
We research communication processes at global, national, institutional, group, and interpersonal levels; we promote a consciously critical disposition in communication research, where familiar questions are expanded and recast, sometimes combining research methods and strategies that elsewhere would be considered unusual bedfellows (e.g., rhetoric and performance; content analysis and textual criticism; criticism and survey research). We aim to address matters of pressing social and cultural concern through the lens of communication as a process essential to our survival as a species and a polity.

Nord Fund supports Communication major Jean Hur's summer internship at Cannes Film Festival
The Elaine E. Nord Internship Fund at UMass Amherst supported Communication major Jean Hur's summer internship at the Cannes Film Festival on the French Riviera. As part of her internship Hur photographed film discussions hosted by The American Pavilion.

Jasmine Rivas Depaz ‘25 receives Nord Internship Fund
The Elaine E. Nord Internship Fund has been awarded to Jasmine Rivas Depaz, who graduated from UMass Amherst in May 2025 with a major in Communication and a minor in Business.
The admission for the Ph.D. program happens around the end of every calendar year for the following Fall. Fall 2025 is closed.
Updates about Fall 2026 admission are expected around October 2025.
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