17:194:500M.C.M. Colloquium (0) Attendance at M.C.M.-sponsored or -approved colloquia or workshops, with one attendance required for each course registration each semester. Required of all students each semester.
17:194:501,502,503,504,505,506Topics (3,3,3,3,3,3) Elective topics that focus on relevant current issues or problems confronting organizations and individuals such as identity, globalization, and networks. Also includes occasional skills-based topics courses.
17:194:507Digital Media Production (3)
This course gives students hands-on instruction in how to use digital media tools to produce interactive and media rich online stories. Students will learn key concepts and design principles in web technologies and programming (e.g., XHTML, CSS, JavaScript), video editing, and animation. Students will develop a website that presents a multipart investigative story, using slideshows, videos, and animations. Students will learn how to capture engaging photo and video footage to create an effective multimedia experience in postproduction.
17:194:508ePortfolio (3)Students develop a professional eportfolio that showcases a resume; academic work; professional development courses, certifications, and/or military service; social media and other digital assets; relevant audio/visual material; professional, community, and school activities; and writing samples. Prerequisites: Completion of all M.C.M. core requirements. Recommended to be taken in the first year of the M.C.M. program.
17:194:509Digital Media Innovation (3)
Students use emerging digital technology to develop and test innovations in journalism and media. Emerging technologies are applied to journalism and media to create and test new storytelling formats, production techniques, media management strategies, and social media approaches. Students consider how these innovations can engage citizens across time and space, provide much-needed context and customization to content, interactive entertainment, and new business models to support and sustain journalism and the media in a fragmented, and mobile, digital future.
17:194:510Communication and Society (3)
This course examines the role of communication in society. Taught with a special topics focus in each semester, the course will examine the important impacts that communication processes, relationships, and messages have in society. Topics of focus include corporate social responsibility; community networks; community health campaigns; political communication; and communication in civil society organizations, among others.
17:194:511Organizational Communication (3)
This course will serve as a broad introduction to theories, perspectives, and empirical evidence related to organizational communication in a wide range of organizations (e.g., nonprofit, for-profit, governmental, communal) and in a variety of contexts (e.g., industry, educational, social services, advocacy). Students will learn about historical, current, and future issues; changes and challenges facing organizations; and the communication-relevant aspects of these issues. They will gain practice in applying theoretical perspectives and concepts to actual organizational situations and settings.
17:194:512Mediated Communication (3)
Drawing on existing theory and research, this course examines issues of usage, adoption, and performance of new and established communication technologies in the workplace and other contexts. The course also considers opportunities and challenges that mediated communication presents for both users of these tools and society more generally. It also will expose students to a range of new technologies used by people to coordinate, collaborate, and communicate with one another.
17:194:513M.C.M. Graduate Experience (0)All M.C.M. students are required to take the 17:194:513 MCM Graduate Experience course. This is a noncredit three-hour workshop offered in the fall and spring semesters. It also includes a one-week online discussion orientation. This workshop will help new M.C.M. students get acclimated to the M.C.M. program and graduate education. It will offer insights in what is expected in the program, writing at the graduate level, introduction to APA and an overview of research. It will also help in understanding what is expected of M.C.M. students in the classroom, both on-campus and online.
17:194:514Communication Research (3)
Introduces students to a set of social science research methods that are used in the communication discipline and in workplace and organizational contexts. At the end of this course, students should have a basic understanding of several general research methods used by communication scholars and have gained an appreciation for the ethical considerations in conducting human subjects research. Students will gain knowledge and practice of collection methods such as questionnaires, experiments, structured interviews, focus groups, structured observations, and content analysis.
17:194:516Service, Advocacy and Impact: Purpose-Based Communication for Community Engagement and Corporate Responsibility (3)Service, Advocacy and Impact students build practical skills in using communication for the greater good. In this course, we will explore the ways that communicators can use their abilities in the context of nonprofit organizations, direct community service provision, or corporate social good. This course will combine instruction, group work and reflection, and a hands-on project with a community organization in order to pair learning with practice. By the end of this course, students will have first-hand, working knowledge of the opportunities and challenges in using communication for public service.
17:194:517Media Studies: Theory and Practice (3)
Examines the nature and impact of the media of mass communication in society. Particular attention is paid to emerging media technology, including the internet and other digital technologies. Students learn four primary ways new technology influences media and society, including: 1) how media professionals and members of the public increasingly create content using new media technologies; 2) the nature of mediated content; 3) the relationships between and among media and relevant publics; and 4) the structure, culture, and management of media organizations and systems. Students learn five areas of media technology, including: 1) acquisition tools; 2) storage technologies; 3) processing devices; 4) distribution technologies; and 5) display, access, or presentation tools.
17:194:518Persuasion and Advocacy (3)
Explores the strategic use of communication by individuals and groups to facilitate persuasion and change. Topics covered vary by instructor, but may include theories of behavior and social change, strategic communication, interpersonal influence and diffusion, media advocacy and social marketing, argumentation, discourse, and conflict.
17:194:519M.C.M. Capstone Seminar (3)
The Capstone Seminar requires students to integrate theory and practice through the preparation and presentation of an intensive project. Students will design their own original work that includes integrating, synthesizing, and analyzing fundamental communication theories, concepts, and research methods; show proficiency in gathering and using evidence to study and understand communication processes and consequences; demonstrate advanced written and oral presentation skills; apply communication theories and concepts to professional and civic life. The Capstone course is taken in the last semester of the M.C.M. program.
17:194:520,521,522M.C.M. Fellow Internship I,II,III (3,3,3) Required of M.C.M. fellows each semester of their fellowship placement, includes formal assessment of student by fellowship supervisor. Open only to students appointed as M.C.M. fellows.
17:194:523,524M.C.M. Teaching Internship I,II (3,3) Selected students assist faculty members with delivery and student evaluation of an undergraduate course. Open only to students appointed as M.C.M. teaching interns.
17:194:525,526M.C.M. Elective Internship I,II (3,3) Recommended for students without significant experience in complex organizations; 150 hours of supervised professional practice in an approved organizational setting, with supervisor assessment and student report required.
17:194:527M.C.M. Intensive Internship (6) Recommended for students without significant experience in complex organizations; 300 hours of supervised professional practice in an approved organizational setting, with supervisor assessment and student report required.
17:194:528M.C.M. Fellow Internship IV (3)Required
of M.C.M. fellows each semester of their fellowship placement; includes formal assessment of student by fellowship supervisor. Open only to students appointed as M.C.M. fellows.
17:194:529M.C.M. Summer Fellow Internship (BA)Elective course for M.C.M. fellows for summer
placement; includes formal assessment of student by fellowship supervisor.Open only to students appointed as M.C.M. fellows.
17:194:530,531Independent Study (3,3) Focused readings or research conducted independently by student arranged with and approved by faculty sponsor and program director.
17:194:532Dynamics of Global Organizations (3)This course aims to provide deeper insight into the contested phenomenon of globalization, its implications for today's organizations, and the role of communication in processes of global organizations.
17:194:534Organizational Communication Networks (3)Theory, concepts, methods, and analysis for understanding and applying social networks to organizational contexts.
17:194:535,536,537,538,539Practicum (3,3,3,3,3) Assistance with an ongoing research project(s) with a faculty member or outside sponsor approved by program director; student summary describing and evaluating the research experience required.
17:194:540Organizational Leadership (3)
Examination of group and organizational leadership from a communicative perspective, integrating both theory and current practice. Topics of focus include leadership roles relative to organizational culture, diversity, organizational assessment, support technology, organizational change, ethics, and leadership and organizational development. The course includes informational and experiential learning approaches.
17:194:541Organizational Decision-Making (3)
This course focuses on how decision-making happens within and between organizations. It also focuses on how communicative action and communication networks shape decision-making processes and outcomes. The course addresses the design of effective decision-making systems. Topics include individual and group decision-making, problem solving, conflict management, decision and negotiation support systems, decision-making in virtual and networked organizations, and the role of
technology in decision-making.
17:194:542Interorganizational Relationships and Stakeholder Communication (3) The key issues explored in this course concern the management of interorganizational relationships and projection of organizational reputation, image, and identity to external audiences. The course begins with identification and specification of the external environment(s) of organizations. Readings and discussion explore interorganizational relationships, boundary-spanning communication, and management of external stakeholder relationships.
17:194:543Organizational Communication Research (3)
Advanced master's-level course focused on the diverse array of topics studied in organizational communication research. We will examine the role of communication in issues of socialization and identification; power, conflict, and control; decision-making and leadership; ethics, performance, and feedback; turnover, burnout, and exit; culture; structure and networks; as well as image and reputation. It is based on theory and research, but will also address application.
Prerequisites: 17:194:511 and 514, or permission of instructor.
17:194:544Organizational Cultures and Diversity (3) Development of familiarity with the major theoretical and research orientations to the study of organizational culture. How the construction and management of "culture" is related to power, the representation of interests, decision-making, productivity, personnel development, and social well-being. Investigate cross-cultural relations and cultural change related to global organizational developments.
17:194:545Public Relations Management (3) Analysis and preparation of case studies in industry, labor, education, government, and trade organizations, and the application of public relations techniques.
17:194:546Social Media (3)
This course provides a theoretical orientation to communication processes in social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, and virtual worlds such as Second Life). Readings will be selected from a variety of disciplines, with a major emphasis on mediated communication theory and phenomena. Topics include issues of self-presentation, identity, privacy, youth and social media, political participation, social networks, social capital, virtual worlds, collection action, and uses of social media in the workplace. Methodological and ethical approaches to studying social media data will also be discussed.
17:194:548Communication Ethics (3)This course explores various approaches to ethical behaviors and decision-making and applies them to diverse aspects of strategic communication in professional settings. Students will learn to discern a wide variety of ethical issues concerning communication behavior, apply systematic ethical analysis to various organizational situations, and clearly explain their analyses. The course applies abstract principles to specific cases in applied ethics (deductive approach) as well as using a bottom-up (inductive approach) in developing students' ethical decision-making skills. Students will use the learned knowledge of moral decision-making and begin exploring contemporary topics in strategic communication ethics, such as political communication, public relations, advertising, digital media, marketing and health communication.
17:194:549Organizational Assessment (3) Principles and practices in organizational communication and quality
assessment in industry, health care, government, and education. Topics
include: surveys (communication audits and inventories), Baldrige-based
assessment (criteria and application), interpretive approaches
(historical analysis, participant observation, and in-depth and
focus-group interviewing), and message analysis (content and
interaction).Prerequisites: 17:194:511 and 514, or permission of instructor.
17:194:551,552,553,554,555,557Topics in Mediated Communication (3,3,3,3,3,3) Advanced topics in mediated communication reflecting current research focus of faculty instructor. Prerequisite: 17:194:512 or permission of instructor.
17:194:556Digital Media Research (3)
This course will introduce you to quantitative, qualitative, and interpretive methods for doing research on digital media (online media, mobile media, and social media) and ethical ways of employing those methods. You will learn about how to apply quantitative, qualitative, and interpretive methods to studies of digital media creation, content, and use, and you will also learn about how digital media companies use research and analytics. At the end of this course, you should have a basic understanding of several general research methods used by digital media scholars and have gained an appreciation for the ethical considerations in conducting human subjects research.
17:194:558International Public RelationsInternational public relations is practiced by all types of private, public, nonprofit, activist, non-governmental organizations and institutions.
This graduate course includes content and discussions on global issues affecting the public relations profession, the PR professional and the engagement of stakeholders at the home, host, and transnational levels.
This course will survey how global public relations strategies are developed and implemented to support advocacy efforts, emphasizing successful case studies and failures. For instance, the course includes an evaluation of the various factors that determine the professionżs evolution and practice in different countries.
Also, this graduate course aims to introduce and analyze the main concerns affecting the management of the public relations function, such as transnational crises; coordination and control mechanisms trends; practitionersż roles, responsibilities, and competencies in a global context.
17:194:559Organizational Change and Communication (3)
Leaders are often in the position of bringing about change. In the study of organizations and leadership, change is a critical topic. Change does not happen naturally in most organizations, it is a leader-led process. This course takes two perspectives. The first is that organizations are made up of processes. Every day, these processes run and regenerate themselves. Examining them for ways to improve can lead to redesign and ultimately gains in cost saving, customer satisfaction, and improved morale. The second perspective is that a metaphorical force field called culture organizes and shapes organizations. We breathe the air of culture in our work lives each day. Analyzing culture enables us to consider its impact on organizational effectiveness and ability to reach goals.
The course will weave together these four critical elements in change - organizational culture, leadership, communication and internal processes.
17:194:560Health Communication (3)
This class is designed to give an overview of the major fields of study in the area of health communication. This includes the areas of health communication campaigns, multicultural health communication, physician-patient communication, and communication among health professionals. The ultimate goal of health communication is to increase health and satisfaction by encouraging healthier behaviors, medical compliance, and more efficient communication of medical information.
17:194:561,562,563,564,566,567,568,569Topics in Communication and Health (3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3) Advanced topics in communication and health reflecting current research focus of faculty instructor.
17:194:565Science, Media & Society (3)
This course will consider the intersections of science, media, and society. With a focus on both theory and practice, we will explore the media's role in how we understand and communicate about the most critical science issues of our day. Course topics include: public understanding of science; representations of science in journalism and popular culture; the media's influence on public engagement with science; the strategic uses of media to communicate about science. Special emphasis will be given to understanding the media's role in shaping perceptions of controversial science issues.
The course is divided into two major units. During the first part of the course, we will study the psychological, social, cultural, and political underpinnings of public opinion about science issues. In other words, we will try to understand, through the lens of various social scientific theories, why people believe what they do about issues such as climate change, and vaccine safety; why their beliefs sometimes conflict with the best available scientific evidence on the topic; and why these beliefs can be so difficult to change. During the second part of the course, we will survey the science media landscape, and use the theories and concepts covered in the first part of the course to evaluate the implications of media for public engagement with science. We will examine science journalism, online media, media campaigns and activism, and representations of science in entertainment and popular culture.
17:194:566Small Group Communication (3)
In this class, small group interaction is examined in depth, including observation, interpersonal activity, group systems, conflict resolution, and listening. The focus is on practical, business, and organizational group activities in real-world situations to prepare students to understand, effectively participate in, and control group dynamics.
Readings, lecture, discussions, case study and small group exercises will be utilized to master conceptual material necessary for leadership excellence. The goal of this course is to help the student improve their teaming and communication skills, as effective team membership becomes an even more critical professional and career competency.
17:194:570Interpersonal Communication (3)
This class focuses on the foundational and contemporary research that makes up the study of interpersonal communication. Its primary goal is to give students an understanding of the origins and the current directions of much of the scholarship on interpersonal communication.
Prerequisite: 17:194:510 or permission of instructor.
17:194:571,572,573,574,575,576,577,578Topics in Social Interaction (3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3) Advanced topics in social interaction reflecting current research focus of faculty instructor.
17:194:576Public Relations Effectiveness and Analytics (3)
This course examines the process of evaluating the public relations function. It provides students with practical guidelines for evaluating and analyzing the effectiveness of public relations campaigns.
Students will connect communication measures of effectiveness to business results, including being able to calculate ROI. By implementing best practices for conducting research methodologies, students will be able to interpret and report findings to determine campaign effectiveness. Students will also analyze historical, award winning PRSA case studies, to thoroughly understand the Barcelona principles and apply contemporary measurement tools to current case studies. The analysis and discussion of real-world case studies will serve as context for the applied understanding of how and why to evaluate a public relations campaign.
17:194:577Creating Social Impact: A Stakeholder Framework Approach(3)
Changing beliefs about the role of business in society in the past thirty years have increased the pressure on organizations to define how it addresses higher purposes beyond financial gain. This is particularly relevant as companies are making long-term commitments to improving the world through mechanisms like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The success of an organization depends on the quality of its relationships with different stakeholders including NGOs and governments. More specifically, an organization develops its activities through a stakeholder network, which affects and is affected by the organization's behavior.
Therefore, the concepts of sustainability, organizational purpose and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are becoming more and more crucial. The course aims at defining CSR and how organizations create social impact. The course will look at new managerial solutions and new performance evaluation and reporting methodologies capable of integrating and improving traditional economic measures.
Therefore, the concepts of sustainability, organizational purpose and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are becoming more and more crucial. The course aims at defining CSR and how organizations create social impact. The course will look at new managerial solutions and new performance evaluation and reporting methodologies capable of integrating and improving traditional economic measures.
The purpose of the course is to build a new vision of social impact based on a stakeholder framework. Whether CSR is understood as organizations taking responsibility or society holding organizations accountable, the underlying issues are how about the environmental, social, and governance opportunities and risks that have emerged in today's globalized, networked world will be explored.
17:194:578Strategy and Innovation in Sustainability Communication (3)
Through a comprehensive discussion of sustainability communication strategies, media and messaging, this course focuses on how organizations communicate corporate social responsibility to their publics.
This course examines the powerful new trends in public-private partnerships and new models of private sector interventions in society including responding to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The course explores the intersection of communication, stakeholder engagement and social impact. This course will help students understand how organizations behave in society and the role of the citizen as stakeholder and consumer in helping to influence organizational behavior.
Topics covered include: 1) Crowdfunding; 2) Social Impact Bonds; 3) Competitions and Prizes; 4) Philanthrocapitalism; 5) B-Corporations and Social Enterprises; 6) Pro-bono contributions from the private sector; 7) Use of AI in social impact efforts; 8) Circular Economy; 9) Sustainability investing, and (10) Communication across diverse stakeholders.
17:194:579Social Impact Communication (3)What is social impact? How does social impact further the work of NGOs / organizations seeking to do good? What is the benefit in terms of corporate reputation? How is it measured? What are the most appropriate ways to communicate about social impact? This course provides an overview of social impact from the perspectives of both the corporate world and NGOs / organizations that are enabled by corporate social impact engagement. Through publications, case studies, interviews with those involved in social impact activities and team projects, we will assess the influence - positive and negative - social impact can have on the reputation of a corporation. Students will come away with a clear understanding of what social impact is and what it is not, how it can be measured in terms of reputation, and the criticality of appropriate communications related to social impact activities.
17:194:580Crisis Communication (3)This course will focus on various elements of crisis and issues management. In an age when a company's every move is subject to instant scrutiny and attack, the necessity for effective crisis management is greater than ever and more complicated. The structure of the course revolve around the crisis management process: prevention, preparation, response and long-term. Emphasis will be placed on practical application of crisis communications theory, with the use of real-life case studies, role playing and guest lectures by crisis expert practitioners.
This course examines a variety of communication techniques and principles used when an organization faces issues, and or incidents that negatively impact the organization's reputation. Major aspects of this course will include: the definition of crises in its various forms, the stages of a crisis, the role of the spokesperson and the impact of social media and the crisis response, among others.
17:194:581Reputation Management (3)
This course will demonstrate the importance of reputation management as a practice to better ensure organizational health and mitigate risk by augmenting crisis/risk management work. Often environmental scanning - a key reputation management practice - can make strategic communications professionals aware of potential crises, so they can head them off before they occur.
Of particular significance is understanding how the advent of digital media presents a new reputational risk where anyone with a social media account or website can attack or support an organization.
Throughout this course, we will explore reputation management through an ethical lens. Not only are ethics an important human quality, but if organizations behave ethically, they are more apt to steer clear of reputational dilemmas. We also will approach this class taking diversity and inclusion into account and working to incorporate these important values into reputation management practices.
17:194:582,583,584,585,586,587,588,589Topics in Knowledge Management (3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3) Advanced topics in knowledge management reflecting current research focus of faculty instructor.
17:194:590Digital Journalism (3)Digital Journalism is a hybrid hands-on and conceptual course designed
to help master's-level students develop introductory-level
skills in multimedia reporting (using text, still images, and video), while gaining
an understanding of the foundational philosophical, ethical, and legal
principles underlying the practice of journalism in the 21st century.
17:194:591Critiquing Marketing Communications (3)Marketing communications pervade nearly every aspect of
modern life in consumer society, from broadcast commercials to public relations
to product design and packaging to online search marketing. As our economy
shifts from a manufacturing base to an information base, this process is
accelerating. With the increasing capacity to track, profile, and target
consumers across media, we ourselves have become the product, the medium, and
the message. This fact, in turn, has influenced the very nature of the human
experience. Friendships, identities, and even the most intimate of
relationships are now mediated through channels in which marketing is not only
present but central. In short, you might say we live in a hypercommercial
society. What are the political, economic, and social implications of
this change? How are new technologies contributing to, and changing, this
process? How can we, as citizens of this consumer society, navigate these
complex issues? What costs and benefits accrue from the increasingly commercial
environment in which we live? In addition to addressing these issues in readings and
online class discussions, we will collectively develop and maintain a public
blog dedicated to discussing, dissecting, and critiquing marketing
communications of all kinds.
17:194:592Digital Advocacy and Persuasion (3)This
course explores how political, economic, and social actors leverage emerging
communications media to pressure and persuade one another. Participants will gain a deeper understanding
of how to use new media tools for digital advocacy and persuasion, and will
also develop a critical perspective on how these tools are changing society.
17:194:593Globalization, Media, and Social Change (3)
The last 30 years have seen a fundamental transformation in society. Characterized as a transformation from industrial to informational, this new system is marked by the increased velocity and fluidity of capital, goods, people, and ideas. Facilitated by new information and communication technologies (ICT), the increased flows of both objects and ideas have led to shifting notions of identity, nation, democracy, and society among others. In this class we seek to more fully understand the shifting nature of society today particularly as this new and complex world intersects with media and communication. We pay particular attention to considering the different causes for change in society, as well as the new complex human- and, at times, computer-mediated configurations. Finally, we focus on how these shifts are both impacted by and impact media and communications.
17:194:594Digital Media Ethics (3)Examines theoretical underpinnings of ethical problems and applied case studies specific to digital media. Considers how different moral philosophies apply across cultures and across different contemporary media practices and platforms in areas such as advertising, promotional marketing, big data, software and interface design, and fake news.
17:194:595,596,597Topics in Media Studies (3,3,3) Advanced topics in media studies reflecting current research focus of faculty instructor.
17:194:598Digital Media Law & Policy (3)
This course examines the exciting world of law and policy relevant to digital media: the Internet, mobile media, and social media. We will answer such timely questions as:
Why have you been getting all those emails telling you that websites or apps "value your privacy" and want you to click "OK" on a statement about your data?
Why did a federal court rule in May '19 that President Trump violated the First Amendment rights of Twitter users when he blocked them?
What was behind the "delete Facebook" movement of spring 2018?
Could you successfully sue someone for libel if that person said something false and reputation-harming about you on social media?
And others.
17:194:599Media and Popular Culture (3)
The purpose of this course is to provide a critical understanding of popular culture's role in society. The course introduces a range of theoretical approaches to study popular culture, exploring the intersections between everyday life, media, and broader political and historical contexts within (mostly) the United States.
We will examine the history of mediated pop culture, the commercial and social aspects of its texts, and the cultural industry's influence on social relations and values. Drawing on theoretical concepts and concrete examples, we will delve into cultural texts and practices in an attempt to reveal the social processes that exist beneath the surface.
Ultimately, this course will provide the tools to study media and popular culture (e.g. television, music, games, film, advertising, and social media). The course will expand notions of popular culture by focusing on digital media dimensions via examples and approaches.
Master of Communication and Media Program 
