Curriculum
Students in the MA, Media Psychology and Social Change program must complete an additional 6 courses (24 credits) and a capstone project (2 credits) to complete the degree. Courses offered at UCLA Extension*:

Foundations of Research (MSC-554) [back to top]
The goals of research include observing, understanding, generalizing, testing, predicting, and validating. This course examines how scientists experience, describe, understand, and explain the world. The focus will be on the different approaches to asking questions in media psychology research and the connection of research to practice. Students will gain understanding in reasonable methodological procedures for investigating specific research questions, become familiar with qualitative and quantitative approaches to research, their differences and uses, learn the ethical and legal standards to human participants' research, and gain evaluative skill sets and knowledge in the concepts. Questions that will be considered include: The relationship between science and practice; How do you know what you know? What is truth? What is falsehood? Is truth ever attainable? If so, how? In addition, students will learn how to determine a legitimate research strategy, including choice of method, purpose (e.g., predictive, descriptive, evaluative, etc.), setting (e.g., field or laboratory), and the nature of the data (e.g., quantitative or qualitative).

Media and Positive Psychology (MSC-555) [back to top]
Positive psychology is a new orientation to the field of psychology going beyond the emphasis on illness and pathology and instead examines area such as happiness, well-being, optimism, and fulfillment. This discipline has been applied to a variety of settings including individuals, groups, and organizations. Positive psychology can be described as an effort to use the tools of rigorous science to help us understand the sources and nature of positive human strengths, characteristics, resources, and aspirations. The focus of this field is to promote the development of those positive features of human psychology, by guiding both individuals and the institutions within which they function.

Digital Storytelling and Emerging Technology (MSC-556) [back to top]
This course will address ways in which global broadcast and narrowcast media impact on social change, and how these media can be harnessed and utilized to actively promote the advancement of social issues. The course will explore a broad range of media technologies and study their effect on social developments over the last 20 years. Concrete examples of use of media will be presented as case studies.

The course is organized along three major themes:

• An investigation in the way today's youth, influenced by video telephony, chat media, video games and other emerging interactive media forms, are acquiring a fundamentally different attitude towards media.
• An investigation into the primary forces driving the development of media formats and content in the global media marketplace, including First World and Third World markets.
• An investigation of the extent media creators are conscious of the social ramifications of their media content, and how content developers, distributors and financing institutions can be persuaded to responsibly use their media for social change.

The course will seek to answer the question: can mass media be steered to affect human behavior and social change in a positive manner, or is global media enterprise and social activism fundamentally in conflict? What can media practitioners do to promote socially responsible media content, and what are the criteria and tools to measure the relationship between global media and social change.

Media and Political Psychology (MSC-557) [back to top]
For decade's media has been relied upon to call attention to policy conflicts and to identify likely alternatives available to those seeking a resolution. In short -to define the public agenda. Interactive multimedia, blogs, social networks, virtual worlds and other innovations get a great deal of attention. In many instances they have begun to supplant print, radio and television yet a major question remains unanswered; how do voters and consumers actually process information? What is the connection between political technique, political conviction and appeal to the heart and to the mind?

This course focuses on political psychology and what happens when reason and emotion collide. What determines how people vote? How does one side in the political debate claim the political narrative? In any media, those who create advocacy and political messages seek to shape a narrative, to tell a convincing story that makes events come alive. At first look these approaches to narrative and agenda setting appear to be uniquely American. But American-style political message and spin is being sold to the world - and they are buying. But why?
Upon completion of this course students will: understand the application of Agenda Setting Theory to traditional print and television and to newer Internet based media. We will explore and assess the link between media, message and the political mind.

Cognitive Psychology and the Display of Information (MSC-558) [back to top]
For almost two generations content creators have repeated Marshall McLuhans "law" as if it were a mantra. "The Medium is the Message (or Massage)" became the guiding principle of film and television producers, music distributors and all manner of content creators. One after another they pronounced themselves platform agnostics. They were not only hoping that convergence was real, they were betting on it. The idea was simple, whatever was being created could readily move from one medium to another, generating revenue along the way. Initially things looked good. Film moved to DVD to cable to television and to the small screen on the airplane seat back. The content creator was in control. Content was king. Things looked good - until they didn't.

Convergence assumes that the cross-device user experience is the same, or at least similar. While it doesn't take a psychologist to explain that viewing Lawrence of Arabia, on a PDA is different that in its original Cinemascope format, this difference is where the cognitive action lies. Increasingly content creators need to consider both their target delivery device and the principles of cognitive psychology driving the user experience. This course explores the impact of Cognitive Psychology on devices, visual display and content design.

Media and International Psychology (MSC-559) [back to top]
The rapidly evolving technologies for transportation and electronic communication have contributed to an accelerating trend of international collaboration among psychologists in the forms of research and applied projects conducted across national and geographic boundaries for positive social change. International psychology has emerged as a sub discipline among psychologists who focus on the worldwide enterprise of psychology including communication, networking, cross-cultural comparison, scholarship, practice, and pedagogy. This work has included alliances among the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH), the International Union of Psychology Science (IUPsyS), and the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP). This course will address the importance of understanding and effectively addressing the challenges involved in communicating through the vast array of media being employed to facilitate international psychology and its global collaborative efforts for social change. The course addresses the role of media psychology in promoting the enterprise of international psychology, especially in regard to the development of multinational, multicultural, and multidisciplinary collaborative networks.

Capstone Project (MSC-600) [back to top]
The Capstone project may include a written thesis, a website, a photographic essay, video or film, or a combination of these elements and represents a final requirement in the program.

To facilitate the presentation and review of student capstone materials students will create a web-based digital portfolio. The Digital Portfolio application will allow students to upload and present individually authored text, graphics and multimedia elements, which together may demonstrate their competency in relation to the established goals and outcomes of the program.

The Digital Portfolio application will enable individuals to quickly and easily add content, manage assets, and establish clear connections between their work and specific learning objects of the program. It will include an asset database function; e-mail messaging; version control functions; and a comprehensive multimedia "showcase" in which the finished portfolio can be presented and shared.

It will enable students to work in a collaborative mode, and enhance faculty's ability to assess and grade student projects The ability to reflect, review and share portfolio work with other students as well as faculty is an integral component of Fielding's community-based learning model. Finally, students may also give potential employers access to their web-based portfolios for reference.

Last Updated: 8/28/08