Course Catalog

This is the capstone course for all Marketing and Communication interested Seniors. It puts previous learning experiences from management classes, marketing, research and communications into perspective and analyses the strategic choices that lead to building strong and lasting brands. The course sets a particular focus on brand positioning, brand architecture, Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) and teaches the academic foundations and tools that are indispensable to develop truly differentiating brand statements, to understand key research techniques and their usage in real life as well as competitive strategy. Numerous brand cases and exercises such as Nespresso, Tag Heuer, Healthy Choice, Toyota, etc. help to illustrate brand strategy and teaches students to apply strategic thinking in building strong and differentiated brands. The course employs the Harvard Business School Case Study method and teamwork throughout.

Provides broad cultural background to the diverse geopolitical region referred to as 'the Arab World'. Looks at the interplay between the forces and processes involved in the expansion of mass media in this context with a particular focus on state/society development and the role of the media through themes like press freedoms, satellite broadcasting, discursive analysis of media text.

Topics vary. Using analytic skills learned in core courses, students work with an AUP faculty member, visiting scholar or professional in an area of current interest in the field to be determined by the instructor and the faculty of the Global Communications department.

In consultation with a faculty member, the student undertakes a senior project related to the field or pratice of journalism and media production. Written projects are normally 25-30 pages. The project can take the form of a feature-length magazine article, a long-form piece of video or audio journalism, a multi-media production including iconography and illustrative material, or a strategic business plan for a journalism or media product such as a magazine or online platform.

A Senior Project is an independent study representing a Major Capstone Project that needs to be registered using the Senior Project registration form.
(Download: https://fd10.formdesk.com/aup/SeniorProjectApplication)

This course introduces students to major theories and practices of communications research, particularly those dealing with the globalization of media and culture. Students learn a mixture of approaches: rhetorical, quantitative, ethnographic and textual. They learn how various disciplines—economics, political science, anthropology, sociology, and rhetoric—deal with these issues. They also study a variety of research methodologies, learn how to create research projects and develop thesis-writing skills.

This course examines the evolution of critical advertising and brand analysis with a particular emphasis on learning how people come to identify with and believe in brands. It includes an analysis of how brands work as systems for producing differences between themselves by creating imaginary possible worlds associated with brands. Students learn tools of semiotic and linguistic analysis in analyzing brands and how they relate to each other. Each student completes a communications audit of a brand examining all aspects of its communicative strategies from package design to employee behavior, clothing, architecture, and shop design. The course will also examine how branding now has extended beyond consumer brands to such areas as NGOs and politics (political parties as brands and politicians as brands).

The course will explore the ways in which cultural difference is mobilized – socially, politically and economically – by individuals and groups and the ways in which current discourses and practices of cultural difference interact with globalization. The course will analyze the combined processes of homogenization and fragmentation that result from this encounter. It will examine how affirmations of cultural distinctiveness are joined by yearnings for negotiations and ‘translations’ between them. As different actors deploy divergent understandings of ‘culture’, questions of cultural ‘identity’, access, agency and power come to the fore. The actors in question range from academic cultural theorists to officials in governmental agencies; they also include international organizations, cultural entrepreneurs, NGO activists and artists. Against the backdrop of globalization, the course will analyze how these actors articulate ‘cultural’ discourses and strategies and practices as well as how the media re-articulate and reflect the latter. Two particular discursive formations will be emphasized: i) those of ‘cultural diversity’ that focus on cultural goods and services and ii) those inspired by the notions of inter- or trans-cultural communication and dialogue.

This course provides an introduction to key topics and theories in the study of the Internet and other digital media as cultural and social phenomena. Four main themes guide our approach: space and networks; bodies and identities; objects and practices; and economics and politics. Within the contexts of globalization, we will place particular emphasis on interrogating transformations made possible by the pervasion of digital media, but also restrictions and contestations that arise. Students will develop their individual interests in relevant topics with an independent research project.

This course examines the theories of self and identity formation in a globalized world where traditional techniques of identity formation coming from religions and schools and family are being supplemented or changed by techniques coming from other cultures and countries. Some of these ways of self-identification are influenced by consumerism, advertising and media. Some are influenced by traditional physical and moral training or globalized martial arts. Some are influenced by the implantation of psychological and therapeutic techniques from the West. Others are linked to the circulation of techniques of self-formation from yoga, tai chi, and kabala that have been taken out of their traditional contexts and globalized, mediatized and modernized. This course looks at people who seek to make and define themselves in various different local contexts. It will also examine the rise of religious fundamentalism, its appeal to youth, and how it uses media. The course also looks at the role of media, institutions and advertising consumer culture in this process.

This workshop provides the opportunity for a cross-analysis of color design and color communication. Visits to museums and on-site field research in the multicultural environment of Paris are an integral part of the course. Students will examine how color principles are articulated in the context of cultural, historical, socio-economic, and environmental factors. In this practicum, students will produce a set of color studies illustrating their understanding of the application of the principles of color usage and how color interacts with values of ethnicity, culture and habitus to produce communication.