Semester 1

This practical course aims at imparting fundamental communication skills. Students learn to communicate clearly and effectively through the acquisition of critical thinking skills. The course consists of two components: Speaking and Presentation, and Writing. The former includes theories of rhetoric; types of speech and speech situations; speech planning, development and execution; strategies and techniques for effective speaking; presentation skills in context; multimedia presentation techniques. In the latter, students learn to express themselves clearly in the written medium, to adapt their writing to the different media, to build an essay around a thesis, to structure paragraphs adequately, to support ideas clearly, to revise to suit purpose and audience, and to edit their own work.

Course objectives

The course aims to equip students with thinking skills and the ability to express themselves clearly in a well organised and logical format. Through the in-class exercises and writing assignments, they will cultivate communication skills in both verbal and written expression. They will learn to apply critical thinking tools to improve their own communication and to assess that of others.

Expected Outcomes

At the end of the course, it is expected that students will:

• Be able to express their ideas with clarity following a clear logical structure.
• Be able to carry out adequate audience analysis and prepare a powerful presentation
• Be able to speak in public with confidence and verve.
• Be able to produce well-developed and unified paragraphs with a topic sentence and supporting details.
• Be able to maintain focus and coherence in a written work.
• Be able to edit one's own writing to detect and correct the major sentence errors.
• Be able to edit one's own writing to detect and correct errors of capitalisation, spelling and confused words.
• Be able to edit one's own writing to ensure an accurate use of commas, semi-colons, apostrophes and pronouns.
• Be able to understand and apply the principles of the writing process: the generation and organisation of ideas, as well as the drafting, revising and editing of the final manuscript.

Assessment

Students will be assessed on the basis of continuous assessment (CA) and a final examination, both of which constitute 50% each. The breakdown for the CA score is as follows:

• Class attendance - 5%
• Participation in class discussion, group tasks and online exercises - 5%. 
• 2 take-home assignments - 25%
• Essay on myself - 10%
• Literature review - 15%
• 1 graded public speaking presentation - 15% 

The final exam will consist of a class based test (20%) and a take home essay (30%)

COM 653– New Media and Marketing Communication

 Course Description

 This course starts as an exploration of the theoretical foundation for understanding New Media and appreciating its place in the history and evolution of the media. Digitisation is put in perspective as a technical foundation for new media.

Leveraging on communication theories, the course then focuses on the Internet and related innovations in the light of their value propositions, their role in shaping the way content is delivered and issues such as engine optimization on the Internet, platform security, scalability, performance, tooling and human resource requirements.

The course then turns attention to communications planning, identity management of all stakeholders, embedding social tools across various organizations’ communications processes and effective knowledge management/business intelligence. Of interest also is the broad range of integrative approaches to the management of corporate identity, strategic product and service messaging and knowledge-driven marketing.

Course Objectives

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of New Media marketing and the relevance of new media to the contemporary digital society. The course provides students with the tools necessary to strategically design digital marketing campaigns, create digital marketing efforts, engage with digital customers and evaluate the overall efforts of a digital marketing campaign. Specifically, the course facilitates an understanding of how digital technology has laid the foundation for the Internet and all the innovations of the Internet, one of which is new media marketing aimed at strategically targeting the digital customer. Students will also be introduced to the ethical considerations of direct Marketing Communication via the Internet.

Expected Outcomes

 The course approaches New Media as a discipline that comprises of at least 4 key competencies. At the end of this course, students should be able to:

 § Think – Learn to think strategically before engaging in digital marketing efforts

 §Create – Learn to Create valuable digital marketing assets

 § Engage – Learn to engage the digital audience using a variety of digital channels 

§ Optimize – Learn to measure performance and optimize conversions from various digital marketing efforts in the digital space

Overall, students should be able to effectively plan, execute, monitor and evaluate the digital marketing campaign of any given organization

Assessment

 Assessment for students is based on a 50% CA and 50% written final examination. The CA scores will be distributed as follows:

 • Class attendance – 5% 

• Class participation – 5% 

• 1 Take-home written assignment – 10% 

• 1 Group assignment – 10%

 • 2 Written tests – 20%

COM 615   Organizational Communication

Course Outline

This course surveys the theoretical, critical, and empirical literature on organizational communication. Critically, the class examines the discourses of technology appropriation, organizational climate, culture and values, leadership, identity, and change among others. Also studied are the empirical literature on human communication and complex organizations; the study of meaning, language, messages, symbols, and interaction; superior-subordinate communication, communication networks and technologies in organizations,  conflict management and negotiation, and power and politics, decision-making, personal and relational development, as well as group communication within organizations.

Course objectives

1.      Have a broad understanding of organizational Communication

2.      Define the general terms related to the academic study of organizational communication.

3.      Explain what organizations are and how communication functions within them.

4.      Describe how individual personality traits and human temperament affect organizational communication and cohesion.

5.      Examine how supervisors and subordinates communicate with each other effectively.

6.      Clarify how both employee and employer perceptions of each other can impact an organization.

7.      Discuss how power and status influence the normal functioning of organizations and organizational communication.

8.      Explain why organizations are resistant to change, and the impact of conflict within the organization.

Expected Outcomes

At the end of the course, students will

v  Learn to use a communication approach to understanding organizations

v  Recognize the value of applied communication research

v  Explore the communication perspectives, principles, and pragmatics necessary to understand and succeed in organizations from numerous case studies

v  Apply communication theories to actual organizational communication practices

v  Enhance their ability to assess and improve communication processes in various organizational situations

Assessment

Students are assessed on the basis of 50% CA and 50% written final examination. The CA scores are based on

Class attendance 5%

Participation, in-class discussion, and group tasks 5%.

2 Tests 20%

1 Written assignments 10%

Term Paper 10%