M.Sc Mass Communication

A.  Objectives of the Programme
In deference to the mission of Babcock University, the objective of the M.Sc programme is to produce graduates in Mass Communication, who would employ the power of the media to promote Godly virtues by applying the ethics of mass media practice.
The media have been recognized as powerful tools for social engineering and political manipulation. In the bid to employ the power of the media for political ends, the players in the socio-political milieu have misused the media to promote cultures that are detrimental to social progress. The Postgraduate in Mass Communication aims to produce graduates who would employ the power of the media to promote Godly virtues by prudently applying the benefits of programme for human progress.

With the inclusion of courses from the Religious Studies Department, the Mass Communication programme is expected to produce individuals who would approach their private, professional and family lives from the perspective of the word of God as taught by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. This includes, but not limited to the sanctity and sacredness of the family, the pursuit of good health and healthy living as enunciated in the word of God.

The Postgraduate programme in Mass Communication aims to produce men and women who are capable of critical thinking and problem solving. They would be expected to employ creative thinking skills by looking out of the box in proffering solutions to problems of everyday social, political and cultural life.

The program would achieve the mission and objectives of our institution in terms of its role and scope within the total system of Seventh-day Adventist higher education in our union and division by training media practitioners to promote specific values which are core to our existence – integrity, excellence, transparency, responsibility, dignity and commitment for which the SDA Church is noted, and give media practice a distinctively unique Christian orientation for service.

Graduates from this programme should be able to:

• Demonstrate critical skills in methods of information collection, organization, management, and circulation.
• Write and circulate credible news and advertisements.
• Research and write a standard masters dissertation.   
• Serve the Church and the society at large effectively in areas such as broadcasting, journalism, publishing, and public relations.
• Demonstrate high standards of personal as well as professional discipline and responsibility in general Mass Communication duties and services.
• Set up and manage a standard media center.
• Promote specific values which are core to responsible media practice and service.

Job Opportunities for Students on Completion
Graduates of Mass Communication are needed by organizations in both private and public sectors of the Nigerian economy. With the existing and emerging specializations in the field, graduates can fit into the challenges of new job areas. The entrepreneurial and practical orientations of the programme equally predispose graduates to becoming self-employed. Mass Communication graduates work as advertising managers, brand managers, communication specialists, public relations managers, copy writers, radio and television programme producers, speech writers, editors and so forth.

Rationale
This programme is geared towards producing God-fearing professionals in Broadcasting, Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing Communication, Journalism, Publishing- these are core professional courses in Mass Communication with utilitarian values for the environment in which we are situated which is  surrounded by major cities with enterprises which will draw from the rich pool of our programme and products. This is apart from our immediate constituency, the church, with its vibrant communications policy giving room to radio and television programming for evangelistic purposes in the spread of the gospel of Christ. Going by the prospects of our graduates in the undergraduate programme, who are in high demand because of the multi-faceted educational grounding they had here, making them versatile, and employed in all facets of life, we can confidently say that our postgraduates have high prognostic values inside and outside of the church.

Summary
The M.Sc in Mass Communication has a unique selling point to flag among its competitor. This is the fact that graduates from its programme would go away with an orientation to disseminate information with good conscience. Power does not reside in the possession of information, but in its application. When information is appropriately applied, the human society is empowered to liberate itself from limitations and attain unto its full potentials. Although the M.Sc programme would welcome graduates from different university backgrounds, they would be expected to appreciate the task of handling information for developmental perspectives purposes in whatever areas they choose to practice. The course is designed to recognize the media of mass Communication as tools in the hands of a content provider. Thus with good content, the media could revert to the basic roles of being one of the most versatile change objects made by man.

Postgraduate programmes in Mass Communication are offered by a few first generation universities in Nigeria. Currently, there are just about two private universities that run such a programme. The Babcock University programme was designed taking the peculiarities and characteristics of these projections into consideration. The curricula of some foreign universities also provide useful resources. This was done to give the programme a global outlook with the view to ensuring that our products have global market value.

Bulletin would be made available