The people behind this blog are students at Zurich University of Arts. They study “Cast”, a mixture of multimedia, journalism, web 2.x and social networks. Check out their respective pages.
Course objectives
The newly established Specialization in Cast rests upon the conviction that new digital and mobile media and platforms need professional “high-quality content” in addition to “user-generated content.” Such content is devised and produced by design professionals based in audiovisual media and conversant with graphics and animation software, active in journalism, and capable of dramaturgical thinking. Cast graduates are storytellers specialized in small and short formats: they create “short stories for the small screen” and focus on the needs and interests of media users rather than business.
Course content
Students acquire the fundamentals for designing classic audiovisual media and their application to new digital and mobile media. Classic radio know-how serves to create Web radio and audio podcasts; classic television know-how helps produce IPTV, and professional theatre and film dramaturgy forms the basis for creating interactive stories. Cast faculty consists of new and old media practitioners with proven teaching experience, including directors, authors, radio producers, Weblog experts, Webagency owners, podcast and mobile television producers, trend experts, advertising and marketing specialists, and media philosophers.
The course is organized in a range of consecutive theory and practice modules. Year 1 design modules focus on the independent and collaborative production of digital content for linear and non-linear distribution channels. Various modes of journalism and chronicling are studied and practised with non-fictional content (for audio, video, and text). Year 2 focuses on fictional content as well as planning and conceiving Web platforms, Web radios, and streaming media. The course also includes theory modules (designed to teach dramaturgical skills) and various related modules (marketing, media economics, media trends).
Employment opportunities
Typically, Cast graduates are employed in the online and new media departments of news and media corporations. They help traditional media corporations successfully make the transition to Web 2.0. They serve small, new media enterprises as change agents. Cast graduates conceive and design audio and video podcasts, IPTVContent, mobile television programmes, Web radios, and multimedia platforms. They stand at the cutting edge of a development in which broadcasting is no longer the prerogative of a few providers, but now lies in the hands of many creative publishers.
