Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Any study of communication entails an understanding of culture, and vice-versa. This course introduces students to the broad interdisciplinary field of cultural studies, enabling them to critically consider how the everyday culture we consume shapes and is shaped by power dynamics. Having learned about the key concepts, approaches, and questions within cultural studies, students will go on to investigate a range of contemporary cultural texts and communication practices. Case studies spanning pop music, fashion, television, branding, social media and other cultural domains will provide concrete opportunities to apply theoretical frameworks. Students will develop analytical skills to trace how cultural meanings emerge, circulate, and evolve over time and space.

Our worldviews, our ability to communicate with loved ones and friends, and even our food choices are frequently shaped or determined by the different forms of media available to us. But do we ever consider the industrial processes associated with the production, distribution, and consumption of media content? This course examines the development of a wide range of media industries – including entertainment, news, social media, and sports – as well as the ongoing evolution of the processes that produce and distribute content.

This course introduces students to social science research on the consumption, sharing, and influence of mediated communication. We will explore the motivations behind media consumption and sharing, including social identity, entertainment, information-seeking, and social connection. We also examine the impact of various types of mediated content (e.g., violence, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, politics and activism, misinformation, health and wellbeing); genres (e.g., news, entertainment, educational, marketing); and mediums (e.g., television, film, social media) on what we think and how we act. The aim of the course is to provide students with (1) a broad understanding of both the positive and negative effects of mediated communication on personal, professional, social, and civic lives, and (2) the basic conceptual tools to evaluate the assumptions, theories, methods, and empirical evidence that underpin these presumed effects and behaviors.

This course introduces students to the central concepts, methods and applications of data science (including network science) to questions in Communication. We focus on building data literacy, namely, the ability to find, appropriately handle, analyze and communicate insights from a broad spectrum of data. Students will be introduced to some of the key tools used in data science, such as Python, R and SQL. We also examine the practical and ethical challenges of big data, ubiquitous data tracking, and the increasing use of algorithmic decision systems and artificial intelligence. The course will help students: (1) develop skills working with large and complex datasets of relevance to communication behaviors in the digital world, (2) become familiar with basic programming skills for data analysis using the R and Python programming languages, along with other tools used for data and network analysis and visualization, and (3) critically examine the use of data in media and other forms of communication. No prior programming or data analysis experience is required.