Texas Tech University

Graduate Courses

Note: These are general descriptions only; the exact execution of a course may change depending on instructor. View the official catalog online.

Advertising

ADV 5326 Advertising & the Consumer (Strategic Communication Processes)
This course will explore theory and practice relating to the complex and dynamic relationships among strategic communications, consumers, and brands. It will draw on a variety perspectives and methodologies to examine topics such as: (1) how consumers process persuasive messages, (2) the meaning of products and brands, and (3) the factors that explain consumer preferences. Two disclaimers: Readings will draw on multiple areas of strategic communication – that is, not just advertising. Also, we will consider “consumer” broadly, including consumers of ideas and opinions.

Communication Studies

COMS 5300 Communication Theory
Communication Theory: To identify the purposes, history, and application of key social and rhetorical theories of communication through reading and discussing classic works of communication theory. To understand issues of epistemology, ontology, and axiology when discussing the goals and methods related to relevant theories.

COMS 5301 Qualitative Research Methods
This course is designed to familiarize students with qualitative techniques and their intellectual grounds, including participant observation, depth interviewing, focus groups, autoethnography, online research, and textual analysis. After completing this course, students should: 1) understand the relation between theory building and method development; 2) be familiar with the most commonly employed qualitative methods in media studies; 3) appreciate the power and limitations of qualitative research methods, 4) have hands-on experience conducting small research projects; and 5) be in a position to carry out projects on your own through qualitative research techniques.

COMS 5302 Intercultural Communication
Examines scholarly studies of the relationship between culture and communication in global, national, and local contexts. Explores cultural group values, practices, and communicative behaviors from diverse theoretical and philosophical perspectives. COMS 5303 Communication in Small Groups This course is designed to explore small groups and group processes from theoretical and applied perspectives. While there is no magic secret to effective group interaction processes; this course will expose students to some factors that are critical to successful group interaction and communication processes.

COMS 5304 Communication in Organizations
This course seeks to explore communication in organizations focusing theories and applications. The objective is to offer knowledge of Theories & Applications in organizational communication. Specifically, we will explore: (1) Understanding of communication; (2) understanding of organizations; (3) theoretical and research perspectives in the study of organizational communication; (4) Contemporary issues and trends in organizational communication e.g., management techniques/leadership and conflict management behaviors in organization, ethics, information technologies and globalization.

COMS 5305 Quantitative Research Methods
The study of quantitative research methods in communication research, emphasizing research designs, quantitative treatments, and analysis. Course requirements will include data entry, statistical analysis, and a research prospectus.

COMS 5306 Theories of Rhetoric
This course uses minimal lecturing and the Socratic method (questions and discussion) to lead students through a study of primary documents, from ancient to contemporary, about rhetoric and ask about its essence, nature, and relationship to language, symbols, truth, justice, and beauty. Students will come to a clearer understanding of the humanistic and historical bases for the study of human symbolic engagement. No prior exposure to rhetoric is assumed.

COMS 5307 Historical Critical Research Methods
This course is a graduate-level introduction to rhetorical criticism as a methodology. Students both read and produce rhetorical criticism. We read historical works to understand: 1) What is rhetorical criticism? 2) How do different scholars engage in rhetorical criticism?, and 3) What does rhetorical criticism teach us? Rhetorical criticism begins with a “text,” broadly construed (speech(es), writing(s), movie(s), advertisement(s), photograph(s), court case(s), etc.). Students then apply different rhetorical theories to the text, to produce four different short works of criticism (neoAristotelian, Burkean, critical, and textual).

COMS 5309 Conflict Management
This course is design to explore conflict and conflict management process in applied settings (e.g., organizational, interpersonal, family etc.). There is no magic secret to conflict management process. This course will expose you to different approaches (e.g., argumentation, ethical, persuasion, conflict management styles) along with theoretical perspectives in conflict management processes.

COMS 5310 Graduate Studies in COMS
This course introduces graduate students to the discipline of communication studies, equips them with the skills to be successful in graduate school, and facilitates their professional development. Specifically, the course is designed to orient beginning MA students toward: (1) communication studies as an academic discipline; (2) the analytic, research, and writing skills needed for successful graduate study; and (3) the major strands of research in communication studies at Texas Tech.

COMS 5313 Theories of Persuasion
Analysis of representative theories and models of persuasive processes and their implications for communication behavior. Theories of public, interpersonal, and mass communication are included.

COMS 5314 Professional Communication in Health, Science, and Technology
In this graduate course we will explore the nature and roles of discourse processes in scientific, technological, and healthcare interactions, including interpersonal, organizational, public, new media, and intercultural communication contexts. The course is designed to be suitable for graduate students in communication as well as graduate students in health, science, or technology disciplines. For both populations, the course content will challenge students to apply interpretive and empirical research approaches from communication studies and related fields to the professional communication issues and situations encountered by experts in health, science, and technology fields. The course will also incorporate opportunities to acquire and practice professional communication skills by developing content for diverse audiences.

COMS 5315 Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication is a more important part of communication than many people realize. In many instances, the nonverbal cues are more important than verbal cues in conveying meaning. Thus, the purposes of this class are as follows: (1) To learn what types of nonverbal messages people send. (2) To become skilled at recognizing others' use of nonverbal messages and interpreting those cues. (3) To become aware of your own nonverbal behaviors and use nonverbal cues in an appropriate manner. (4) To gain a basic understanding of the research findings and theories explaining our use of nonverbal communication. 5.To do your own study of one aspect of nonverbal communication.

COMS 5318 Interpersonal Communication
Communication theory and research on historical and contemporary topics in interpersonal communication contexts.

COMS 6302 Seminar in Interpersonal Communication: Family Communication
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to theory and research on communication in the family. During the semester, we will investigate various definitions of “family” and the implications of those definitions for conducting research and creating policy, study communication at various family life course stages, examine various family systems and subsystems, and analyze key communication processes within the family. Special consideration will be given to theoretical and methodological issues relating specifically to family communication research. Students are expected to critically examine what it means to study communication in the family, to critique current theory and research, and to identify areas for future research growth

COMS 6303 Seminar in Organizational Communication
Focuses on research in specific topics in corporate-organizational communication. Topics vary with students' needs and/or the research interests of the instructor.

COMS 6304 Seminar in Rhetorical Theory
Research seminar focusing on specific topics in rhetoric. Topics will vary. The most recent offering of this course focused on matter, movement, and memory by investigating and responds to the more than 2000-year-old bias in rhetorical studies (as well as in media and communication studies) that privileges the centrality of symbolicity and representation over and at the expense of materiality and sensation. The course examines the inherently suasory character of matter, attending carefully to the ways embodied movement and personal and public memory contribute to our understanding of events and experiences. Explore how the material dimensions of media and messages move us at a bodily level.

COMS 6305 Communication for Center Directors
This course provides graduate students with a comprehensive examination of the role of communication in center directorship as well as the development of specific communication strategies. No other institution of higher education in the United States currently offers any course work related to the role of communication in center directorship. Therefore, this course is intended to meet the needs of a currently growing and uncertified population that oversees centers and must effectively communicate its message to diverse stakeholders. The proposed course is part of a larger Certification Program which will serve a wide-variety of graduate students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, which will provide a fertile ground for transdisciplinary research and collaboration.

COMS 6307 Seminar in Instructional Communication
Instructional communication highlights the central role of communication in the teaching and learning process. Teachers from all disciplines (and for all age groups) use communication in the classroom to foster student connections, learning, and emotional development. This course explores the theories, research, and practice that identify communication skills and competencies in the educational setting. This course will help students become more competent and confident in their teaching endeavors.

COMS 6308 Seminar in Cultural and Intercultural Communication
This course is designed to enhance students' capacity for effective communication by enhancing their understanding and sensitivity to various factors, which influence intercultural communication effectiveness. This course equips students for success in the multicultural and global workplace of the 21st century. Through a study of theoretical, methodological, and practical, every day foundations of intercultural communication students will examine complexities and implications of the relationship of culture and communication.

Mass Communication

MCOM 5160 Proseminar in Mass Communications
Designed to bring together students and faculty for professional and academic interchange with emphasis on research interests of faculty and advanced graduate students.

MCOM 5310 Strategic Communication Planning & Writing
This course will examine strategic communication practices across a variety of contexts. We will review best practice approaches to integrated communication of advertising, promotional and marketing messages across multiple channels. The culmination of the course is the development of a strategic communication plan that can be deployed to advance strategic communication goals across any type of organization (nonprofit, corporate, advertising, government, etc.). Plans will include the identification of goals, setting objectives, segmenting target publics, developing messages, and selecting sources and channels of communication, as well as focus on the logistics of message delivery including timing and budget.

MCOM 5312 Media Management, Entrepreneurship and Consulting
This course is designed to introduce you the complexities of communication practice in an international setting and help you understand the challenges and opportunities of working with multicultural publics. The course begins by laying the theoretical foundation for a comparative analysis of strategic communication practice around the world, and then examines specific national and regional examples. Relations with multicultural publics are complicated by social, cultural, economic, and other contexts that affect the ability to encode and decode messages. Accordingly, understanding those contexts in both abstract and concrete terms will permit more effective twoway symmetric communication, which, in turn, benefits all concerned. Principles deduced from this course will aid in improving your cross-cultural competence and contribute to success in any profession.

MCOM 5314 Strategic Communication in a Global Environment
This course is designed to introduce you the complexities of communication practice in an international setting and help you understand the challenges and opportunities of working with multicultural publics. The course begins by laying the theoretical foundation for a comparative analysis of strategic communication practice around the world, and then examines specific national and regional examples. Relations with multicultural publics are complicated by social, cultural, economic, and other contexts that affect the ability to encode and decode messages. Accordingly, understanding those contexts in both abstract and concrete terms will permit more effective twoway symmetric communication, which, in turn, benefits all concerned. Principles deduced from this course will aid in improving your cross-cultural competence and contribute to success in any profession.

MCOM 5316 Communication in Organizations
This course will examine contemporary organizational practice and organizational communication theory, along with current research and applications of issues related to human communication in workplace settings. It will provide an overview of the key elements of classical management, human relations, human resources, and critical theories. There will be a focus on the key elements of assimilation, organizational decision making, conflict management, change and leadership, emotion, organizational diversity, and technological processes within specific organizational settings and communication problems.

MCOM 5318 Advance Social Media Practices
Survey of best practices and current trends in the use of social media as a tool for strategic communications. This course will review best practices and current trends in the use of Social Media as a tool for strategic communications. It will provide an overview of strategies and tactics for integrating Social Media into a company or organization's paid, earned and owned media strategy. It will focus on the aspects of Social Media strategy within these areas: implementing Social Media within business plans, essential Social Media platforms and tools, uses of Social Media data to improve strategies, products, services and programs, and evaluating Social Media performance and opportunities. MCOM 5321 Production of Digital Media Content Students will put web usage into the context of human-computer interaction and discuss design principles, aesthetics, usability, and interactivity. Students will learn coding basics.

MCOM 5322 Multimedia Storytelling
This course will focus on a multimedia approach to storytelling for strategic communication practice. Students will learn the techniques of high-quality storytelling with photos, audio and video with an emphasis on mobile technology, social media, and select apps currently in use in strategic communication.

MCOM 5324 Audience/Data Analysis & Reporting
This course will focus on how to go about deciding on data collection techniques, how to collect and analyze the data, and then ultimately how to present it in written, graphic, and oral form. The course will have a pragmatic and business-oriented bent and should help students learn how to use data to solve problems for various industries, clients or projects that could be encountered in daily professional strategic communication. While some basic statistics will be reviewed, it should be noted that this course is not a “math” course as much as it is a course on answering questions and presenting those answers in a meaningful way. 

MCOM 5334 Interpersonal Communication
Interpersonal Communication, teaches applications of interpersonal communication theories to personal and professional relationships. Students will read and present primary research on a survey of topics in interpersonal communication.

MCOM 5344 Seminar in Public Opinion and Propaganda
The purpose of this course is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to learning about (1) the normative and philosophical assumptions surrounding the concept of “public opinion,” (2) the theoretical approaches to examining public opinion formation and change; (3) the empirical research processes of measuring public opinion; (4) the crucial relationships between communication and public opinion; and (5) the role of media communication in contributing to a vibrant civic life. By the end of the term students will be expected to acquaint themselves with the wide-ranging literature in public opinion and be sufficiently familiar with this field to conduct their original research.

MCOM 5347 Studies in International Communications
This course examines communication messages, industries, and processes that transcend national boundaries as well as the principal theories intended to explain them. The central topics to be presented and discussed in this seminar include: • technology and media globalization • transnational communication industries • global and local influences in media cultures • global journalism, advertising and public relations • transnational communication for social development • theories of globalization and international communication

MCOM 5349 Administration of Communications Media
This class will study the decision & policy-making processes involved in directing operations of businesses in general and media organizations in particular. Informed by business as well as mass communications scholarship, this class will examine mission statements, strategic planning, marketing and finance, leadership, personnel, quality, legal environment, and the competitive challenges of new technologies and new media.

MCOM 5350 STEM Leadership Communication Capstone
In this course students will complete the capstone project for the graduate certificate in STEM Leadership Communication. Even though the course is designed as a capstone course for the STEM Leadership Communication graduate certificate, it could also be an appropriate choice for graduate students in any discipline who would like to complete an independent research project related to STEM communication. We will have some reading assignments, but the main purpose of the course is to develop a plan for the capstone project, complete the research for that project, and then write up the results in a report that is submitted at end of semester. The class will be structured more like a writing workshop than a typical graduate seminar, so most of the time that you devote to this course will be spent on writing and research. There will also be opportunities to get feedback from instructor and classmates on drafts that you submit at various points throughout the semester. Options exists for students who are not at the capstone phase to take the course.

MCOM 5364 Research Methods—MA only
This course will introduce master's students to the methodologies of media and communication research. Students will learn to: (a) identify the relationships between theory and method; (b) understand the structure of research studies; (c) pose appropriate research questions and hypotheses; (d) design research studies that can answer their research questions; (e) develop a familiarity with various approaches to data collection and measurement; and (f) practice data analysis techniques. After completing this course, students will be able to interpret and conduct media and communication research.

MCOM 5364 Research Methods—PhD
Research Methods will introduce doctoral students to the fundamentals of media and communication research. Students will learn a variety of concepts, methods and analysis techniques that will provide them with a foundation of knowledge to be able to conduct, interpret, critically evaluate, and present communication research in both applied and academic settings.

MCOM 5366 Mass Communication Theory—MA only
MCOM Theory surveys a variety of mass communication theories pertaining to psychological, social, and political effects of media from a social science perspective. It is designed to help students understand how the media function, how they affect individuals and society, what factors make media effects more or less likely, and how individuals use and construct meaning from the media as well as the empirical research associated with these theoretical assumptions.

MCOM 5366 Seminar in Mass Communications Theory—PhD
This class is an introduction to the social scientific theories that guide the study of communication and its various sub-fields, with a focus on understanding how these theories are employed to help answer some of the major research questions in these sub-fields.

MCOM 5374 Data Analysis
In MCOM 5374, students will learn to use and interpret statistics for data analysis. Students will garner the knowledge necessary to select appropriate statistical procedures, to use a common statistical analysis software package and to interpret results. Students will also learn how to evaluate published research findings and how to write effective data analysis reports. Ultimately, students should exit the class with the skills necessary to collect, enter, analyze and interpret data that could be gathered as part of graduate thesis/dissertation or more pragmatic business-related project.

MCOM 6010 Mass Communications Pedagogy
Mass Communications Pedagogy is a seminar in the examination of pedagogical issues in mass communications education. Topics will include assessment, scholarship related to teaching, grant writing and writing. Ultimately, students in Pedagogy should enhance their abilities to serve as faculty members following graduation.

MCOM 6310 Contemporary Issues in Mass Communications Technology
This course will explore how individuals, social movements, corporate entities, nation-states, transnational organizations, and non-state entities instrumentalize information technologies to achieve social, economic and political goals. We will survey theories of information and communication technology and apply them to a number of contemporary issues: communication technologies as components of national architectures of surveillance and repression (NSA surveillance and the Great Firewall of China); whistle-blowing (Wikileaks); terrorist recruitment (ISIS); socio-political mobilization (the Arab Spring); technological hegemony; linguistic and knowledge capitalism (Google search); sexual capitalism (big porn); transnational hacking by state and non-state actors, and so on.

MCOM 6330 Seminar in Media and Sport
This course will examine the interaction of mass media and sport, including the related history; media economics; and the use of media by athletes, teams, and organizations.

MCOM 6336 Digital Media
This class will help students develop basic skills in Web design. These production skills are indispensable in a digital world, but this class is more than a skills workshop. Students will put Web use into the context of human-computer interaction and discuss topics such as design principles, aesthetics, usability, and interactivity. Students will learn coding basics and produce Web pages using Dreamweaver. Some experience with digital images and Photoshop is necessary.

MCOM 6350 Final Capstone Project, independent study course.

MCOM 6364 Selected Research Methods: Communication Research Technology
"Rotating research methods course focusing on experimental, survey, content analysis or others. May be repeated twice when topics vary. This graduate-level seminar will focus on novel approaches to measurement of communication-related phenomena. The Center for Communication Research is home to a variety of cutting-edge technologies for studying communication behavior. This methods class is designed to (a) provide students with basic training to help students gain familiarity with these measurement approaches, (b) the application of these approaches in various research designs, and (c) how to conduct studies using these novel technologies, including eye tracking, continuous response measurement, psychophysiology, and more."

MCOM 6364 Selected Methods—Content Analysis
Content is at the heart of the study of mass communication. Theories of media effects are either explicitly or implicitly connected to message content. Audience perceptions of messages are often dependent upon message content. Moreover, the content of a message has a strong influence over how it is cognitively processed. As such, the systematic study of media content is beneficial across our discipline.

MCOM 6364 Selected Methods—Experimental Design
MCOM 6364 will offer advanced training in planning and administering experiments for the purpose of determining how variables interact to influence opinions, perceptions, attitudes and recall in mass communications settings.

MCOM 6364 Selected Methods—Qualitative Methods
This course is designed to familiarize students with qualitative techniques and their intellectual grounds, including ethnography, autoethnography, online research, and textual analysis. After completing this course, students should: 1) understand the relation between theory building and method development; 2) be familiar with the most commonly employed qualitative methods in media studies; 3) appreciate the power and limitations of qualitative research methods, 4) have hands-on experience conducting small research projects; and 5) be in a position to carry out projects on your own through qualitative research techniques.

MCOM 6364 Selected Methods—Experimental Design in Media Psychology
Research Interest in understanding the mind “on” media is at an all-time high in both academia and industry. Research on mental processes engaged when individuals interact with and respond to media content and technology is providing insights that are critical to theoretical models of media processes and effects and effective media industry practice. This area of research has been termed Media Psychology Research. This seminar is designed to increase students' expertise at conceptualizing, designing, and conducting experiments grounded in the media psychology research approach that will provide both scientifically valid and practically valuable insights. Students will gain a foundational understanding of the media psychology research approach as well as the range of experimental methods and measures used to investigate the mind “on” media. The course will include “hands on” training conducting a basic media psychology experiment and students will ultimately develop their own proposal for an experiment designed to provide original theoretical and practical insights.

MCOM 6364 Advanced Method: Survey and Measurement
This course serves two goals. One is to provide students with the total survey error approach to conducting survey research and applying it to study the effects of coverage error, sampling error, nonresponse error, and measurement error. We will also assess the costs and benefits associated with minimizing these errors. The second goal is to provide students with hands-on experience in conducting original survey research the construction of survey questionnaire. Lectures, readings, seminar discussions, and assignments will cover various stages of the survey research process from design through analysis.

MCOM 6366 Advanced Theory
Students will explore the philosophical foundations of the social scientific approach and the fundamental components of theory. Students will demonstrate advanced understandings of (1) structure, (2) goals, and (3) evaluation of theory through deconstruction and reconstruction of major mass communication theories at the cultural, social, and individual levels.

Public Relations

PR 5343 Public Relations Problems and Cases
Public Relations Problems & Cases introduces students to how organizations and public relations practitioners use communications to effectively, and sometimes ineffectively, reach and persuade critical audiences. Through investigations of existing cases and current academic literature, students will garner an understanding of how public relations techniques and theory are utilized to address client goals.

MCOM 5350 STEM Leadership Communication Capstone – Amy Koerber

COMS 5314 Communication Issues “Professional Issues in Health, Science, and Technology.”
In this graduate course we will explore the nature and roles of discourse processes in scientific, technological, and healthcare interactions, including interpersonal, organizational, public, new media, and intercultural communication contexts. The course is designed to be suitable for graduate students in communication as well as graduate students in health, science, or technology disciplines. For both populations, the course content will challenge students to apply interpretive and empirical research approaches from communication studies and related fields to the professional communication issues and situations encountered by experts in health, science, and technology fields. The course will also incorporate opportunities to acquire and practice professional communication skills by developing content for diverse audiences.

Special Topics

This course is designed to introduce you to a wide variety of media and strategic communication data, the processes it requires to transform such data to knowledge, and the means of developing strategic communication decisions. Upon successful completion of the course, you will develop a basic understanding of strategic communication analytics and data visualization. This knowledge is helpful in careers related to communication analytics/ research, media business, advertising, and public relations.

Data Insights in Strategic Communication
Specifically, I am thinking about designing this class as a service-learning course, students will work with a local/national company to:

1. Conduct secondary analysis using existing databases (e.g., Simmons, Statista, Nielsen).

2. Interpret primary research results (e.g., copy testing in CCR).

3. learn data visualization and craft professional industry research reports.

Advertising & the Consumer (Strategic Communication Processes)
This course will explore theory and practice relating to the complex and dynamic relationships among strategic communications, consumers, and brands. It will draw on a variety perspectives and methodologies to examine topics such as: (1) how consumers process persuasive messages, (2) the meaning of products and brands, and (3) the factors that explain consumer preferences. Two disclaimers: Readings will draw on multiple areas of strategic communication – that is, not just advertising. Also, we will consider “consumer” broadly, including consumers of ideas and opinions.

Audience and Media Analysis
Areas covered in the course include popular culture, digital media industries and technologies, visual communication and related topics such as privacy, copyright and entrepreneurship. MA professional track students might find this course useful as background on current issues confronting media industries.

Brain and Communication
This seminar will familiarize students with cutting edge science that has contributed to media processes and effects research by improving our understanding of the human brain “on” communication content and technology. Students will gain an understanding of basic underlying embodied mental processes that are engaged through interactions with communication content and technology. We will cover brain processes underlying communication experiences at both a conceptual and operational level. Students will gain insight into conducting research and optimizing communication experiences based on media and brain science.

Communicating about Science, Health, the Environment, and Risk
This course provides a survey of research on four key contexts relevant to the study of public relations and strategic messaging: science, health, the environment, and risk. Throughout the semester, students will read relevant research and theorizing relevant to these contexts from communication research (and related fields), with emphasis within each unit on communicating during a crisis.

Critical Theories of Media and Communication
This course will trace a line of thinking about the relationship between society and power marked by three key terms: ideology, hegemony, and discourse. Accordingly, you could think in a reductive way about this class engaging the work of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, and Michel Foucault, respectively, but we will also engage with scholars and theorists who have modified, struggled with, critiqued, and applied their principles. The objective is for students to attain a working vocabulary with which they might describe power relationships within phenomena to which they are already attuned as scholars. Among other requirements, students will produce three critical essays (12-15 pages each) wherein they apply a Marxist, Gramscian, and Foucauldian lens to the problems and objects of analysis in which they are most interested.

Design & Branding for Organizations
An advanced design course with an emphasis on brand identity development for organizations. Topics include logo development, marketing and advertising collateral as well as web branding. The course will culminate in the creation of a print and online graphic standards guide.

Documentary Production
The class is designed as a workshop for making documentaries. We will focus on the production of short independent, low-budget documentaries. We will screen a variety of documentary works and discuss styles of documentary films, storytelling techniques, and film aesthetics. The primary focus of the class, though, will center on hands-on experience in pre-production, production, and postproduction. Students will be expected to create work throughout the semester and present works in progress as well as finished pieces. Collaboration is encouraged, and collaborators should share in all roles of production. Group feedback and critique are essential components of a successful production dynamic, and class participation is required.

Entrepreneurship
This course examines the role of communication in the political processes. Given the broad nature of the political communication discipline, course readings will be interdisciplinary, drawing on research in journalism, communication, public relations, marketing, sociology, psychology, and political science. The goals for the course are two-fold. One is to familiarize students with the general literature on political communication. Topics to be covered include effects of political communication on individuals' cognition, political behavior and society, changing media coverage of politics, strategic communication by governmental institutions and election campaigns, political advertising and political debates, entertainment media and politics, the role of new media, especially social media, in politics. The second goal is to help students propose their own original research in the field of political communication.

Film Criticism
This course focuses on the evaluation of contemporary narrative film in the US. Through daily film screenings, engaged class discussion, and the reading of sample criticism, students will learn to critically interpret and assess the rhetorical, social, political, and historical dimensions of film art.

Global Media
Examines a variety of media-related globalization topics including: transnational communication industries; global journalism, advertising and public relations; transnational communication for social development; technology; and international communication theories. Students will have opportunities to interact with a similar class at Goldsmiths College, London via Web forums and videoconference.

Health Communication
This course examines how communication can be used to persuade individuals to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors. Students will learn how to apply theory to health behavior change interventions that use communication, focusing on theories commonly used in health communication from the fields of communication, psychology, medicine, public health, and consumer behavior. Students will also gain a better understanding of research methods used to evaluate health communication interventions. Students will get hands-on experience preparing an NIH-type grant proposal.

Interactivity and New Media
This seminar approaches interactivity and new media from theoretical and applied perspectives, exploring social, psychological, and aesthetic implications of reciprocal communication individually and in society. Beyond defining and locating interactivity, the history, applications, and consequences of interactive processes are reviewed across different contexts, such as entertainment, advertising, media, politics, social life, education, and the arts. Attention is also paid to related concepts, including media evolution, parasocial interaction, virtual reality, presence, flow, remediation, and transportation. The seminar provides a broad foundation for students interested in 6050 projects, thesis or dissertation work relating to interactivity, regardless of their specific field of study.

Interactions with Artificial Intelligence and Computer Mediated Communication
This course examines social interactions with human and non-human entities (artificial intelligences) through new media technology. Theories and research from the video game and computer mediated communication (CMC) literatures will be used to explore how communication through new media affects emotions, cognitions, and behaviors during and after media use. The course will be split into the potential positive and negative media effects and processes of new media communication.

Integrated Branding Communications
This is a seminar in managing and analyzing the success of integrated branding communication. The course includes instruction in the interaction between sub-fields of media and communication. It will provide students with the opportunity to apply theory and research methods to the exploration of this interaction. Students will be exposed to a variety of appropriate scholarly materials as well as industry writings for review and critique. Students will also participate in a team branding project in which they apply their knowledge of integration to develop branding strategy.

Integrated Communication Campaigns
This course is designed as a hands-on practicum in which concepts from integrated communications will be applied in the context of an original research study for a local private sector or nonprofit client. Through an assessment of the client's needs, students will develop an appropriate research solution designed to gather relevant data, both quantitative and qualitative, and yield strategic advice. Students will analyze and present results of the study in the form of a client-ready report complete with data analysis and recommendations. Throughout the seminar, students will learn about communication and branding strategies in light of integrated marketing theory. Concepts from the seminar will then be applied in a culminating research paper that analyzes the project and assesses its efficacy.

Media and Emotion
Emotional and motivational processes drive every response to any form of media content and technology. This arguably makes emotion one of the most important concepts in media processes and effects research. This seminar will give you the ability to validly explicate emotion and other affective concepts into a scientifically valid and practically valuable research agenda. We will examine the major theoretical perspectives on human emotion/affect and how affective concepts have been included in media processes and effects research. We will cover how to validly investigate emotion as both a human process and feature of media as well as how emotion underlies common perceptions and effects of media. The major assignment for the seminar will be conducting an experiment in the area of media and emotion. This is seminar will be most valuable for students who are primarily interested in either academic or applied media research careers.

Media Psychology
Come share in the examination of how we come to understand ourselves and our world through personal and mass communication technologies. This graduate seminar will apply psychological theories, concepts and methods to study the roles media play in the lives of individuals, groups and cultures. Students will explore the dynamic interaction between the human—media experience in various contexts for the purpose of promoting public understanding and positive media development and use. This will involve readings and discussions about when and why predispositions, motivation, interpretation, emotion and behavior are antecedents as well as consequences of media contexts and content. Students will be expected produce research proposals that demonstrate comprehension of this dynamic relationship.

Multivariate Analysis
This course will provide an overview of multivariate analysis and its applications to communication research. Possible topics will include multivariate analysis of variance and covariance, multiple regression with continuous and categorical outcomes, principal components analysis, factor analysis, and conditional process models. Topics also may vary somewhat based on student interest. Students will learn to select the appropriate analysis to test specific hypotheses, prepare and analyze data in SPSS, interpret output, and present results as they would appear in an academic journal. 

Neuromarketing/Biometric Research for Professionals
Neuromarketing has produced a new understanding of how individuals mentally process and respond to communications content and technology. This approach can optimize content and user experiences with new technologies and interface design. This makes a basic familiarity with Neuromarketing and the ability to critically evaluate the approach an important skill set for Strategic Communication professionals. This course is not designed to give you the expertise to conduct Neuromarketing studies but at the end of the class you should be able to critically evaluate Neuromarketing and be prepared to pursue more in-depth training in the area if desired.

New Media & Politics
This course will examine how people use the Internet and other new media for political information and the effects of new media on political attitudes and behaviors. More specifically, this class will examine theories used to study the Internet and its components, the social and individual effects of the Internet, and the role of the Internet in general and blogs and social media in particular in the last four presidential campaigns.

Political Communication
Offers a graduate level introduction to the expanding role of media in politics, focusing on the related processes of message framing, communication strategy, and political learning and persuasion. Evolving conceptions of citizenship are also reviewed. The first section of the seminar reviews conceptions of citizenship and normative ideals for media and democracy. Readings trace the rise of the 'modern campaign' and analyze the media's influence on elections, political conduct, and what active engagement now means. The broader role of the media in democratic processes is also examined, with a contrast made between political science and communication approaches to research questions at the media/politics interface. The next section takes a broad view of civic participation and the campaign process, focusing on the historical development of political participation and competing conceptions about the nature of participation itself. Of interest here is the rise of new media platforms and "soft news" formats that facilitate increased citizen interest and involvement (sometimes inadvertently) in public affairs. The final section considers political persuasion, messaging strategies employed by candidates, and effects on political audiences. Although the primary focus is on the contemporary political scene, the seminar also examines historical transformations to the press and how changes in the political process have provided an increased role for the media, especially in recent decades.

Race & Media
This graduate seminar will explore the portrayal of race and ethnicity in the media. The primary focus of the course will be on contemporary issues of race and how those are reflected in television, film, journalism, and advertising. Students are expected to develop research based on these media portrayals, while also gaining a critical grasp of current debates in racial and ethnic studies and the historical context behind these issues.

Science of Science Communication
The science of science communication is an emerging, multidisciplinary field that investigates the processes that enable citizens to form beliefs consistent with the best available scientific evidence, the conditions that inhibit the formation of such beliefs, and the strategies that can be employed to avoid or ameliorate such conditions. Objectives for this course will be understanding the role of science communication in society, identifying the challenges for communicating science information, becoming familiar with current debates and discussions about the science of science communication. Students will have the choice between writing a comprehensive review or theory paper or a research proposal for the final project based on the topics covered in this course.

Social Media and Public Relations
This course focuses on social media and how tools associated with social media can best be used in the practice of public relations. The course considers how social media fits within the larger new media context, while also providing an overview of tools associated with social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.). Graduate students taking the course will be expected to consider theories that explain how social media works and individual- and group-level effects associated with using social media. They will also be expected to propose an original theory-based research project that answers a question about social media effects.

Sports Sponsorship/Marketing
The course will provide students with an up-to-date understanding of marketing and communication concepts and theories as they are currently being applied in various sport management contexts, and it is intended to provide a foundation for those students who plan to do advanced study and work in the areas of marketing, advertising, consumer behavior and related fields.

Storytelling by Smart Phone
This course is designed to help you find your “MoJo” – Mobile Journalist. Students will report throughout the semester in three ways: First, by covering news on the scene by smart phone, using built-in tools and new apps to capture audio, photos and video; second, by reporting through social media, a course blog and broadcast tools; third, in a more polished multimedia platform using traditional digital tools (DSLR still cameras, HDvideo cameras, Zoom audio recorders). You'll learn technology and technique in a very hands-on way, including in-class demonstrations and practice assignments. You'll hear from expert MoJos who will share their work. And your reporting will be published to a course website and will be made available to the Hub. You must have access to a smart phone to participate in the class.

The Professorate
This is essentially a “Being a College Professor 101” course for doctoral students who plan to seek full-time, tenure-track faculty positions in the United States. It provides an overview of faculty roles and career paths in colleges of communication. Faculty life and expectations vary depending upon institutional type and discipline or field of study. The first half of the term will examine important issues facing faculty such as the Carnegie classification of institutions, faculty roles and evaluations, the tenure system, the importance of three Ps of academia (people, political and personal), advice for selecting dissertation advisors and mentors, and strategies for building a competitive record during one's doctoral studies. The second half of the term will focus on the nuts and bolts of finding an academic position, including writing effective application materials (e.g., cover letters, curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy and research interests), techniques for the academic job interviews, the job talk, and teaching demonstration, negotiating job offers, and non-academic job opportunities for Ph.D. degree holders.

Web Design and Interaction
This class will help students develop basic skills in Web design. These production skills are indispensable in a digital world, but this class is more than a skills workshop. Students will put Web use into the context of human-computer interaction and discuss topics such as design principles, aesthetics, usability, and interactivity. Students will learn coding basics and produce Web pages using Dreamweaver. Some experience with digital images and Photoshop is necessary.

Writing the 30-Second Narrative
The challenge of the current advertising world: Tell a compelling, complete, entertaining, and hopefully persuasive story in 30 seconds -- better yet -- in 15 seconds. From concept development to story writing, storyboarding, and video production, students will learn how to produce finished commercials.

STCM Special Topics

Corporate Challenges & Crises
Today's corporations face organizational challenges that include everything from reputation management in a global environment to full-blown crises. Students learn how to prepare for and respond to organizational challenges with both internal and external audiences through strategic planning and crisis management.

Evaluating Public Communication Campaigns
This course provides in-depth consideration of the evaluation of public communication campaigns at all stages from development (formative evaluation), to dissemination (process evaluation), to determining the impact of campaigns on specified outcomes (summative evaluation). In addition to offering ideas and insights about how to use multiple types of data and sources of information for evaluation, the class looks at how one can detect intended and unintended campaign effects. Course content covers readings specific to the practice and theory of public communication campaign evaluation.

Neuromarketing
This special topic class will introduce you to Neuromarketing science. You will learn about the science itself as well as how industry clients utilize this research to optimize communication content and technology. You will gain general knowledge of how the human brain processes and is influenced by media as well as the ability to validly critique and apply Neuromarketing research in industry settings. The course will feature guest interviews and the opportunity to interact with industry professionals who are currently conducting and applying Neuromarketing research.

Teaching Online Theory & Practice
For those who anticipate teaching online collegiate courses in the future, this course covers the basic theories and latest research on non-traditional online learners, as well as provides training on the best practices and technology in online course development and design. A research component in the course provides students with the opportunity to develop a conference-level research paper.