Comparing popular sources of research with academic sources
- Evaluation of applicability of source information
- Sources: authorities; public records; data and statistics
- Planning the magazine-length story package
- Team assignments and production timeline
- Research methods: computer-assisted reporting
- Visual options: photojournalism, multimedia, graphics and art
Lab Content
- Advanced guided practice for writing for student publications.
- Advanced guided practice in photo composition, cropping and caption writing.
- Advanced guided practice in photo illustration and infographics.
Examples of Required Writing Assignments
Journalistic feature article writing assignments (write a 1,200-word story profiling a significant student, staff member, faculty member, administrator or alumnus/alumna from Citrus College); journalistic still photography (shoot, assemble and publish an online photo gallery of 20 photos with captions containing a variety of imagery of a recent musical performance at Citrus College)
Examples of Outside Assignments
Write news, feature and/or profile articles for publication in the print magazine or online on the magazine's website
Shoot photos/video of news, feature and/or profile subjects for publication in the print magazine or online on the magazine's website
Design and layout pages containing magazine's content for publication in the print magazine or online on the magazine's website
Make decisions regarding the editorial content of each publication, whether in print or online
Observe activities related to course content
Participate in activities related to course content
Instruction Type(s)
Lecture, Lab, Online Education Lecture, Online Education Lab