Digital Media Innovation, BA/BS

• BS/BA, Digital Media Innovation, Communications Media - Program information from the University Catalog.
• Four-Year Plan of Study - Required and elective courses for program completion.

Students who complete this program will be able to:

• Explore topics in the humanities with critical thinking skills. This includes:
  • Understanding history and how it’s studied.
  • Using digital tools to study and recreate texts.
  • Connecting ideas across different subjects.
  • Analyzing texts with the help of technology.
  • Using digital tools to set and evaluate research goals in subject-specific studies
  • Think critically about information and technology.
• Combine academic learning with real-world projects to create work for specific audiences, including:
  • Creating engaging digital stories using tools like 3D printing, 360-degree video, augmented reality, and multimedia coding.
  • Developing social media strategies for outreach and content creation.
  • Working respectfully with others from different backgrounds to meet community needs.
• Understand and evaluate how data affects society, including:
  • How data can address problems like inequality and social justice.
  • How data influences their personal life, studies, and future career.
  • Using data effectively in the process of collecting, creating, analyzing and visualizing it.
• Solve real-world problems by:
  • Applying knowledge to take responsible action on global issues.
  • Using skills and methods from one situation to solve new and difficult challenges in creative ways.

• Digital content creators such as journalists, editors, or specialists
• Social/digital media managers
• Community engagement managers
• Digital content management
• Entry-level web developers
• Media positions in tech companies
• Digital media startups
• Data and analytics
• Digital project managers
• Multimedia producers
• News product development 
• Still emerging jobs such as Digital Data Detective, Personal Memory Curator, and Augmented Reality Journey Builder

Undergraduate Day Tuition and Fees

The DMI major grew out of a Digital Humanities (DH) faculty working group at Fitchburg State University, where faculty shared digital-based projects and tools they were using in their courses.

See this work

• Meta Quests 2 and 3
• Apple Vision Pro 
• Apple iPad Pro with Lidar
• Revopoint Pop 2 3D Scanner
• Lilypad Arduino
• UNO Project Super Starter Kit (Arduino)
• Arduino MKR IoT Bundle
• Makey Makey
• FlashForge Finder 3D Printer
• Creality Hi 3D Printer
• GoPro Fusion 360 Degree Camera
• Flexible Mono eInk Display
• Mini Thermal Receipt Printer
• NFC Programmable Tags
• Insta360 Camera
• Meta Smart glasses
• NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit (Local AI)
• DJI Avata 2 Drone with FPR (First Person View) headset
• DJI Osmo Pocket 3 Camera
• Zoom H3-VR Spatial Sound Recorder
• Xbox Kinect Camera
• Cricut Maker 4

Dr. J.J. Sylvia IV is an Associate Professor of Communications Media at Fitchburg State University and one of the co-founders of the Digital Media Innovation major as well as the Master's program in Applied Communication, Social Media. His teaching and research sit at the intersection of media philosophy, data ethics, and critical posthumanism, exploring how platforms, algorithms, and artificial intelligence are reshaping what it means to communicate, remember, and be human.

He teaches theory courses for the Communications Media major that also span the DMI program, such as Data and Society, Critical Making, and Communications Law and Ethics, where students engage with real-world questions about power, surveillance, and the social consequences of emerging technologies. His approach treats digital tools not as neutral instruments but as cultural forces that demand serious critical attention.

He uses an open pedagogy approach in the classroom, resulting in student projects and writing that frequently contribute to public-facing projects. In the last few years he has worked with his classes to publish three open education resources: The Data Renaissance, Introduction to Communication and Media Studies, and Critiquing AI in Media. His classes have also hosted a series of media archaeology exhibitions in Conlon Hall and contributed to digital historical walking tours on campus and in the community. 

Dr. Sylvia’s recent research spans three projects. He recently completed a book on LiveJournal and Russian Disinformation, tracing how a social platform became an instrument of political manipulation. He is now writing a follow-up book on anti-fascist platform design, grounded in fieldwork on Italian resistance movements, and he is also pursuing rhetorical investigations of truth and democracy through immersive study in Greece, which has grown out of the Rhetoric in Greece study abroad class that leads every two years. He is the co-founder and co-Editor-in-Chief of the new Journal of Critical Posthumanisms, a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to emerging scholarship that "critically interrogate [s] the category of human as it relates to technology, ecology, and culture. The journal reconsiders the legacies of Western Civilization while foregrounding feminist, queer, decolonial, and disability-informed approaches."

In the classroom, Dr. Sylvia believes that understanding technology requires both hands-on creation and rigorous ethical inquiry. Students in his courses learn to ask who those tools serve, who they exclude, and what futures they make possible. That commitment to both making and questioning is at the heart of what the DMI major is designed to do.

Contact Dr. Sylvia at jsylvia3@fitchburgstate.edu or 978.665.3418.

Dr. Kyle Moody is a Professor of Communications Media at Fitchburg State University and one of the co-founders of the Digital Media Innovation major as well as the Master's program in Applied Communication, Social Media. His teaching and research explores the ways that online communities of engaged users connect, form practical and value-based identities, and intersect through norms, rituals, and practices.
 
He teaches theory and production courses for the Communications Media major that also connect to the DMI program, such as Introduction to Social Media, and Social Media, Public Relations, and Advertising. These are client-based courses where students are expected to integrate theory into practice for the development of skills and portfolio materials. He works with students to make sure they see they are developing skills and workflow of technologies, and real-time beneficent and ethically-minded innovative practical applications. His clients have included the Worcester County Office of the District Attorney, Viewpoint Creative, Community Health Connections, and the Fitchburg Art Museum, as well as others.
 
Dr. Moody's research often connects him with studies of popular culture, including video games, television, streaming apps, and online news communities. His recent research has been published in Consumption Markets & Culture, along with his collection Hannibal for Dinner (co-edited with Dr. Nicholas Yanes).
 
Dr. Moody understands that technology and innovation must serve the publics from which they emerge. Students in his courses must integrate these technologies while remaining critical and cognizant of their impact, which is one of the tenets of the DMI major.

Contact Dr. Moody at kmoody4@fitchburgstate.edu or 978.665.3351.