Are you an IBCoM student curious about what courses you should take in the next semester? Or are you a student outside of IBCoM and do you want to find out what we study? This blog post will provide you with some useful information about two seminars that you can take from you second year onward.
Before we take a look at these courses, let me introduce myself. Hi, my name is Jiyul and I am a new blogger of IBCoMagazine. As an exchange student from South Korea, I had some difficulties when registering for the IBCoM courses. The problem for me was that there were too many courses to choose from and I could not make a wise choice only by having a look at the course guide.
So for those of you who want to enjoy your IBCoM courses to the fullest, I have conducted a small interview with the students who are currently enrolled in two unique IBCoM courses. I hope this interview will help you when trying to choose your courses in the future.
CM2036 – Social Media, Prosumption and Identity
Interviewees
Leah Nayeon Lee (Exchange student from South Korea)
Daniel Chay (Exchange student from Singapore)
Brief Description of the course
Social Media, Prosumption and Identity is a course that is open for term one. As the course title insists, this course teaches students about the notion of identity and how it is changing or being consumed through social media. Moreover, by shifting the perspective of social media consumption, the course requires the students to create a prosumption themselves by opening up their own social websites or pages.
What is unique about this course?
Nayeon & Daniel: The most unique and interesting part of this course is definitely the prosumption activity project. For this project, we have to find our own interest and create a social media page by indulging our own interest in it. Most of the students therefore make individual Instagram or Facebook pages, which they relate to their personal interests or identity. Another unique thing about the class is that the professor discusses the weekly projects of students anonymously, after which the students have to guess whose webpost it is by thinking of their colleagues’ personal interests. This is the most exciting part of our seminar as we get to communicate with others about our projects profoundly.
Can you explain a bit more about the project?
Nayeon: The name of my page is “‘The Lives of Women”. Personally, I really like my project page. I have high interest in feminism and I wanted to express myself by creating this page. This page consists of pictures and interviews of women about their perception of living as a female in modern society. It was really nice to interview various people and to hear about their own ideas and experiences related to feminism. Moreover, I was able to adjust well to the new environment as an exchange student, because I got to meet new people in Rotterdam by asking for interviews and actually interviewing them.
Daniel: My Instagram page for this project is called “The Human Expression”. It is a page about the basic skills of martial arts and about the martial arts practitioners in Rotterdam. Since I enjoy playing martial arts in my free time, it was really exciting for me to actually create a page to promote and advertise my interests to others. I also posted a video of myself talking about the basic skills of boxing on Instagram and it was a special experience for me. Likewise, the project of this course connects very well with individual’s passion and interest.
Would you recommend this course to other students?
Nayeon: I will definitely recommend this course to other students! It is helpful for students who study media since you can keep up with recent media trends by analyzing the changes of social media. Also, the class project is based on your own personal identity, so you can enjoy your assignment unlike most other assignments. For me, it helped a lot to be more brave and active in the process of searching for my identity and expressing it. So why hesitate to register for this course? You will definitely get to know yourself better.
Daniel: Yes I would! It is very different from other courses I have right now in term one. Through this course, I was able to learn more about social identity, which was a new concept for me. And I think this course is very useful since I can continue my social media page even when I go back to Singapore. In Singapore, since there are more people who have interest in martial arts, I want to find more interesting stuff about martial arts and post it on my website. So if you are interested in promoting your own identity or interest to others, you definitely should listen to this course!
CM2052 – Transmedia Entertainment and Marketing
Interviewee
Marieke Fraanje
(Second year IBCoM Bachelor student)
Brief Description of the course
Transmedia Entertainment and Marketing is also a course that is open for term one. It is a course for second and third year students. The term ‘transmedia’ means to spread one coherent story through different media platforms. For instance, the story of Harry Potter is told through different media platforms, such as Pottermore websites, Quidditch games, and Harry Potter Theme Parks. They all have different plots and are not connected to each other, but still share a coherent theme, which is Harry Potter. And this is what is called ‘transmedia storytelling’. Likewise, in this course, students learn about the concept and trends regarding transmedia storytelling. Furthermore, they get to apply it to marketing by studying the real life examples and strategies of corporations.
Why did you choose this course and what is unique about it?
Marieke: I chose this course because I am interested in marketing and PR and I want to study these fields. So this course seemed interesting and appealing to me. For the weekly seminar, we have to do some readings. However, most of the readings are quite short and fun to read with interesting video footages included. Also, since transmedia storytelling is highly related to our daily lives as we watch many TV shows and films through different platforms, the real life examples discussed in the class are very interesting. The most interesting part is that we get to actually apply the transmedia principles we learn in class to marketing by conducting our own ™ campaign as a team project.
Can you explain about the final project of this course?
Marieke: As mentioned in the first question, the biggest part of this class is the final ™ campaign project. In small groups, we have to create and present our own ™ Campaign for a specific brand. The corporation our team chose for the final project is Walt Disney. It was actually very nice to do a campaign on Disney because we all grew up watching the movies. Therefore, it is very nice to study how they make use of transmedia storytelling. Also, we have to suggest a brand strategy Disney needs for the future transmedia market. So this process helps us to think from the marketer’s perspective, not only from the consumer’s perspective as usual.
Would you recommend this course to others?
Marieke: Definitely! This course is very interesting and gives a lot of practical information about transmedia strategies. Since most students are not so familiar with the exact this concept, there is a lot of new and exciting information you can get from this class. Also it is fun to discuss the marketing of brands that you encounter in your everyday life. For example, we discussed in class about Heineken’s ‘Dropped’ campaign, which was part of transmedia marketing. Likewise, there are lots of exciting discussions going on in ‘Transmedia Entertainment and Marketing’ seminar.
We hope that the little sneak peek into these two interesting IBCoM courses will help you picking out courses for next semester or next year and that you enjoyed reading the stories of our interviewees. Stay tuned with our IBCoMagazine blog since there is a lot more coming up!