Digital Media and Production Certificate

Today, for almost any professional organization, an online presence is the standard. Businesses, cultural institutions, and not-for-profits clamor for more and more digital content. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, social influencers, elected officials, activists, and countless other professions rely on quality digital media to engage others and reach their goals.

Whether attracting customers or advancing a social cause, the ability to create, produce, and critically engage with digital communication in all its forms, from written to oral to visual, is an increasingly valuable skill set for you to have. With a Digital Media and Production certificate, you'll pair practical production and design skills with critical thinking and creative problem-solving to prepare yourself for success in a variety of careers.

Learn more about the Communication Department at Parkside.

Learning in Action

Internships

Studying communication opens up endless opportunities to pursue paid or unpaid internship to gain experience in professional settings because the field is always growing and evolving. Internships are valuable for resume building, application of theoretical knowledge to hands-on experience, exploring possible career opportunities, establishing professional contacts, and networking outside and within the university.

Campus Organizations

Communication students are encouraged to gain leadership and professional experience through UW-Parkside campus organizations, including Ranger News (newspaper) and WIPZ (FM & Internet Radio). In the past, communication majors and minors have filled leadership positions in Parkside Student Government and other student organizations. Learn more about Student Organizations.

Student Honor Society

Lambda Pi Eta (LPH) is the national communication honor society for undergraduates. Students who are declared majors with at least 60 credits, a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or higher, have completed at least 12 credits in the major, and have a major GPA of 3.25 or higher are eligible. LPH members receive a gold cord to wear at graduation.

Career Opportunities

With a Digital Media and Production minor, you’ll combine practical production and design skills with critical thinking and creative problem-solving to prepare yourself for success in a variety of careers. Some examples of possible job titles include creative director, account executive, marketing manager, graphic designer, social media specialist, videographer, and more.

PROGRAM CONTACT INFO

Dr. Adrienne Viramontes | viramont@uwp.edu

Jacquelyn Arcy, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Jacquelyn Arcy is an Associate Professor of New Media and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication. She has her Ph.D. in Critical Media Studies from the University of Minnesota, and her MA in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from the University of Cincinnati. Her areas of specialization are television studies, digital media and culture, media industries, and feminist media studies.

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Josef Benson

Associate Professor - English

Josef Benson offers courses in contemporary literature, African American literature, film, gender studies, poetry writing, fiction writing, and composition. He is the author of Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes: Whiteness and Its Borderlands in American Comics and Graphic Novels (UP of Mississippi 2022), for which he and co-author Doug Singsen were nominated for the prestigious Will Eisner Comics Industry Award; Star Wars: The Triumph of Nerd Culture (Rowman & Littlefield 2020); J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye: A Cultural History (Rowman & Littlefield 2018); and Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel: Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin (Rowman & Littlefield 2014). Additionally, his work has appeared in over twenty publications, including: Modern Fiction Studies, American Literature in Transition, 1980-1990 (Cambridge UP), Journal of Medical Humanities, Journal of Bisexuality, Southwestern American Literature, The Raymond Carver Review, Saw Palm, Moon City Review, and The Adirondack Review. He holds creative writing degrees from Missouri State University and the University of South Florida as well as a Ph.D. in literature with a heavy emphasis in gender theory also from the University of South Florida, where he studied primarily with Susan Mooney, John Henry Fleming, and Jay Hopler. He is currently working on a book-length study of the Jeffrey Dahmer case.

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Anjuli Brekke, PH.D.

Assistant Professor

Anjuli Joshi Brekke is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Department. She earned her Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Washington. Her scholarship focuses on the potential and politics of listening and interweaves research from several traditions including rhetorical studies, cultural studies, and sound studies. Her work explores the power and limitations of sharing personal narratives, both online and offline, to facilitate listening across difference. She is currently working on a book project based on an oral history and digital storytelling project she proposed and led to record and share stories of racial discrimination and resistance from the larger Seattle area. She has published multiple works on podcasting, radical listening and race and teaches courses in community-based podcasting and digital storytelling.

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Theresa Castor, PhD

Interim Vice Provost for Academic Affairs; Professor - Communication

Theresa Castor conducts research on organizational decision-making, focusing on crisis and problem situations in meetings and governance groups. She graduated from the University of Washington in 1999 with a PhD in Speech Communication.

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Fabrice Conte-Williamson, MFA, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Fabrice Conte-Williamson is a director, actor, and theatre educator, teaching courses in performance and theatre history, dramatic literature, and criticism. Fabrice received a Master of Performing Arts from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, as well as an MFA in Directing and an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Helmerich School of Drama. His primary research focuses on post-modern French dramatic literature and performance theory, the role of literary myth in dramatic literature, and the development of multilingual and cross-cultural theatre movements.

While teaching at OU, Fabrice served as Chair of the Arts Management and Administration Initiative for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Region VI. He also served two terms as Oklahoma state chair for KCACTF. Fabrice's favorite directing credits include - "A Year with Frog and Toad, Roberto Zucco, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and The Laramie Project."

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Jay Mcroy

Professor - English

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Hilary Rasmussen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Hilary Rasmussen is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of Communication. She has her Ph.D. in Communication with certifications in Rhetorical Leadership and Women's and Gender Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and her MA in Communication with an emphasis in Women’s Historical Rhetoric from Northern Illinois University. Her areas of specialization are argumentation, pedagogy, public relations, social movement and legal discourses, and LGBTQIA+ studies.

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Rachael Swartz, MFA

Assistant Professor

Rachael is a Milwaukee/Chicago based actor, director, vocal coach and educator. She teaches Musical Theatre, Acting for the Camera, Voice, Movement, and Text Analysis at UW-Parkside and serves on the acclaimed Acting/Musical Theatre Faculty at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.

Proud union member of both Actors' Equity and Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Regional performance credits include: The 39 Steps (Annabella/Pamela/Margaret), The Sound of Music (Mother Abbess), and Romeo and Juliet (Nurse). Recent on-camera credits include work with the Travel Channel, ID, Oxygen and TV One.

She previously served as Education Director at Maples Repertory Theatre and The Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, Education Associate at Greenbrier Valley Theatre, and Director of Theatre Arts Camps at The Lost Colony.

She is a member of the Musical Theatre Educators’ Alliance, Voice and Speech Trainers Association, and Dueling Arts International. Through the Lessac Training and Research Institute, she has achieved Lessac Practitioner standing and has been accepted to their Certified Trainer program. She has served as a voice, dialect, and text coach for productions in the U.S. and Philippines.

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