NM1101E - Communications, New Media and Society Review
NM1101E
Description: Exposure mod that will introduce you into the field of CNM. It covers a wide range of fields within the study of communications, including the basic theory of communications, PR planning, interaction design, and culture in communications.
AY20/21 Semester 1
Grading:
- Tutorial Participation: 10%
- Mid-Term Exam: 20% (Done on Examplify)
- Group Project: 30% + 10% Peer Evaluation
- Final Exam: 30% (Done on LumiNUS Quiz)
Lecturer: Prof Natalie Pang
Midterm: 10 MCQ and 1 Application Essay
Final: 3 Application Essays
Group Project: Represent a client to write up a PR plan to address an issue.
M: My least enjoyed module last sem, despite me coming in almost fully certain I was going to major in CNM. Lectures were painfully boring, with Prof Nat's enthusiasm in teaching not nearly enough to get N and I to continue attending each lecture live. Certain theories to me were confusing to understand as well (that one week where we were learning about spiral of silence and etc - whew!) The group project was a great pain for me to deal with, as my groupmates weren't very helpful and didn't talk much -- you'd think for students taking a communications module, they'd know how to communicate better. Midterms also greatly annoyed me as they were all MCQs, but every question seemed as if different answers could be argued to be correct. Finals were open book, but the nature of the questions being applicative means that having your notes as reference won't be of great help. The questions themselves, however, weren't too difficult to answer but I wasn't fully certain of how my grade would turn out at the end. Won't recommend taking this module unless you're intending to major in CNM or if you enjoy torturing yourself in your spare time.
ZH: I had heard from my seniors that Prof Nat wasn't the best lecturer. She's nice, but lectures were mostly reading off the slides, and readings were sometimes confusing. If you want to minimize work done, I suggest you only read the assigned textbook chapters and ignore the non-textbook readings, and just use the information on the lecture slides. Textbook is easy reading and very interesting, and for interaction design, the reading was a chapter of Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman which I was already interested in, so those were fun to read. The other readings, however, were all boring or obfuscating. Looking at you, PR campaigns and communicative city chapter. I took this module along with PL1101E, and there were slight overlaps in concepts (Social psychology) which made both modules easier. Exams were rather straightforward, just plop in keywords and you get the mark. Be prepared to spend some time on the group project. Its parts are split over the tutorial weeks, and shouldn't be too hard, but you do need to apply what you learned in the PR chapters, which is the main purpose of the project.
N: Took visual comm in poly so I though the vibes would be similar but um... no words. Watched the first lecture live and never attended another one again. The slides also contain all the info so there's lowkey no need to watch any of the recordings either. Only part I liked was the group project because I got to make the app while my ~wonderful~ teammates did the PR and interview part. I thought i screwed up finals badly (bc let's be real i didn't study at all) but I actually did kinda okay overall. I won't recommend this module unless you wanna major in CNM or you got prior experience in communications. <33 (p.s. I didn't do readings past like week 2 either bc her slides really do have everything u need to know)
Expected Grade/Actual Grade:
- N: B/A
- M: B+/A-
- ZH: A-/A-
Take this module if you need to. Otherwise, I can't imagine taking this as a UE, you should take NM2101 instead, if you can. The workload is rather high, and the concepts taught are broad but don't go very much in depth. Specific topics you may find interesting, you may as well just read it yourself without taking the module. (I highly recommend you read Design of Everyday Things.)
Hello again! was planning to take this module together with nm2101 next sem and was wondering if you would be willing to share some of the notes and the types of questions asked in the midterm and final? and can i ask if these are close book assessments? Thank you so much!!
ReplyDeleteHi there, I could share the lecture slides (though they are a few semesters old) and my notes, though a majority are poorly-written...
DeleteFor the assessments, they were both open book and consist of MCQ and short-answer questions. An example of the type of question you might find in either exam would be a video clip or example is given to you and you have to answer a few MCQs on what concepts it follows. I recall a question like "I watch Nikocado Avocado because ..." --> Uses and Gratifications theory.
Short answer questions also follow a similar format, instead having more elaborate answers. E.g. "Explain how the example in the video made use of SMCR theory"