PATHWAY DESCRIPTION
The pathway Digital Media, Culture and Communication focuses on the new nexus between media, culture and society forged in the digital age. Specifically, it addresses the impact and implications of the digital transformation, with particular emphasis to the fields of media/cultural industries, connective media, and civil society.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Graduates specializing in Digital Media, Culture and Communication can develop the following skills:
1) Have a critical perspective of the new communication environment,
2) Have effective skills in digital content production,
3) Use digital tools and platforms effectively,
4 ) to operate in an online news environment.
PATHWAY CORE COURSE
The course introduces students to certain key theoretical concepts, approaches and debates concerning the understanding and critical analysis of the role of new media in contemporary society. It combines an analytical perspective, that sheds light on some crucial aspects, functions and uses of new media, with a historical perspective, that places new media within a broader understanding of technology and its relationship to culture and social change. The course explores some major research areas in a way that prioritizes interdisciplinarity, grounded on on-going research rather than abstract theorizing, innovative and critical thinking about current issues and challenges, as well as the value of combining quantitative and qualitative perspectives.
PATHWAY ELECTIVE COURSES
This lesson emphasizes real-world applications within the media and communications field. Students will explore cutting-edge examples and case studies, examining how AI and ML are transforming industries such as advertising, journalism, and social media. They will gain insights into how these technologies are reshaping content creation, audience targeting, personalized recommendations, and sentiment analysis.
New media refers to live and on-demand access to content anytime, anywhere, from a wide variety of digital devices, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. This course examines issues related to information and communication technologies with emphasis on those related to the
media industry and the new media concept. More specifically it examines the technological evolution, the digital convergence, as well as, the Internet and its services. Also, emphasis is given on digital technologies of sound and image, the new environments of audiovisual content production and consumption, along with the technologies of social networking and Web 2.0 that form the modern environment of communication and knowledge at all levels. These issues are examined from a technological perspective but also in terms of use by media professionals.
This course studies TV and digital media both as means of social, political and cultural representations and also as platforms of creating new public and private realities. On the one hand, it concentrates on the various ways television has culturally influenced the audiovisual culture of modern societies, the role that televisual codes play in the era of media convergence and the domination of social media (YouTube culture). In this framework, the terms of infotainment, tabloidization, glocalization, spectacle and surveillance culture are important to analyze. On the other hand, the course employs a sociological study of the basic dimensions of post-modern private and public sphere and the role the audiovisual media have played in their convergence. In this framework the terms of privatization, new communitarianism, individualization, democratization, are going to be discussed in the various ways they unfold in the chaotic digital world of information.
This course provides students with a broad understanding of the global Tourism and Hospitality sector, the latest trends in the travel industry, and the role of storytelling in destination branding and digital marketing. It also focuses on the challenges, crises, and global issues that affect tourism in the post-pandemic era and explores the impact of storytelling on awareness raising and attitude change for responsible tourism and sustainable travel behavior. The course offers a combination of theory, case studies, assignments, hands-on activities, and group projects aiming at exploring new forms of travel communication through digital media.
The course aims at providing to the students the essential knowledge on digital audiovisual content production and publishing to the new media environment. It involves the development of creative thinking along with lecturing the basic principles in audiovisual production. Sound and image fundamentals, hearing and vision aspects are deployed initially, followed by composition rules and editing theory and techniques for both audio and video. Capturing equipment and software applications related to audio and video content are used presenting the different ways they may be used in order the final outcome to be reached. The students work hands-on in the laboratory, produce content and make it presentable over various platforms, such as broadcast TV channels, media sharing services (Youtube, soundcloud, etc.), live streaming services (UStream, etc) or social networking (Facebook, Google+, etc) and microblogging (Twitter).
This course aims to teach students how to create news stories with multimedia tools, creating an engaging experience for the audience. During this skills-oriented course, students are called to design and implement a multimedia project. Hard skills of multimedia projects implementation and management and soft skills on creative thinking, collaboration, time-management, problem-solving and effective communication are developed. Several contemporary examples of successful multimedia storytelling projects will be discussed, to capture the latest trends in the field. Starting from the introduction to storytelling as a communication tool and the shift from traditional to digital principles, the learning path leads from the conception of a creative idea to formulation of a technical project plan. Emphasis is given to the specific characteristics and also to the medium that is suitable for each content type. The students work hands-on individually and in groups in the laboratory, with practical exercises that include animated material and interactive multimedia content and make it available through various technologies. These utilities may include the creation of user interfaces and interactive prototypes (mockups on Balsamiq Studios, Figma, etc.), web design services (Wix, etc.), interactive video authoring and publishing (YouTube, h5p.org, etc.), social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) and others.
Digitization has dynamically entered contemporary media landscape and the line between online and offline is becoming less distinct, for both consumers and businesses. Consumers are increasingly sophisticated and highly connected, and they seek products and information personalized, relevant and convenient across all traditional and digital channels. The present course aims to outline the essentials of marketing theory and offers a structured approach to identifying, understanding and solving marketing problems. It describes how consumer behavior has been developed in the digital era, discusses consumer buying incentives and analyzes segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies. Moreover, the course examines marketing research methods and customer relationship management strategies and discusses how Internet has transformed the interaction between customers and organizations. Branding strategies as well as the key elements of marketing mix strategy are described. Finally, the course explains how to evaluate and measure digital success, developing an understanding of the KPIs and metrics, while digital tools and tactics are explored, focusing on how they align and contribute to the overall business strategy.
This unit covers in detail the practice of research methods in the field of communication. Students will become familiar with developing the research question(s), formulating the research questions and hypotheses of their study, selecting participants and instruments. Moreover, they will explore the various designs that are used in quantitative (e.g. experimental and quasi experimental design, correlational design, surveys) and qualitative
(e.g. interviews, focus groups) research. During these sessions students will learn how to select the appropriate research design depending on the area they wish to study and the analysis that is required for each set of data (quantitative or qualitative). A great emphasis is also given to the ethical issues in research methods.
The course aims to introduce students to the conceptualization, design, and difficulties of qualitative research methods used in media and communication studies, including participant observation and digital ethnography, depth interviews, focus groups, historical analysis, discourse, thematic, visual and content analysis.
PREPARATORY COURSES
This advanced English course focuses on news (both hard and soft) and feature story writing for the print media. By combining theory and practice it introduces students to headline language, news story format, leads, the Associated Press stylebook and news writing techniques. The students also have the opportunity to practice their interviewing skills and to write personality features for the print media.
This course is designed to help graduate students with academic writing by developing the skills necessary to produce high quality work in term-papers and the end-of-year dissertation. The lectures, tasks and activities are richly varied, ranging from small-scale language points to studying the discourse of journalism, media, and communication. Topics to be dealt with include: writing expository and argumentative texts, writing summaries, introductions and conclusions, discussion of data, citing and attributing sources, researching and creating bibliographies. Students receive feedback on their writing and are expected to engage in self-editing and peer-reviewing. The course is highly recommended for students with little experience in writing academic papers and for those who need to brush up their skills in academic writing.
