Communication, Media + Arts
Program overview
Short-Term Option:
Spend a transformative two weeks in summer in Dingle, through the SCMA. Choose from exciting 3-credit courses such as Global Marketing Communication in Regenerative Tourism, where you’ll explore sustainable branding strategies in a real-world context, or Wild Spirits in Theatre and Ritual, an immersive look at performance, culture, and identity in Ireland’s dramatic landscape.
Spring Semester Option:
Join us for a full Spring semester at SHU’s stunning Dingle campus, where you’ll take courses like Capturing Your Irish Adventures, Irish Cinema, and complete a credit-bearing internship with a local media organization. You’ll gain hands-on international experience in journalism, film and television, marketing/PR, or sports communication, while staying fully on track for graduation.
Whether you’re exploring creative storytelling, global media, or cultural performance, SCMA’s Dingle programs offer an unforgettable opportunity to expand your perspective, sharpen your skills, and experience Ireland’s culture and beauty firsthand.
CM 103/231 – Capturing your Irish Adventures

3 Credits
Offered
Spring Semester
Faculty
Description
This introductory course will examine the relationship between filmmaker and location. By working with narrative and non-narrative film styles, students will gain exposure and understanding to producing creative content in a foreign country.
Using the student’s emotional experience and study abroad locales, students will create creative pieces that will serve their artistic vision, their fundamental understanding of film production and the logistical elements of field production.
CM 135/ENG 299 – Irish Cinema

3 Credits
Liberal Arts Exploration
- Social & Global Awareness
Offered
Spring Semester
Faculty
Description
Delivered through a combination of lecture, creative workshop and screening formats, this course examines Irish Cinema in historical, sociocultural, and contemporary contexts, with a particular emphasis on interrogating concepts of Irishness, identity, and tradition.
Included in this course will be an overview of various theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of film, so that students will be provided with an appropriate vocabulary in the academic study of film, making it accessible to students of both Media and other majors.
There will be a particular focus on learning through doing, leading students to critically engage with theoretical concepts through the creation of various audio-visual projects and exercises inspired by Irish film and visual culture.
CM 299/MK 299/HRTM 299 - GLOBAL MARKETING COMMUNICATION IN REGENERATIVE TOURISM

3 Credits
Liberal Arts Exploration
- Social & Global Awareness
- Humanistic Inquiry
Offered
Summer 2 Short Term
Faculty
Mark Congdon Jr Ph.D.
Description
The course emphasizes how regenerative tourism can be communicated effectively in a global market, highlighting the role of digital and social media platforms in promoting sustainable travel.
Students will learn to analyze Irish cultural, environmental, and business factors influencing regenerative tourism and how these insights can be adapted globally. The course culminates in students developing marketing strategies that contribute to ongoing projects, with final deliverables that include campaign materials for digital marketing, community outreach, and social media content to support Dingle’s tourism efforts.
CM 396 – Internship

3 Credits
Offered
Spring Semester
Faculty
Description
The School of Communication, Media & the Arts encourages all Media Studies and Digital Communication majors to experience at least one internship before they graduate. Not only do students gain valuable experience, but they also receive academic credit for their internship learning experiences.
The SHU Dingle program is an ideal location to experience the many aspects of media and communication training.
THR 299/CIT 213 – Wild Spirits in Theatre and Ritual

3 Credits
Liberal Arts Exploration
- Social & Global Awareness
- Humanistic Inquiry
Offered
Summer 1 Short Term
Faculty
Description
This course looks at Irish drama and spirituality through experimental and site-specific performance. Can we still believe that land and spirit can be wild with us? We will explore how stories, improvisation, and ritual can teach us, in the words of the Irish ecological mystic John Moriarty, to “walk beautifully on the earth” in Dingle and back at home. Ritual and performance—from a celebration of the Catholic Mass to a night at the pub after seeing a play—can “re-wild” our spirits in relationship to the natural world and each other. But how should we name and tell stories about our shared earth, what Pope Francis called “our common home”?
This unique course introduces the theory and practice of site-specific ritual and theatre by taking place amid the drama of waves, mountains, people, and stories of your journey to Ireland and back. We will read and discuss some major Irish plays (including Once) about naming spirits of the land, rediscover the Gospels and Jesus’ seaside storytelling through performance analysis, talk with local artists, theatre-makers, and dancers in the West of Ireland, embody some wisdom from the Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Irish context of natural beauty, and learn how to re-wild our own play with ritualizing and improvisation.
Participants will work together to develop an original performance inspired by their time in Dingle, but no previous acting experience is required.