Work-Study Certificate Leading to Diploma in Digital Media and Communication

Design Thinking for Business Innovation

This module is a practice-based introduction to the Design Thinking methodology. It builds upon its theories and frameworks to solve business problems and identify growth opportunities. Through case studies and hands-on assignments, students will learn and practice methodologies needed to take a creative idea from cradle to consumer. Key topics include ethnography and semiotics, design ideation, system modelling, and disruptive technologies.

Generative AI for Marketing

This module aims to bridge the gap between traditional marketing approaches and the transformative potential of artificial intelligence. It delves into the realm of generative AI, empowering participants to harness its capabilities for enhanced creativity, personalised customer interactions, and data-driven decision-making.

Through a blend of theoretical foundations and hands-on exercises, learners will explore the practical applications of generative AI in content creation, predictive analytics, and customer segmentation, equipping them with the tools needed to craft compelling marketing campaigns in the digital age.

Communication Practicum

The module is designed as a capstone project to affirm students’ job readiness for the media and communication industry. In assigned teams, students will take on the role of a marketing agency and conceptualise, plan and propose a digital marketing campaign proposal for a company/industry partner based on a given project/campaign brief.

The campaign proposal will allow students to apply the knowledge and skills obtained from the previous modules in this programme. For example, they will be required to conduct situation and audience analyses, create mock-ups of digital marketing content and plan a campaign using the budget and resources outlined by the client.

Students will be guided by the programme facilitators who have extensive industry experience. The project serves as an important cornerstone in the students’ professional portfolio, which can be critical in the students’ ability to stand out amongst other candidates during a job application.

Communication in the Global Workplace

Information and communication technologies have not only transformed the way companies conduct business, but they have also expanded the concept of the workplace by going beyond local borders. This is the primary motivation for the module.

This module’s framework will be divided into three interconnected parts: the importance of core communication principles, business communication and global communication vis-à-vis cultural diversity.

Fundamentals of Digital Media Engagement

Digital technologies heavily influence the operations of the media industry. Media professionals must have a critical understanding of how these digital tools are consumed and can be used in communications work. Through hands-on activities, students will learn technical skills and approaches for working with raw information related to digital technology across a range of topic areas.

The module is cognisant of the fact that students taking this module would have already been exposed to many of these tools. However, it aims to develop a deeper understanding of the thinking process that prefaces the product that students create.

Basic Media Writing

In an age where audiences are served information from multiple sources, speed and accuracy are more important than ever in journalism. This is an introductory module designed to develop basic news writing competencies of students.

Special emphasis is placed on the nature of news and reporting techniques to help students acquire skills relevant to the media industry, including researching, gathering and evaluating information, structuring, and writing of news stories. They will also learn about stylebooks, interviewing and questioning, and effective writing that engages audiences on multiple platforms.  

Students will learn how to act on story assignments and to report them accurately on deadline. Through the course of the module, students will begin building a portfolio of journalistic work on multimedia platforms.

Media Law and Ethics

The Media Law and Ethics module aims to strengthen students’ awareness of the ethical and legal issues in the media industry in the digital age. It aims to provide students with a practical grounding of media law and ethics and equip them with the ability to navigate a media industry that is constantly evolving because of technological affordances.

Students will have a practical grounding of media law and ethics by problem-solving and presenting a myriad of legal issues and ethical dilemmas faced by current media practitioners operating in a multi-platform media industry. Through this module, students will explore and discover legal and ethical aspects of media production and consumption spanning traditional and digital media channels.

They will also develop the ability to make rational, reasoned and ethical decisions, with due consideration of the relevant laws and legal implications when making editorial decisions in the selection, development, and interpretation of content within the media industry.

Video Storytelling

Video is a powerful storytelling tool and has become a key component in marketing and communications in a world of digital media. This module will introduce students to the basics of digital storytelling and the production of video-based content for digital and social media. This module aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills to translate story ideas into visual content by combining video production techniques and digital content ideation, as well as to effectively tell digital stories that will enhance audience engagement, interaction and branding.

It will offer hands-on opportunities for you to ideate, script and produce your own digital stories on various platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. In doing so, it aims to provide a solid foundation for those who wish to take their audience engagement to the next level through compelling digital content.

Digital Content Creation and Management

Audiences today seek content from multiple platforms, and media professionals must learn to communicate through and across these platforms. This module introduces students to concepts and techniques that enable them to write and create content catered to online audiences on digital media platforms.

Students will be guided on how to strategically integrate digital media tools in the content creation process, as well as to employ digital media tools to drive traffic and attract readers. Students will also learn how, through design and storytelling, digital media platforms can be used to create targeted messaging that delivers multiplied and measurable results.

They will gain hands-on experience designing news content as well as communication strategies for major digital platforms, including web, social media and mobile apps.

Creative Visual Storytelling

Creative Visual Storytelling presents various theories and techniques of telling stories visually, intending to enable students to create effective visual sequences of their own. Storyboarding and video editing are covered extensively, and, through analysis, discussion, and practice, students develop the ability to create, select, and place images in sequence so as to maximise the dramatic effect of a work.

Through observation, discussion, analysis, and hands-on practice, students become fluent in the language, grammar, terminology, and techniques of visual storytelling. They will also learn to identify and understand the emotional and dramatic development in a short story and be able to translate that development into an effective visual sequence.

Students are expected to analyse a still image using Gestalt theory, visual unity, and hierarchy. They will analyse visual sequences to determine how to effectively use three-act structure, mise-en-scène, and metaphors to convey meanings and emotions. At the end of the module, students will be able to apply visual storytelling creation techniques to effectively communicate meanings, emotions and messages in a campaign video.

Graphic Design for Digital Platforms

Graphic Design for Digital Platforms aims to prepare students to look at how design affects how we think, feel, and respond to the world. Through exploration, analysis, discussion and practice, students acquire the ability to design works that shape one’s perceptions. Students then learn how design can effectively entertain, persuade, and affect human behaviour.

Students also look at why human nature plays a role in the design and development of a personal approach for creating design work that is meaningful and effective. Throughout the module, students become aware of the elements of design and how they can be used to communicate effectively. In turn, students become more confident in using these design elements to express their artistic point of view with imagination and creativity.

Digital Media Engagement Strategies

Audiences today seek content from multiple platforms, and media professionals must learn to communicate through and across these platforms. This module introduces students to concepts and techniques that enable them to write and create content catered to online audiences on digital media platforms. Students will be guided on how to strategically integrate digital media tools in the content creation process, as well as to employ digital media tools to drive traffic and attract readers.

Students will also learn how, through design and storytelling, digital media platforms can be used to create targeted messaging that delivers multiplied and measurable results. They will gain hands-on experience designing news content as well as communication strategies for major digital platforms, including web, social media and mobile.

Consumer Research with Data Visualisation

This module provides students with comprehensive coverage of concepts, tools, and techniques to gain consumer insights, with an emphasis on generating, applying, and interpreting these insights to aid business decision-making, particularly in the area of consumer marketing. Students will learn about the knowledge and skills required to design and implement research studies to evaluate the effectiveness of programmes, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.  

Participants will also deepen their knowledge and skills to identify and select appropriate data analytics tool(s) to generate the eventual research analyses, as well as skills to communicate research findings through the usage of data visualisation tools and techniques.

Media Research and Analytics

This module aims to equip students with the knowledge to understand the research processes and apply the appropriate research methods in a communications-framed environment to develop better communication strategies for an organisation. The module introduces students to key concepts of media research and the fundamentals of conducting formal research for the media industry.

The module covers the basics of understanding and conducting communication research. This includes coverage on popular methods of research in communication, and the practice of analysing media content for both traditional and digital mass media, such as print, broadcast, and social media.

Communications and Engagement in Sustainability

This module aims to equip students with knowledge on the importance of businesses to communicate about their sustainability efforts, how businesses should communicate about sustainability, and what sustainability they should be talking about. Students will learn to look at the societal context to examine the social or environmental impact that a brand can potentially have before embarking on planning and designing a sustainability communications strategy.

In addition, students will learn to define the audiences they want to target and the content ideas available to develop their sustainability messaging. Students will also learn to plan and develop public relations and marketing communications campaigns to avoid greenwashing and amplify their messages appropriately.

Public Relations and Communications Management

Public relations (PR) is a strategic communication process that builds lasting relationships between an organisation and its publics to strengthen the organisation’s identity and reputation. It involves developing and implementing effective communication strategies and programmes to help achieve its organisational goals. PR also identifies and harnesses key media across various practices to convey messages to the public, so as to help them understand and accept the organisation and its businesses.  

This module aims to equip students with the knowledge and concepts of PR and the PR process so that they can plan and implement communications strategies and PR programmes. It also aims to equip students with a basic understanding of how media works and how to write for various media to convey messages effectively. It provides students with the BIG picture of the PR and media landscape and its progress towards digital media.

Advanced Integrated Marketing Communications

When communicating to audiences, brands have to cut through the clutter to attract and engage audiences and convey information as quickly and succinctly as possible. In this module, students will experience integrated marketing communications campaign planning from start to finish and prepare them for a career in this field.

Students will dive deeper into the world of integrated marketing communications to learn the necessary skills to develop effective integrated campaigns that include planning, conceptualisation of ideas, creation of content and the execution of campaign tools to achieve key objectives. 

Through carefully curated case studies and realistic project briefs, students will hone their skills at developing and pitching creative solutions that will achieve the campaign’s objective for their brand and organisation.

Advanced Media Writing

The ability to write in a compelling narrative style so as to keep the interest of a reader is an essential skill for all media professionals, whatever their specialisations, especially in a new, crowded media space. The module aims to equip students with the knowledge, skills and professional values of feature journalism.

By the end of the module, students should be able to write features which display craft in writing, strong research and critical thinking skills, packaged for maximum readership on multiple media platforms.