News media continue to expand into multiple different forms of reporting, storytelling, and media platforms, and there is a growing need for graduates with multimedia skills to handle the demand, as well as keep up to date with technologies, audience needs, and media ethics in the developing, fast-moving digital media space. We aim to produce highly competent and multi-skilled professionals who think critically about their work and care about standards.
This major sits within the Bachelor of Communication and offers applied practice in journalism and media production. You will receive intensive training in media ethics and law, newsgathering and writing, research and analysis. You will also develop a range of multimedia skills, including photography, video, audio, and social and online media production.
Journalism students will also have opportunities to complete professional internships as part of their degree, through UC’s partnerships with national and local newsrooms, and other media industries.
Courses
UC offers a major in Journalism as part of the Bachelor of Communication.
The major offers applied practice in the journalism skills of research, reporting, interviewing, and analysis, and applying them to a variety of writing styles and subjects, as well as multimedia and digital technologies including television and radio.
Journalism major
Courses towards the Journalism major begin in your second year. To complete the major you will need to take the following courses throughout the degree:
200-level
- COMS 231 Digital Media Production
- COMS 232 Risk and Crisis Communication
- COMS 233 Media Law for Journalists
300-level
- COMS 331 Researching and Reporting News
- COMS 332 News Production
Students may find taking courses in Sociology, Political Science and International Relations, Statistics, Māori and Indigenous Studies, and Te Reo Māori alongside their Journalism studies particularly useful.
Career opportunities
Journalism graduates will be well prepared for work in modern newsrooms, both in Aotearoa and overseas, due to their extensive multimedia skills and ability to independently investigate and report news for online newsroom platforms, television, radio, and newspapers.
Graduates will also be suited to work in other roles in the communication and creative industries, such as a communications advisor/manager, producer, social media manager, content creator, editor, or publisher.
Contact us
School of Language, Social and Political Sciences
Phone +64 3 369 3377
Email [email protected]
Location
6th Floor, Locke Building – see campus maps
Postal address
College of Arts | Te Rāngai Toi Tangata
University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch 8140
New Zealand