Course Descriptions

This course introduces the major theories in mass communications utilizing both social sciences and cultural studies approaches, which explore media content and its effects as well as audience reaction to media. This course should be taken in the first semester offered.

This course focuses on media accountability, media problems and changing roles of the media. The relationship between the media and various societal groups, i.e., family, government, community, women, and minorities will be examined.

This class will reveal various ways of contemplating art and visual media - description, analysis, interpretation and judgment. Students will explore any of the following aesthetic trajectories: ancient and indigenous art, film and VR innovations, as well as the history and import of art and film theories (from abstraction and expressionism to romanticism and symbolism). The class will also consider the multiplicity of viewing and listening positions. This class may not be repeated for credit.

This course gives students a foundation for beginning graduate studies in the Department of Communication Arts. This course is designed to help equip students to plot their course from matriculation to degree completion. Students will: learn about the history of and current trends related to the communication discipline; examine academic and professional approaches that shape our discipline; and develop and deliver a project proposal suitable for graduate study, and ideally, fitting their academic and/or professional interests.

This course is writing-intensive, focusing on both informative and persuasive writing modes. It emphasizes essay composition and revision, the philosophy of scholarship, and qualitative and quantitative research methods. This course should be taken in the first semester offered.

This course focuses on the techniques and principles of communication research in both qualitative and quantitative aspects. It surveys different sorts of research methods in communication studies, including content analysis, survey research, longitudinal research, and experimental research.

Prerequisites: COMM 6301, COMM 6302 and COMM 6303

Various topics examining film construction and theory. Curriculum will cover numerous subjects concerning film theory and film methodologies, which may include any of the following: Classical film theory, critical film theory, auteurism, semiotics, film spectatorship theories, identity and film, cultural studies and film, and emerging film theories in the digital age. Students will conduct in-class presentations on selected topics with the goal of developing student’s ability to articulate a theoretical argument. This course may be repeated for credit as course topics vary.

This seminar course examines current issues concerning the mass media through a plethora of topics and perspectives. The course covers different aspects of media industries such as production, text, and audience. It facilitates students to critically explore how the mass media shape and influence contemporary cultures and societies. This course may be repeated for credit as course topics vary.

Advanced writing offers a rotating course topic that gives graduate students exposure to various writing forms both professionally and academically.

This seminar explores some of the most significant implications for the understanding of cross-cultural narratives and trends in bilingual communication. Emphasis is placed in discussing language and culture in terms of values, thought patterns, and styles of communication. The approach is interdisciplinary with particular attention paid to importance of cultural awareness in a bicultural and bilingual setting. This course may be repeated for credit as course topics vary.

This course will cover convergent media theory, practice and studies. Through the readings, in class group workshops, individual projects and research papers students will develop a skill set needed to succeed both professionally and academically in the convergent media field. This course may be repeated for credit as course topics vary.

A graduate course in communication studies emphasizes the study of human communication as the process by which people create and share messages and meanings in order to pursue relational, organizational, or mediated social goals, purposes and outcomes. Communication Studies is at the core of the Liberal Arts, promoting our understanding of the vital and formative role of social interaction in a variety of contexts. Our course will highlight the unique ability of humans to create, sustain, change, and influence their social worlds through human symbolic activity as primary to all we do and to whom we are; indeed, our social world is constituted in and through human communication. This course may be repeated for credit as course topics vary.

This seminar course offers historical and critical-theoretical frameworks to examine different aspects of media environments within contemporary cultural contexts. This course focuses on various topics concerning media and culture from critical media-cultural perspectives.

This course teaches you the ways in which people communicate in order to accomplish a goal. Topics in this seminar may include the examination of communication through public relations, advertising, persuasion, public relations, technology and culture, media and society, international communications and creative media strategy. This class is an elective. This course may be repeated for credit as course topics vary.

This course provides experience and training in the communications field with a designated company or an accomplished professional. Practicum requires a minimum of set hours on-the-job experience per week and a comprehensive report evaluating the practicum experience at the end of the semester.

Prerequisites: Eighteen hours of graduate credit and permission of graduate advisor

Opportunity for advanced graduate students to engage in specialized tutorial study with specific faculty. This course may be repeated for credit as course topics vary.

Prerequisite: Permission of graduate coordinator and specified faculty. 

After completion of core coursework and elective classes, students are required to complete either a capstone course or complete a written thesis to demonstrate a cumulative mastery of Communication Arts knowledge and skills. Students may choose to complete their studies with a master’s thesis that includes this course, COMM 61CS1(Communication Capstone) and potentially subsequent courses titled COMM 63CS1. Both COMM 61CS1 and 63CS1 emphasize the doing and completion of your actual thesis.

After completion of core coursework and elective classes, students are required to complete either a capstone course or complete a written thesis to demonstrate a cumulative mastery of Communication Arts knowledge and skills. Students enrolled in COMM 63CS1 have already taken 61CS1 and have chosen to extend their thesis research work into a subsequent semester(s). COMM 61CS1 (Communication Capstone) and this course, COMM 63CS1, emphasize the doing and completion of your actual thesis.

After completion of core coursework and elective classes, students are required to complete either a capstone course or complete a written thesis to demonstrate a cumulative mastery of Communication Arts knowledge and skills. Students enrolled in COMM 61TR have already taken 63TR and chosen to extend their thesis research work into a subsequent semester(s). COMM 63TR (Thesis Research) and this course, COMM 61TR, emphasize the doing and completion of your actual thesis.

After completion of core coursework and elective classes, students are required to complete either a capstone course or complete a written thesis to demonstrate a cumulative mastery of Communication Arts knowledge and skills. Students may choose to complete their studies with a master’s thesis that includes this course, COMM 63TR (Thesis Research) and potentially subsequent courses titled COMM 61TR. Both COMM 63TR and 61TR emphasize the doing and completion of your actual thesis.