The master’s program is a 40-credit program and includes a final project and participation in a year-long extended group research project seminar, which is known as the Master’s Collaboratory. Though most students complete the degree on a full-time basis, the curriculum may be completed part-time as well.
Students in the MA program are able to complete their degrees via one of the following three options. Normally, students select an option during the application process, but you are also able to change this upon completion of your first semester.
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate by means of written papers and other coursework a theoretical, philosophical, historical, and practical understanding of how emerging media technologies come to affect cultures, industries, and the lives of individuals and communities.
- Make methodological and empirical skill and strategic, integrated thinking evident through coursework that addresses issues related to emerging media technologies. Coursework may encompass novel empirical research (including original data collection and analysis), systematic reviews of existing literature, and the development of prototype media applications.
- Display research skills related to cutting-edge and specialized hardware and software to analyze data collected via advanced quantitative analysis, text mining, machine learning, or physiology/psychology experiments.
- Via oral presentations – within class, at campus research symposia, and at national and international conferences – exhibit competence in communicating scientific information to audiences of peers, industry leaders and scholars.
- Co-create a project report, based on original research, that demonstrates value to a client, and incorporate this project into the student’s portfolio. Depending on the student’s interests, this report could address the commercial, service, nonprofit, governmental or academic sectors.
In the Emerging Media Studies program, you will learn:
- Engage with world-leading software platforms and innovative analytic techniques that inform how to think theoretically and critically about emerging media.
- Ways to effectively analyze new issues concerning online and offline behaviors using advanced theoretical and empirical models.
- Approaches for leading and managing research projects on emerging media issues
- Best practices in producing reports with sophisticated analytical tools
- Skills to translate research results into terms meaningful to clients and audiences
- A mastery of major issues in the fields of media, journalism, politics, and policy, depending on student interests
- How to understand and create data visualization from raw data
- Use of cutting edge tools in big data analysis (e.g., Gephi, NodeXL, UCINET) and user experience research (e.g., iMotions biometric platform), as well as core fundamental tools (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SPSS, Stata)
Keep In Mind:
- The Professional Option includes three semesters of enrollment. Students should anticipate three semesters of tuition and fees.
- The Thesis and Internship Option may require an additional semester to complete. If a student extends to a fourth semester to complete a thesis or internship, students should anticipate a fourth, part-time semester of tuition and fees.
REQUIRED CLASSES
4 credits
Drawing on social scientific research and relevant industry examples this course examines topics related to emerging media and new communication technologies. From a variety of perspectives, including historical, economic, and psychological, the course examines underlying dimensions and affordances of “emerging media” and, in turn, the psychological effects and social consequences of these technologies. Applications of theory to a variety of topics and social issues will be discussed.
This course familiarizes students with social -scientific methods for large scale data analysis and visualization, including the application of relevant user and concept networks, time and spatial models, sentiment mapping, and comparison of matrices. In addition, the use of germane software in emerging and digital media research is developed. Most importantly, however, this course has a dual structure where students learn to not only carry our advanced analyses of large datasets, they also engage with how to visually represent with a wide-ranging skillset to scrape data, mine data, and present data in fields of specific areas of inquiry.
The shift in medial production toward dynamic user-production is harnessed in this class. Students will evaluate and critique prevailing practices in co- creative media output as well as become proficient in developing online media with cutting edge and open source software tools. Technical aspects of this class include HTML, CSS, and Wordpress, as well as audience interfaces and analytics.
This year long course introduces students to the theories, method and conventions of applied research in communication and the social sciences. It aims to do this through reading, practical applications and in-class discussions. Students will have the opportunity to work with local organization (the "project sponsor") in the Boston area to design and implement a research project. Throughout the process, students will work closely with their peers, the sponsor and the course instructors to develop the project and to evaluate work in progress.
This course offers a critical survey of the cultural, social, and political impacts of emerging communication technologies, as they have advanced over time to contemporarily include online, mobile and social media. Special attention will be paid to networks and their relationship to the ways individuals, groups and organizations communicate within society. Our work here situates the changing nature of networks in media from broadcast network models to social network ones. As such, it is both historically informed and theoretically inclusive. An important component of study also incorporates an immersive social network experience as part of this class, which is to say that the class becomes its own online social network and students are peer collaborators.
ELECTIVES (12 credits)
Three electives are required for completion of the program. In addition to the approved electives in other programs, students may especially wish to consider electives offered by the Division, such as:
4 credits
This courses provides training in the logic, design, and implementation of experimental research methods. The course includes a practicum component, in which students employ novel laboratory research tools in the Communication Research Center to complete original empirical research on the use and effects of emerging media technologies. By the end of the course, students will have a sound understanding of the underlying rationale and purpose of experimental research and hands-on experience using cutting-edge research technologies (including biometrics such as galvanic skin response, eye- tracking, and facial expression analysis) for data collection and analysis related to media processing and effects.
This course offers a critical survey of the cultural, social, and political impacts of emerging communication technologies, as they have advanced over time to contemporarily include online, mobile and social media. Special attention will be paid to networks and their relationship to the ways individuals, groups and organizations communicate within society. Our work here situates the changing nature of networks in media from broadcast network models to social network ones. As such, it is both historically informed and theoretically inclusive. An important component of study also incorporates an immersive social network experience as part of this class, which is to say that the class becomes its own online social network and students are peer collaborators.
Please note:
- Students are encouraged to choose courses across COM, BU, and the Boston-area consortium that enhance their research and/or professional interests. Students should pay close attention to prerequisites for any course they seek to take.
- A thesis (EM 909) or an internship (EM 911) may count as an elective toward the program.
- The thesis (EM 909) and the internship (EM 911) electives may require the student to extend the duration of the program an additional one to two semesters.
In addition to the Bulletin, master’s students should refer to the College of Communication Graduate Handbook for a comprehensive guide to policies, academic regulations, and resources.