Interactive media refers to the transformative ways that people share information and ideas through creative uses of technology.

Text, graphics, audio and video have been integrated into digital environments, allowing a user or audience to interact with the source of this content (typically via computer or mobile device) rather than receive content in a packaged linear form (such as a newspaper or evening newscast where the communication flow is one-way). Examples of interactive media include web sites, user-generated content, interactive television, gaming, interactive advertising, blogs and mobile telephony. 

Elon's Master of Arts in Interactive Media program will enroll approximately 36 students for a year of intensive, full-time study. The program invites working professionals who desire to return to school for a year of retooling, newly graduated communication students who wish to extend their education to interactive media, and graduates who earned other majors in college and now want to pursue a professional graduate degree.

Students will work in a high-tech graduate suite as they research, plan and develop interactive media projects. The program also includes a domestic or international fly-in to collect content for a Winter Term team project to serve the public good.

Classes are on Monday through Friday during the daytime. Skills classes will have fewer than 20 students; the full cohort of graduate students will be in theory and strategy courses.

For more information, view the Interactive Media catalog.

 

Curriculum

The Interactive Media program requires 11 courses (36 semester hours) from Summer II through Spring Term. Students admitted without prior undergraduate courses in Media Law and Ethics and Media Writing will take them as preparatory classes.

July:
Seminar in Media Law and Ethics
Seminar in Media Writing

August:
Digital Media Workshop

Fall: (September to December)
Theory and Audience Analysis in an Interactive Age
Interactive Writing and Design
Producing Interactive Media
Interactive Media Strategies
Graduate elective

Winter: (January)
Interactive Project for the Public Good


Spring: (February to May)
Contemporary Media Issues
Graduate elective
Graduate elective
Interactive Media Capstone (6 hours)

Graduate electives:
Intellectual Property Law
Citizen and Participatory News
Virtual Environments
Public Opinion through New Media
Visual Aesthetics
Interactive Media Management and Economics
Professional Apprenticeship


The curriculum is designed for graduate student development in four stages:
 

  • Media tools.  The summer Digital Media Workshop ensures that all students have a strong grasp of the tools used to gather content. This includes audio recorders, still and video cameras, and a working knowledge of editing and Web software. This is a non-graded course so that students work together to become skilled in media tools.

 

  • Classroom interactions.  Courses in the Fall Term are teacher-directed, with students learning both concepts and skills through in-class and out-of-class exercises and assignments. Students also learn the higher-level software packages for the creation and enhancement of interactive media.

 

  • Team projects.  In the Winter Term, students are divided into teams and, under the direction of faculty members, travel to a domestic or international site for about a week to gather content through interviews, photographs, audio and video. Teams return to campus and, on deadline, complete their interactive projects for the public good.

 

  • Individual capstone projects.  In the Spring Term, students complete an individual capstone project as a culminating experience. This gives students not only a team project for their portfolios, but also an individual project. Students also have greater choice of electives in the spring, when some students may prefer to emphasize strategic issues while others may choose to emphasize advanced skills development.

Master’s in Interactive Media Academic Calendar

2009-2010 academic calendar

Summer Session

July 27-31 Graduate seminars in media law and writing

Fall Semester 2009

August 3-21 Digital Media Workshop
August 31 (Monday) Drop-Add Day
September 1 (Tuesday) Classes Begin
September 7 (Monday) Last Day for Late Registration
October 16 (Friday) Mid-Semester Grades Due at 3:00 p.m.
October 16 (Friday) Fall Break Begins at 2:50 p.m.
October 21 (Wednesday) Fall Break Ends at 8:00 a.m.
October 23 (Friday) Last Day for Dropping Course with "W"
November 24 (Tuesday) Thanksgiving Holiday Begins Following Evening Classes
November 30 (Monday) Thanksgiving Holiday Ends at 8:00 a.m.
December 8 (Tuesday) Classes End
December 9 (Wednesday) Reading Day (Evening Exams Begin)
December 10-15 (Thurs-Tues) Examinations
December 17 (Thursday) Grades Due at 10:00 a.m.

Winter Term 2010

January 4 (Monday) Registration
January 5 (Tuesday) Classes Begin
January 14 (Thursday) Last Day for Dropping Course with "W"
January 18 (Monday) Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday
January 25 (Monday) Classes End
January 28 (Thursday) Grades Due at 10:00 a.m.
Spring Semester 2010
February 1 (Monday) Registration
February 2 (Tuesday) Classes Begin
February 8 (Monday) Last Day for Late Registration
March 19 (Friday) Mid-Semester Grades Due at 3:00 p.m.
March 19 (Friday) Spring Break Begins at 2:50 p.m.
March 29 (Monday) Spring Break Ends at 8:00 a.m.
March 31 (Wednesday) Last Day for Dropping Course with "W"
April 5 (Monday) Easter Holiday
April 9 (Friday) Last Day to Remove Incomplete "I" and "NR" Grades
April 27 (Tuesday) SURF
May 11 (Tuesday) Classes End
May 12 (Wednesday) Reading Day
May 13-18 (Thurs-Tues) Examinations
May 19 (Wednesday) Grades Due By 9:00 a.m.
May 20 (Thursday) Hooding and graduation ceremony




 

National Accreditation

The School of Communications is accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Elon is one of only 18 private colleges and universities in the nation with an accredited communications program.