Courses
Dr. Sivek currently teaches a variety of courses at Fresno State, including:
MCJ 1: Mass Communication and Society. This large lecture course, enrolling over 100 students per semester, covers a variety of media topics, including both traditional “legacy” media and digital and social media. Students explore the effects of these media on individuals and on society as a whole from a media literacy perspective. The course is required for Mass Communication and Journalism majors, and is also a general education course open to all majors. You can view the course syllabus and the Spring 2010 course blog. The Fall 2009 course Ning network is also still accessible.
MCJ 10: Meda Writing. This course is an introductory writing course that covers a variety of media genres, including blogging, basic newswriting, magazine writing, and PR writing. Multimedia is also introduced in this course through audio assignments that complement the written work. Students also learn valuable career tools, such as resume writing and personal branding. This course is required for all MCJ majors. The course syllabus is here, the Spring 2010 class blog is here, and the Fall 2009 Ning network can be viewed here.
MCJ 207: Qualitative Research Methods. This graduate-level course covers the philosophical foundations for qualitative research and a variety of methodologies, including interviewing, focus groups, participant observation, and textual analysis.
MCJ 104: Editing of Publications. Dr. Sivek taught this course during Fall 2009. It covers advanced grammar, Associated Press style, news judgment, legal and ethical issues in editing, headline writing, caption writing and more. The class’s Ning network is still available.
In previous teaching positions, Dr. Sivek has also taught Media Interpretation and Criticism, Political Communication, and Magazine Publishing. Her CV includes more details on these courses.
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sivekmedia.com blog&stuff by Susan Currie Sivek, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. 
What I’m Reading- The Best of Journalism (2009)A "running list of the best journalism" the author read in 2009. Many great examples here, and hours and hours of reading!
- Steve Coll: What I ReadThis series of "What I Read" columns fits nicely with our discussion of the "media diet" and the students' "media log" assignment in our MCJ 1 introductory course. Everyone has a media diet, after all; what does yours look like?
- Don't confuse them with facts"...we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe."
- Sorry, English major, the engineers have triumphedIs Google "making us stupid"? Or "shift[ing] the emphasis of our intelligence"? Or have we just changed with every new medium - all the way back to Gutenberg? An interesting discussion of this contentious issue, with some connections to our discussion in class yesterday about the role of information in contemporary society.
- I lifted (but attributed) most of this post on plagiarism Pursuing the Complete Community ConnectionGreat tips on avoiding plagiarism from Steve Buttry.
- Covering the Decade in Magazine CoversA video showing 92 notable magazine covers. What is it about magazine covers that makes them so memorable and significant to us?
- A Case For Digital Media Literacy: Tracking Down A Meme WiredPen
- Magazines: Cheaper Subscriptions May Not Win New Subscribers - Advertising Age - MediaWorksMakes sense to me; a couple of good comments on this piece strike closer to the heart of the matter, though.
- Arguments for government subsidies for journalism: weak and inconsistent Pursuing the Complete Community ConnectionShould the government provide subsidies to help journalism survive? Steve Buttry discusses McChesney/Nichols' arguments in their recent book.
- No ads, no newsstand, no problem: first issue of WoW magConvergence, community, and new magazine business models, all in one case study - the new World of Warcraft magazine. Cool.
- The Best of Journalism (2009)
