Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Journalism and Communication

The course will focus on brainstorming students the importance of obligations and social responsibilities for being a journalist. The course will also lead students to understand the importance of verification and the role of journalists as a watchdog to monitor the government and the power while offering voice for the voiceless.

Finally, the course will examine journalism-related controversial issues arising from malpractices of freedom of press, such as privacy invasion, sensationalism and market-driven journalism.

Attention will be paid to the writing of headlines, leads, quotes, and linguistic pitfalls for journalists and media professionals. Techniques on writing various types of news stories will also be taught.  Examples are drawn from newspapers, magazines, television and radio.

The course will focus on how freedom of press is abused through case studies of privacy intrusion, sensational journalism and market-driven journalism. There will be tutorials for students to debate whether statutory law and legal restrictions are necessary that will limit our freedom of speech and press freedom.

Students are expected to examine critically whether under what circumstances that professional ethics is adequate; and to what extent law is needed when professional ethics may not work. Where is the balance between media ethics and media law?

Learning activities include: lectures, class workshops and case analysis. Media professionals will also be invited to share their professional experience with students so that students will have a more updated knowledge of how professionals work and current problems they encounter in the industry.

Special emphasis will be placed on TV news editing and production, TV newsroom operation, and effective use of video production equipment. Students will work through different news production projects, use digital equipment to process information, edit news stories, produce news stories in the Chinese and international contexts, and broadcast it through appropriate media outlets. Students will deal with real-life issues and challenges of TV news reporting business. While a portion of the course is largely hands-on, this course will also introduce the essential knowledge and principles of broadcast journalism.

Students are expected to produce a “live” newscast at the end of the course, in which they will appreciate the teamwork spirit of television news production as students in groups of at least five members will perform various kinds of role in a news studio environment.

For non-local internship, students would be sent abroad to Canada, USA, Malaysia, Taiwan or China etc., to work in a media corporation or public relations firm. Some of the students would be sent to Beijing to work in the national media, including newspapers, radio and TV stations.

The aim of sending students to pursue placement is to enable them to apply their knowledge and skills from classroom lectures to gain combat experience under the supervision of professional journalists or public relations practitioners.

Under the work attachment programme, a small group of 4-5 students will be attached to a media organisation for two semesters, working on a part-time basis for 2 days a week during their final year study.

The capstone project is intended to provide the following training for students:-

1. To provide training to students in a work place so that they can apply their knowledge from classroom to a real working environment.
2. To equip students with professional skills that will facilitate their career development when they graduate.

To conduct research on a specific topic based on practical learning and work experience in an attached media organization for a final year project paper that will serve as a testimony of how students can apply their analytical skills in a case study.

(Year 3 students)

(Year 4 students)

Over the past 20 years or so, this unique model has been challenged for many times as some people in the community of Hong Kong are still skeptical about the dominant role of “one country”. This course will seek to explain how the HKSAR is being ruled under the Basic Law, drafted before the Handover, and the common laws, which have been inherited from the British during the 150+ years of colonial rule of this metropolis.

1. To provide professional printed and online magazine publishing knowledge.
2. To provide the basic understanding of how to edit and design various genres of magazines.

As such, students will be taught with some basic principles of finance, accounting and economics. Then they will also be taught in the analysis and interpretation of the real meanings of all those figures in the financial statements, e.g. the profit and loss account, the balance sheet, the profit and loss warnings, etc. And the ethics of business journalists will also be covered.

It will also include the fundamental concepts of television production and programme design, with specific topics on the production and transmission of large-scale sporting events, such as the Olympic Games and the World Cup Soccer, etc.