Minors
The Department of Journalism and Media Communication offers six minors designed to complement your major with focused hands-on skills. Whether you want to strengthen your storytelling, build technical production skills, or explore science communication, these minors let you expand your knowledge or dive deeper into a specific interest area. Open to students across CSU, a minor is a flexible way to shape your degree to meet your goals.
Minors Offered
Content Creation
Build the skills to create engaging content across social media, video, audio, photography, and graphic design with the Content Creation minor. This program gives you a strong foundation in social media production and strategic practice, building skills in branding, visual communication, communication strategy, and audience engagement.
The curriculum combines two required courses in visual communication and social media management with additional credits in media production, writing, storytelling, and strategic communication. Flexible electives let you tailor the minor to your interests, while hands-on experience producing audio, video, photography, and graphic design projects helps you build a polished portfolio to support your career in digital media.
Journalism and Media Communication majors are not allowed to enroll in this minor, but the program is open to any other major looking to build their content creation skills.
Minor Advisor: Dakota Cotner
Faculty Advisor: Jenny Fischer
Information Science & Technology
This minor is designed for students seeking a broad foundation in information technology, but who are not majoring in a specific information technology-related field. The interdisciplinary minor includes design, technology, and communication courses from five departments: Computer Information Systems, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Journalism and Media Communication, and English.
This flexible minor is open to students majoring in any field except Computer Information Systems and Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Minor Advisor: Dakota Cotner
Faculty Advisor: Ben O’Connor
Journalistic Reporting and Storytelling
Build journalistic skills in conducting primary source research, strategically using media tools, and crafting compelling stories
Courses provide a foundation in the principles of journalism, including ethics, newsgathering, and reporting. You’ll develop your own voice as a storyteller and learn to create effective political and governmental coverage, breaking news, personality profiles, culture pieces, and more.
Most important, this minor helps you produce and consume news within a complex media landscape, becoming a positive force against misinformation and division. The minor is open to students across CSU except for students majoring in Journalism and Media Communication.
Minor Advisor: Dakota Cotner
Media Studies
Build a strong foundation in critical media studies with the Media Studies minor, jointly offered by the Department of Journalism and Media Communication and the Department of Communication Studies. You’ll study the impacts and roles of mass media in society and explore how media shape the way people understand the world.
Courses examine media and film history, communications law and ethics, and the social effects and cultural consequences of mass media. You’ll also dive into multicultural and international media issues, gaining a broader perspective on how media operate across different communities and countries.
The minor pairs well with students interested in understanding how media shape public discourse, culture, and policy, giving students the critical thinking skills to analyze media messages in any career. The minor is open to students across CSU. Journalism and Media Communication majors cannot use JTC courses to complete this minor, and Communication Studies majors cannot use SPCM courses to complete it.
Minor Advisor for students with last names A-M: Dakota Cotner
Minor Advisor for students with last names N-Z: Communication Studies
Music, Stage & Sports Production
Get hands-on experience in live event production with the Music, Stage, and Sports Production minor. Study the foundations of live event video and audio production in the performing arts and sports spaces. You'll gain skills in all aspects of live production including directing, camera and audio operation, lighting, sound, and streaming/distribution techniques.
Classes blend theory with practical skill-building in video and audio production, social media, web design, motion graphics, and theatre lighting and sound. Drawing from seven College of Liberal Arts departments, this interdisciplinary minor is open to students from any major.
Students have the option of joining RamProductions, a group that has produced more than 330 videos for the college, with nearly 1,000 subscribers and over 500,000 views.
Minor Advisor: Dakota Cotner
Faculty Advisor: Steve Weiss, 303-880-7221, Clark C-204
Science Communication
Learn to communicate science, health, agricultural, and environmental issues with impact through the Science Communication minor. Because science often involves complicated research and processes, communicating the results of that work requires special skills.
Classes cover public relations, crisis communication, data visualization, science and environmental communication, and food and natural resources communication. The minor prepares you for a wide range of career opportunities in media, science and natural resource agencies, science-related industries, and corporate communication.
This minor is ideal for students majoring in science or engineering fields who want to strengthen their ability to communicate effectively with non-expert audiences. Journalism and Media Communication majors are not allowed to declare this minor, but they may choose a science communication focus within their major.
Minor Advisor: Dakota Cotner
Faculty Advisor: Ashley Anderson
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