Department of Communication

Offering multiple majors and home to all of Barry’s student media, Communication is a popular department and a hub of student activity on campus. Because it is closely linked to the technological, social, and cultural changes rapidly changing our world, communication is a versatile major at Barry University that provides students various ways to pursue their interests and career goals.

Our programs reflect the breadth of the communication discipline with majors in Communication & Media Studies, Advertising and Public Relations, and Television and Digital Media. We also offer minors in each of these areas and an interdisciplinary minor in journalism that combines classes in graphic design, photography, English writing, and communication.

These multiple majors and minors allow you to design your studies in ways that most suit your interests and career goals. For example, you can easily integrate a major in Broadcast & Emerging Media with the Journalism minor to broaden your skills and make you more competitive.

You can also gain additional practical experience by working with student media in the department. We are home to the campus newspaper (The Buccaneer), the campus radio station (The Mix, 99.5 FM), and the campus cable channel (Btv). All student media at Barry live up to their name by being student managed, and students create all content and programming for each medium. Financial aid is available for working with campus media.

If you want to broadly develop your communication skills, you can do so by minoring in journalism. This program allows you to combine an interest in informing people with specializations such as photojournalism, graphic design, and web publishing, among several areas of focus. You will learn to put together information using a variety of contemporary broadcast and social media platforms such as print, video, radio, blogs, and podcasting.

As a Journalism minor, you will also be primed to take lead roles in producing Barry Student Media by working with the Buccaneer newspaper, WBUJ radio, and Btv – campus cable.

A free press is one of the basic institutions of a free society, and as a journalist you will play a key role as a defender of democracy by facilitating people’s access to reliable and ethically gathered information. 

Additionally, the Journalism minor, allows you to learn key skills that will support your success in many careers:

• Develop writing and editing skills that will make you a better thinker and clearer communicator
• Use language and images to inform audiences and help them understand the world.
• Learn how to track down, verify, and distinguish facts from disinformation.
• Develop a passion for reporting and storytelling through interviews and research.
• Use contemporary multimedia technologies to present information and stories in captivating ways.

The Department of Communication is the hub for the university’s student media. The department publishes the Buccaneer, our campus newspaper, and is home to WBUJ, 99.5 FM studio, from where we broadcast throughout Miami’s Eastside and globally on the web (wbuj.org).  Following recent upgrades to the campus cable system as an all-digital environment, students will also be able to distribute their work on Campus TV.  Student media at Barry have been integrated within the department of Communication to match the professional contexts in which media professionals work today, so students not only produce content for one medium, such as radio, but are encouraged to become involved with all aspects of student media production.  A distinguishing feature of our program is that Financial aid is available for students who distinguish themselves by participating in student media.

The Media Services Center (MSC) has all the equipment students need to complete production assignments for their classes, campus media projects, or independent student productions. MSC equipment distribution is available six days a week and provides a complete range of production gear, including HD cameras, field lighting equipment, portable tripods, audio recorders, and specialized microphones and other sound gear.

The Media Services Center staff provides guidance and support for students, the campus radio station, and cable TV channel. MSC staff is trained to offer media engineering support, set building and design assistance, as well as studio and post-production technical support. The center’s post-production facilities include audio booths and several Mac-based digital video editing labs running both AVID and Adobe suites.