Communications and Media - Sophomore

Course # HUSS 2014

Credits 4

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

This course is an introduction to philosophy. It aims to strengthen students’ critical thinking skills, help them build a theoretical toolkit to navigate interdisciplinary practices of knowledge production. As an introductory course, it provides students with the basic knowledge of philosophical theories, categories, and topics. We explore major philosophical discussions in the contemporary world ranging from epistemology to aesthetics. The course does not presume to dictate any philosophical doctrine; its purpose is to help students improve their skills of reasoning and develop a taste to reflect on things non-pragmatic.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon the completion of the course, students are expected to be able to:

• use philosophical categories accurately in discussing philosophical topics;
• untangle (latent) premises upon which (their own or others’) philosophical statements are made;
• identify inconsistencies and potential errors that require attention and investigation;
• take a systematic approach, to ensure that issues are viewed in a “bigger picture” and essentials are not overlooked;
• defend a stance in a debate reasonably (using relevant facts, knowledge of theories, coherent arguments);
• discuss philosophical issues responsibly (amicably and cooperatively).

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # MDIA 2129

Credits 6

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

From everyday accounts of personal experience, news reports, and historiography to literary fiction, feature films, graphic novels, and interactive media, narrative is the most pervasive and influential of all genres. In written and spoken word, in moving and still images and in transmedia storytelling, narratives construct and reflect meaning for individuals, institutions, and communities.

This course explores the types of meanings narratives create and the ways in which they produce meaning and their impact—positive and negative—on our lives. Drawing on narratology and linguistics, theories of media, journalism, advertising, and visual culture, the course investigates narrative across a range of contemporary media and social practices. Together, we will engage critically and creatively with the structure, form, and content of our own narratives and those of others, as we explore the social, cultural and psychological character of this fascinating genre.

Course Learning Outcome

Upon successfully completing this course, students should be able to:

• Apply key methodological and conceptual approaches to the analysis of narratives.
• Identify the communicative purposes of narratives and the technical means with which they are achieved.
• Produce theoretically grounded critiques of narrative texts.
• Use media-specific practical skills in storytelling techniques to engage audiences.

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # MDIA 2110

Credits 6

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

This course teaches students how to find, verify and tell stories that matter, with particular attention to Central Asia. Students examine how journalism is shaped by cultural, social and political context while developing skills in interviewing, news writing, feature writing, research translation and public explanation. UCA's multilingual environment is treated as a journalistic resource: students consider how language, translation and cultural context shape interviewing, reporting, meaning and audience understanding. Emphasis is placed on accurate, accessible journalism for general audiences.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon the completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Identify newsworthy stories and develop appropriate angles for different audiences and contexts.
• Conduct and record interviews, using preparation, observation, listening and follow-up questions to gather material.
• Produce clear, accurate and engaging media stories using appropriate structures, evidence, quotations, images and captions.
• Interpret and communicate research and evidence accurately for general audiences.
• Adapt media content for different audiences, platforms and purposes, using clear and accessible language.
• Work effectively across languages and cultural contexts, recognising how translation, representation and context can shape meaning.
• Apply ethical and professional principles when making decisions about sources, representation, accuracy, public interest and publication.

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # MDIA 2071

Credits 6

Course Description 

The course examines how communications and media shape, reflect, and transform contemporary Central Asian societies. Through workshops, reading, homework and discussions, students will be invited to design, produce and evaluate a real-time media and communication impact campaign addressing an existing problem in Naryn region. The course combines a grounding in communication-for-development and social-change theory with case studies from small mountainous regions of Central Asia and applies directly to a live local problem.

Course Learning Outcomes

On the completion of this course, students will be able to:

• demonstrate a knowledge of communication-for-social-change models underlying an impact campaign; 
• analyse development through critical theories.
• conduct field-based problem identification and stakeholder research in a mountainous, resource-constrained regional context.
• design a campaign strategy (objectives, audiences, messages, channels, budget, timeline) responding to a genuine local problem
• manage a modest production team under defined roles and a fixed timeline participate in discourses about global and regional art and media practices in Central Asia.
• produce professional media outputs (press release, social media content, visual/audio materials as relevant)
• evaluate campaign results against stated objectives and indicators.
• Course Assessment and Grading

Course # MDIA 2174

Credits 4

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

This course focuses on the opportunities and challenges of communication in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural societies at local, regional, and global levels. Central Asia is the primary point of focus. Students examine how culture, identity, history, language, religion, migration, globalization, media, power, and social change influence communication and relationships.

The course revisits major intercultural communication theories and asks students to test their usefulness in Asian and Central Asian settings rather than treating them as universal explanations. The course pays particular attention to pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet legacies; collective and layered identities; verbal and non-verbal communication; migration and diaspora; intercultural conflict and negotiation; representation; global workplaces; tourism; and mobility. The course also critically examines broad East/West and Orient/Occident categories and asks what these labels reveal, simplify, or obscure.

The course combines theory and practice. Students learn through discussion, simulations, critical incidents, interviews, field observation, media analysis, collaborative inquiry, and creative production. Culture is treated as dynamic and internally diverse rather than as a fixed set of national traits. Students are encouraged to connect international scholarship with Central Asian cases and with their own lived experience while avoiding stereotypes and overgeneralization.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon the completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Expain and critically evaluate major theories and concepts in intercultural communication
• Analyse how history, identity, values and power shape communication in Central Asian and comparative contexts
• Recognize stereotyping, ethnocentrism, essentialism, othering and representation problems in everyday and media communication
• Analyze verbal, non-verbal, multilingual and language related dimensions of intercultural interactions
• Examine how migration, globalization, media, tourism, education, and workplaces transform intercultural relationships.
• Research and communicate intercultural issues through evidence-based creative media and public presentation

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # MDIA 2113

Credits 3

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

Creative Writing involves the development of intellectual and imaginative skills of embodied self-expression. It also involves reading. In this craft-based course, students engage in a series of lectures and workshops, learning a range of creative writing skills in a variety of genres, methods and approaches and, in turn, are encouraged to be experimental and adventurous in their writing. Tutorials address different creative writing topics and readings so that students can learn about various approaches from poetry to film dialogue-writing. The  workshops are interactive; they aim to increase understanding of the process of creative writing and, most importantly, the process of developing, editing and presenting creative work. Throughout the course, students develop creative writing and critical reading skills in relation to craft, technique, style and voice.

UCA’s multilingual environment is treated as a creative resource. Students are encouraged to draw on all the languages available to them in brainstorming, drafting and experimenting with voice. Creative work may be developed in any language or combination of languages. Final assessments should be submitted in English, but may retain words, phrases or dialogue in other languages where these are important to voice, character, culture or meaning, provided an English translation is also included.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon the completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Identify, analyse and create work in a range of genres, including original fiction, non-fiction and poetry, using a range of literary forms and techniques.
• Identify and demonstrate, in literature and in their own work, elements of plot, character, landscape, setting, structure and voice.
• Demonstrate an individual creative voice shaped by their own linguistic, cultural and storytelling traditions, including the ability to write across or between languages where appropriate.
• Understand and demonstrate the creative processes of drafting, revision, editing and critical reflection.

Course Assessments and Grading

Physical training

Course # HUSS 2081

Credits 0

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course description

The purpose of the Physical Education course is to promote students’ health and well-being, support the balanced development of their physical and psychological abilities, and foster sustained motivation to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle.

Physical exercises and sports activities contribute to the development of physical capabilities, improvement of fitness levels, enhancement of mental well-being, and the development of discipline and personal qualities.

The course has both practical and theoretical components and is designed to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to maintain health and physical activity and to participate safely and effectively in physical exercises and sports activities.

Course learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• perform a range of physical activities
• understand health and safety requirements for a range of physical activities
• Describe the role and progress of sport in Central Asia
• choose an appropriate physical activities program for their age and gender
• identify tiredness and its symptoms to control the body during athletic exercises
• describe the technique of running for a long and a short distance and jumping
• accomplish running for a short and a long distance and jumping according to all necessary norms
• Describe the rules of a range of sports games
• participate in a range of sports games according to their rules and techniques

Course Assessments and Grading

* The course will be graded with PASS/FAIL.