This course introduces students to the theoretical and practical requirements of different types of public presentations and helps students develop an understanding and appreciation of the dynamic nature of the communication process. The course focuses on the basic elements of the communication process, listening, communicator and audience characteristics, basic research skills, and message composition and delivery. Students learn about the demands of public presentations in culturally and professionally diverse environments and develop presentation competence and flexibility. Satisfies Communication (Communication) GenEd requirement; satisfies SEEDS Interactive Communication student learning outcome in alignment with Engagement, Agency and Leadership value.
Restriction(s): Majors within School of Communication and Media Studies. Theory and practice in the improvement of individual voice and speech patterns and elimination of faults.
This course examines the crucial role media play in contemporary society and surveys the technological, social, cultural, economic, and political impact of communication codes, media, and their convergence. Topics include the histories of varied media (print, electronic, digital), media narratives and genres, the interplay between media products/industries and identity, and the evolving significance of emerging technologies. Equivalent course CMDA 110 effective through Summer 2021.
This course introduces students to concepts and practices of communication in interpersonal relational contexts. Topics include identity construction, perception of verbal and nonverbal cues, listening, disclosure, relationship development, and conflict management. Successful students will develop capacities for effective interaction that is rooted in reflective awareness and responsive communicative choices. Equivalent course CMST 246 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. This course is designed to familiarize you with the prominent theories, issues, and topics in the field of health communication. This course will expose you to diverse health communication perspectives as they relate to a range of health communication topics, including illness and health, historical and contemporary issues, patient and provider experiences, cultural differences in health, public awareness/prevention/intervention campaigns, and the role of media and relationships in health communication.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. This introduces students to the field of organizational communication by surveying fundamental topics and theories pertaining to organizations' structures (relational ordering) and processes. Topics include comparative structural approaches; system, cultural, and critical perspectives for understanding relationships and networks; assimilation of new members; organizational change; cultural diversity; technology and media; and globalization.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. In this course we will explore media concepts and theories and contemporary viral phenomena. We will investigate the evolution of different media and the impact of emerging media on society. Our focus will be on the contemporary scene of technological innovations and how social media are transforming the way we do business, politics, entertainment and activism. The degree to which emerging media present challenges, opportunities, or both is a fundamental question that will guide our dialogue. You will also have the opportunity to use digital media technologies throughout the course and plan, design and create new media content for your projects.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. This course orients students to the academic discipline of communication and media studies. Students develop understanding and appreciation of the discipline's rich history, broad topical scope, and ever-evolving possibilities for inquiry and application. As they practice looking at the world through a communication and media studies disciplinary lens, students become familiar with a range of influential theories that span interpersonal, group/organizational, cultural, rhetorical, and mass-mediated communication contexts. The course is required for Communication and Media Studies major and provides a valuable introduction to the discipline and its various topics for non-majors.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. The development of critical, discriminative, appreciative and empathic listening skills; emphasis on listening theory/concept exploration, listening skill building, and experiential learning through theory application.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. This course introduces major theoretical perspectives and debates in the interdisciplinary fields of communication and media and provides key concepts used in the criticism of different types of media and texts. Theoretical approaches include political economy, semiotics, visual aesthetics, psychoanalysis, effects and reception, feminism, cultural studies, Marxism, and postmodernism which are then applied to a wide range of texts and structures (radio, film, television, music, advertising, news, the Internet, etc). Equivalent course CMDA 210 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. This course introduces students to the study of rhetoric by providing an overview of its history that touches on key theoretical developments in the field. Students will become familiar with the various ways the term rhetoric is defined and theorized. Students will gain an understanding of how public discourse shapes their social, political, and cultural worlds. Using analytical and theoretical tools students will evaluate and construct persuasive messages that span written, verbal, and visual communication, such as political speech, television and film media, social media platforms, advertising and other campaigns, news media, music/music videos, and literary fiction.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. This course provides a survey of cultural approaches to communication, including theory and methodology. Students examine communication as a process that both makes and is made by culture, in order to understand issues and practices of meaning-making within and across cultural groups. Equivalent course CMST 322 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. Preparing and delivering effective, informative, and persuasive speeches; emphasis in outlining, verbal clarity, and effective oral communication in public presentations.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. This course focuses on new media technologies, their relationship with society, and the issues they present, both practical and theoretical, for participation in contemporary culture. This course looks at broad concepts - e.g., mediation, cultural power, representation, and social geography - as they relate to specific objects of inquiry like blogs, mobile devices, technocultures, and virtual reality.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 101 or CMST 110. This course studies television as a technology and cultural form. In this regard, students will broadly considered television in terms of its history, economics, texts, and audiences. Equivalent course TVDM 201 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. Restriction(s): School of Communication and Media majors only. This course explores youth culture and its relation to popular culture. Through an introduction to subcultural theory, this course examines different youth cultures in order to provide students with a space to study the unique role young people play as consumers and producers of media. Emphasis will be placed on the social, economic and political implications associated with these groups and the cultural agents that comprise them.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. This course addresses a special topic pertaining to face-to-face and/or mediated interaction in a particular disciplinary context, such as interpersonal communication, group communication, organizational communication, public relations, health communication, rhetoric, cultural/inter-cultural communication, civic/political communication, or mass communication. Students will develop conceptual understandings and critical and/or practical abilities. May be repeated for a maximum of 9 credits.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. This course introduces nonverbal communication theory to promote better awareness of its dynamics and influence in the communication process as well as of how people communicate and perceive identities. The course also aims to foster skills for encoding and decoding nonverbal communicative cues. Equivalent course CMST 362 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. This course examines the prevalence and nature of mass media messages concerning health. In particular, this course examines the various ways in which health issues are portrayed through entertainment, news media, and advertising. Students will learn about the frequency and nature of health messages in different media formats and the effects these messages have on viewers.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110. This course examines the role of the mass media in the evolution of society and as they impact individuals and groups. The course follows an analysis of the processes and effects of mass media. Topics covered will include violent, sexual, and political media content and effects; media technologies; cultivation; diffusion of innovations; media events; terrorism; etc.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110 for majors in School of Communication and Media; or PSYC 120 or PSYC 294 for minors in Leadership Development Through Civic Engagement. This course addresses theories and techniques of leadership in organizations and groups. Recognizing that organizations increasingly require leadership for innovation and change (rather than just management for productivity and efficiency), the course prepares students to enact leadership that is not merely about overseeing and delegating, but is more concerned with empowering members as engaged and effective stakeholders. Topics include comparative conceptions of leadership; techniques for fostering cohesion and motivation; guiding organizations through change; and meeting facilitation in various organizational contexts.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110 for majors in School of Communication and Media; or PSYC 120 or PSYC 294 for minors in Leadership Development Through Civic Engagement. This course explores conceptual and practical issues of communication in democratic bodies of various sizes and functions, spanning small groups, organizations, and societies. Topics include shared leadership; dialogue; deliberation; cultural pluralism; representational mechanisms; political partisanship and campaigns; lobbying; public policymaking; and journalism.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 110 for majors in School of Communication and Media; or PSYC 120 or PSYC 294 for minors in Leadership Development Through Civic Engagement. This course provides conceptual bases and practical strategies for recognizing, understanding, and bridging chasms that exist in our interpersonal, cultural, organizational, and civic relationships. Coursework culminates in a hands-on project in which class members devise and implement a public event or program that promotes "bridge-building" communication among people with seemingly incommensurate beliefs, values, and identities.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201. Restriction(s): Communication and Media Studies majors. The course engages students in investigative research methods frequently used in the fields of communication and media (e.g., textual and visual analyses, focus groups, interviewing, content analysis and survey research). Students as researchers utilize qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies to develop critical skills for understanding and evaluating communication and media contexts. As well, students develop skills for writing scholarly research papers according to American Psychological Association guidelines and standards of the communication and media studies academic discipline. Meets the Graduation Writing Requirement for majors in Communication and Media Studies. Equivalent course CMST 280 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210 or CMST 201. This course explores selected topics of relational interaction in or across interpersonal, group, and/or organizational contexts. It aims to foster conceptual knowledge, reflective awareness, and practical abilities about communication as an inherently interactive process.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210. Race and media share a mutually constitutive relationship: media shape and are shaped by notions of race, and notions of race shape and are shaped by media forms and practices. In this course, we will have the opportunity to explore this dynamic relationship as we study the ways in which notions of race have been defined and shaped in and through mediated forms. Drawing from a wide range of scholarly areas including popular culture, cultural studies, and communication and media studies, this course addresses the following topics, broadly stated: (1) history and development of race and racist ideas, (2) race and representation, (3) "reading" identities across mediated contexts, and (4) race and the digital. Equivalent course CMST 205 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210 or CMST 212. This course explores major theoretical developments in the field of rhetoric in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to enable students to understand how discourse constructs and influences social, cultural, and political worlds. By focusing on the rhetorical concepts of author, text, medium, meaning, context, and audience, students will learn how these terms allow them to create and critique written, verbal, and visual communication. Students will apply rhetorical theories to political speeches, television and film media, social media platforms, news media, entertainment, and literature, allowing students to articulate how various texts constitute contemporary culture.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210. Students broaden and complicate the way they think about video games, as well as the kinds of activities and communities they enable and foster. Over the duration of the semester, students will work to call into question common assumptions about who plays video games and why they play them. Students will examine video games not only in terms of design and playability, but also from the interrelated perspectives of aesthetics, narrative, industry, gaming communities, and popular culture. Equivalent course CMST 215 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210. This course builds on concepts introduced in Theorizing Communication and Media (CMST 210) in order to provide students with an opportunity to become better versed in the dominant theories and methods of different schools of media criticism. Throughout the semester, students will apply these paradigms to conduct in-depth analyses of a range of media artifacts and institutions.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210. This course offers a critical examination of how communication processes of socialization and media forms produce and circulate shared knowledge, representations, and expectations about gender. Various contemporary relational contexts and media artifacts are used to explore the social construction of gendered identities and power relations and the implications for professional, political, and cultural participation. Equivalent course CMST 245 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210. This course explores how language, speech, and culture are interconnected. Students are introduced to basic theoretical approaches to the study of language and communication and have the opportunity to investigate diverse cultural contexts through case studies and research. Equivalent course CMST 242 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210. Principles of argumentation; characteristics of propositions, definitions of terms, logical organization, evidence, research and oral reason, structure of debates; practice in argumentation and debate of current significant issues.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210. This course studies television from a range of perspectives in order to assess the medium's importance as a technology and cultural form. Students will consider television through topical examinations of its genres, audiences, industries, infrastructure, and social impact. In the process, students will explore television's shifting institutions and the technological innovations reshaping how viewers interact with television.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 210. This course addresses an advanced special topic pertaining to face-to-face and/or mediated interaction in a particular disciplinary context, such as interpersonal communication, group communication, organizational communication, public relations, health communication, rhetoric, cultural/inter-cultural communication, civic/political communication, or mass communication. Students will develop conceptual understandings and critical and/or practical abilities. May be repeated for a maximum of 9 hours. Special Fee.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210. This course is grounded in the recognition that ours is an increasingly visual culture, which is constituted in the production, management, and distribution of style. With particular concern for the rise and evolution of visual elements of popular culture and daily life, students explore the social, historical, and cultural factors that enable the rise of visual culture; and develop capacities for explaining connections between rhetoric and aesthetics.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210. This course examines the ways in which new media technology is used to discuss and improve one's health. Students will learn the dominant theories and models used to explain how and why users access health information online, how new media are used to facilitate communication among patients and doctors, the value of virtual support networks, and the way in which new media platforms contribute to increased health literacy.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210. This course examines the dominant health models, communication theories, and psychosocial concepts that have been applied to the understanding of individual and societal health. In particular, this course will address how these theories/models serve as a foundation for explaining why various forms of communication serve to influence and shape our health perceptions and behaviors. Equivalent course CMST 260 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210. This course explores communication issues and practices related to socio-cultural identities, relationships, and achievement in heterogeneous organizations. Diversity used to be considered disruptive for organizations, and thus something to be avoided through separatist practices. In today’s era of globalization and democratization, though, we understand that organizations’ capacities for innovation, change, and even survival are tied to how well they manage—and, further, celebrate—difference. In light of intercultural communication challenges and structural power disparities, this course explores emerging opportunities and techniques for empowering individuals, social classes, organizations, and democratic society.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210. This course explores theories and techniques that bolster team-based creativity and decision making. As contemporary organizations increasingly move from individualized, top-down problem-solving processes to team-managed approaches, they require new communication competencies in order to innovate. Such competencies include the convening of stakeholders; shared leadership; integrative fact-finding; tactics for creativity; deliberative discussion; consensus-building; and collaborative report preparation/presentation.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 170 and CMST 210. This course addresses the inevitability of change in the contemporary organizational landscape, and introduces strategies for managing challenges and opportunities that are endemic to change. Topics include assimilation; organizational learning; training and development; management of emotions; organizational culture; organizational identity; and the construction of missions and strategic plans.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210. New communication technologies are ubiquitous in organizational life, with functions ranging from mere supplementation of organizational processes to the enabling of organizations that exist primarily or solely through digitally mediated interaction. This course explores various media that may be used in conventional and so-called "virtual" organizations, spanning synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication. Special attention is devoted to techniques for facilitating mediated meetings via VoIP platforms and for solving organizational problems with groupware tools.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 201 or CMST 210 or minor in Leadership Development Through Civic Engagement. This course explores historical and socio-political facets of community-based organizing, and prepares students with communication competencies that are particular to non-profit organizational endeavors. Conceptual learning is advanced through a hands-on community-engaged learning experience in partnership with a regional non-profit organization.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 301. This advanced special topic seminar serves as a capstone experience for Communication and Media Studies majors. It provides an opportunity to apply theoretical and methodological knowledge toward understanding sophisticated, contemporary issues of communication and media--including social problems, technological developments, political conditions, industrial trends, and so on. The course culminates in a formal scholarly paper that integrates points of learning from throughout one's program of study, thus punctuating the programmatic educational experience. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. Equivalent course CMST 425 effective through Summer 2021.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 301. The course explores theories of persuasion and propaganda and provides targeted study of the design of various kinds of campaigns (political, health, advertising, cause-related).
Prerequisite(s): CMST 301. The course prepares students to develop effective strategies for negotiating the challenges of professional life. It focuses on the preparation for the job search, the e-portfolio, interview strategies, and professional networking, as well as on the phases of the career trajectory in varied communication and media fields.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 312. This course introduces students to the methodology of rhetorical criticism. By surveying a range of approaches to rhetorical critique, students will be able to deconstruct the overt and latent meaning of written, verbal, and visual communication. Students will use their knowledge as critics to articulate the power and influence of texts that comprise social, political, and cultural worlds. Using methods of rhetorical criticism students will evaluate political speech, television and film media, social media platforms, advertising and other campaigns, news media, music, and literary fiction. The knowledge and tools gained in this course also enable students to construct sophisticated persuasive and nuanced messages, creative works, and all manner of texts.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 301. The course provides an overview of contemporary issues in global communication and media. Students explore emerging communication and information technologies and how they transform cultural identities and communities, global circuits of images and ideologies, and the global flows of politics, advertising, news, and entertainment. Equivalent course CMST 335 effective through Summer 2021.
Corequisite(s): CMST 333. Prerequisite(s): CMST 330. Provides background theory and practical experience in public relations. Writing forms and styles, project planning, and campaign strategies are emphasized. Meets the Graduation Writing Requirement for majors in Communication Studies.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 301. Restriction(s): For Communication and Media Studies majors (the first 3 credits may be applied to one's major electives; additional credits apply to one's free electives). Supervised communication and media arts activity focused on specific topics of relevance. May be repeated for a maximum of 9 credits.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 301. Too often in today’s discussions of “new media” we overlook the ways in which “old media” were at one time themselves quite novel. Scholarly and popular analyses of the shift to digital media, for example, eerily trace arguments previously made about television, radio, and the telegraph (not to mention oral and written culture). This course will examine these arguments in the context of the Media Ecology tradition. To do this, students will study and debate the foundational work of Marshall McLuhan, Lewis Mumford, Harold Innis, Walter Ong, and others in order to put the technological medium at the center of our inquiry into the longer history of new media.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 170 and CMST 301. This course explores techniques for auditing organizational communication environments. In doing so, it connects theories, empirical research methods, and hands-on application. Working with non-profit organizational partners, students conduct fieldwork by using surveys, interviews, and other techniques to assess an organization's communication, recognize problems, and propose remedies through professional reports.
Prerequisite(s): Departmental approval. Students pursue independent projects related to their major academic and professional interests and meet for tutorial sessions on selected topics. Seminar culminates in a major project related to research, performance, production or pedagogy.
This course introduces students to standard empirical techniques of communication inquiry. These quantitative and qualitative methods pertain to both social scientific inquiry and professional applications. Particular attention is devoted to approaches for investigating problems and phenomena that are typical of contemporary organizations' internal and external communication processes. This course also introduces students to basic analytic techniques on assessing the effectiveness of digital media use in communication program.
The emergence of digital technologies has transformed the communication context in which organizations carry out their goal directed activities. The combination of social media and mobile devices has created expectations of availability and responsiveness that lead to new challenges for organizational communicators. New communication platforms and technologies continue to emerge, leading to the requirement that organizational communicators become life-long learners with both technical skills and critical skills (doing and reflecting) that are regularly reviewed. This course seeks to develop both areas in the context of four areas of competency: leadership mindset, media savvy, communication skills and strategic thinking.
Individual problems in communication. Reports, papers, panel discussion and experimentation. May be repeated twice for a total of 9 semester hours.
This course is intended as a multipurpose course that can be used both to teach rotating special topics courses and to pilot test new courses. This course is intended to be repeatable and to be used by both the public relations and the organizational communications tracks to offer advanced and special topic courses. The course may be repeated an unlimited number of times provided the topic of the course has changed.
This course examines the public relations process and its four phases: research, objectives, programming, and evaluation. The lessons in this course are designed to help students learn to see the PR process more strategically, including understanding research and planning, knowing how to make strategic choices, selecting from a multitude of tactical options, and evaluating program effectiveness. The course will review case studies, best practices in the field and give students an opportunity to apply the strategies learned by analyzing an organization and creating a strategic public relations outline.
Students practice public relations skills, including press release writing; press kit development and distribution; analyses of publics; and media relations. Special attention is devoted to the potentials of traditional and new media for enabling creative and effective public relations.
The modern business world demands that its participants be proficient in a multitude of communication formats. Technology has created a new array of communication applications that are vital to a successful career performance. Without command of this new skill set you are operating at a distinct disadvantage. This course is designed to address the following spectrum of modern day communication modalities: individual live presentations, group presentations, Power Point presentations, social media integration, teleconferencing, video conferencing and web conferencing. The achieved result would be a significant upgrade in your ability to prepare and effectively present live and media generated performances in ALL Professional settings.
This hands-on course is designed to help students hone the skills to successfully conduct public relations for nonprofit organizations. It provides students with a broad understanding of how public relations can further the mission and goals of a nonprofit organization and proposes strategies and approaches to achieve the desired goals. Students learn how to develop and implement a public relations plan or campaign, effectively reach and communicate with various target stakeholders or audiences, develop community and corporate partnerships and alliances, deal with crisis situations, understand the correlation between public relations and fundraising, develop media and other promotional materials, organize and promote special events, and strategic adoption of digital media.
This course explores the roles and potentials of various traditional and emergent technologies/media in organizations' internal and external communication processes. Considering issues inherent to contexts, messages, and audiences, students gain insights about choosing and applying media in particular situations, and recognizing how such choices affect meaning-making. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which new technologies/media are transforming organizations' day-to-day functioning, identities, and public relationships.
This course considers the impacts of communication technologies on organizational functioning with regard to how members use media both to accomplish tasks and to maintain relationships and organizational culture. It does so by (a) considering historicized ideals and practices of organizational structure as they coincide with technological developments, in order to understand how contemporary Social Age media pose particular opportunities and challenges; (b) exploring emergent digital intranet and groupware tools, as they support both task and relational dimensions of organizational life; and (c) surveying various ways in which organizations may use social media for “crowdsourcing,” through which outsiders are drawn into the organization’s creative processes.
This course explores psychological, relational, and rhetorical theories of persuasion and provides students with practical strategies. Considering the functions of persuasion in organizational and public contexts, emphasis is placed on the roles of technology and media in facilitating creative and effective messages and campaigns.
The course introduces students to the fundamentals of integrated communications. Students understand the complex communications mix of today and learn how to strategically plan integrated campaigns to ensure consistency of creative strategy, complementary use of traditional and digital media, and measurable objectives.
This course examines the latest theory, practice and approaches for understanding and responding to organizational communications across a range of crisis situations. The lessons in this course are designed to provide students with insights into the processes, skills, strategies and tactics to be used during a crisis. This course will review and evaluate instructive case studies, common methods and best practices in the field. Topics covered include key theories and principles in crisis communication, which students apply by analyzing actual cases drawn from recent headlines. Students will have the opportunity to apply the concepts learned by responding to real-world situations and crisis communication strategies.
This course focuses on special topics in organizational communication relating to leadership strategies and tools for assessment of organizational culture. Leadership is viewed in behavioral and interactionist terms rather than as a position within an organizational hierarchy. Systems of organizational culture are viewed as patterned behaviors with consequences for organizational effectiveness. Tools are offered for observation and intervention in organizational development efforts focused on team building and leadership.
This course will introduce the growing fields of visual facilitation, visual problem solving, video scribing, doodling, sketch-noting, infographics and information dashboards. All of these have in common the use of carefully developed simple visuals that improve communication in teamwork, leadership, problem solving, collaboration, and stakeholder communication. Students will have a chance to work on a particular project of interest through the semester that relates to their career trajectory. Works by Sibbet, Sunni Brown, Dan Roam, Edward Tufte and others will be considered along with research into the neuroscience of visual information processing.
This course explores issues and practices of difference in organizational life as they play out communicatively in intercultural, organizational, group, and interpersonal relationships. As contemporary organizations experience forces of globalization and democratization, members must forge new ways of not only managing but, further, maximizing diverse beliefs, values, and ideas toward benefits that are both relational and substantive. Topics include historical dimensions of cultural identity and diversity; comparative approaches to Affirmative Action and multiculturalism; conceptions and enactments of power in organizations and groups; and theories and techniques for guiding conflicts toward collaboratively derived benefits.
As stakeholders increasingly demand corporations to contribute to the welfare of the society, environment, and local communities, being socially responsible has become indispensable to an organization’s sustainability. This course provides students with core conceptual rationale and skills to help an organization effectively manage its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs from a communication perspective. Students in this course acquire knowledge in CSR background, major CSR approaches, core communication issues related to CSR, and CSR communication programs management.
This course overviews the related disciplines of organizational communication and public relations, with an integrative approach to understanding organizations' internal and external communication processes. Topics include: comparative structural conceptions of organizations; key organizational processes (e.g., leadership, change management, technology/media use, cultural diversity, and assimilation); organizational identity; informative and persuasive public campaigns; dialogic public partnerships; and issue/crisis management.
Students explore communication dynamics of teams and small groups with emphasis on leadership and innovation. Recognizing that contemporary organizations often value teamwork (rather than top-down delegation) as means for creative problem solving, this course examines theories and practices pertaining to: leadership; membership; interpersonal and inter-group conflict management; cultural heterogeneity; problem solving and decision making; meeting facilitation; and cooperative execution of complex projects. Course content is conducted through and experiential group practicum.
Restriction(s): Communication Studies majors only and departmental approval. Off-campus practicum assignments that range from serving on a political campaign staff to coaching students and/or conducting forensic tournaments or assisting on a Public Relations staff. Broad, balanced and locally supervised experience by arrangements.)
Prerequisite(s): 21 credit hours completed in the Public and Organizational Relations Master of Arts Curriculum. This capstone course in the Public and Organizational Relations curriculum integrates programmatic topics within discussions of globalization's processes and consequences. Considering themes pertaining to new technologies/media, inter- and multi-culturalism, organizational identity, and organizational culture, the course examines theoretical, ethical, and practical dimensions of contemporary cases. Guest lecturers from various academic and professional backgrounds provide opportunities for students to interact with experienced practitioners and to explore pertinent communication problems of globalization.
Influences and effects of the media on society; policy decisions and the influence of the broadcast media as conveyors of information and stimulus for change. Open to all graduate students.
Techniques and ethics in the production of informative and persuasive messages for public consumption. Open to all graduate students. Course may be repeated once for a total of 6 semester hours.
The course uses a case-study method to teach students about theoretical and applied principles of communication campaign management in public relations and organizational communication. Students examine successful/unsuccessful cases of public relations campaigns/programs in order to learn how to develop effective communication campaigns/programs and to conduct proper evaluation of public relations campaigns/programs. These cases are a combination of real-world cases and current events involving for-profit and non-profit organizations. As part of the course, students continue to hone their knowledge in the four key areas emphasized in the program: leadership development, media savvy, strategic thinking, and communication skills.
Restriction(s): Communication Studies majors only and departmental approval. Individual projects in communication that result in significant research or creative projects. Student and instructor agree upon an area of study, readings are assigned, research is done and student submits final findings in form of a paper or a series of annoted bibliographies or position papers. The nature of the course permits advanced graduate students to pursue areas of speech not covered by present offerings. Course may be repeated once for a maximum of 6 credits.
Prerequisite(s): Departmental approval. Independent research project done under faculty advisement. Students must follow the MSU Thesis Guidelines, which may be obtained from the Graduate School. Students should take CMST 699 if they don't complete CMST 698 within the semester.
Prerequisite(s): CMST 698. Continuation of Master's Thesis Project. Thesis Extension will be graded as IP (in Progress) until thesis is completed, at which time a grade of Pass or Fail will be given.