Skip to main content

Required Courses

All PhD students are required to take these courses in their first year unless they receive a waiver from the instructor and GPD:

  • Comm 611: Introduction to Theories and Concepts of Human Communication
  • Comm 620: Qualitative Research Methods in Communication
  • Comm 621: Quantitative Research Methods in Communication
  • Comm 891A: Proseminar: Graduate Introduction to Communication

Area Surveys

Students must take one or two of these subfield surveys, depending on their previous graduate study:

  • Comm 613: Intro to Theories of Social Interaction and Culture
  • Comm 695S: Intro to Performance Studies
  • Comm 691B: Intro to Media Theory
  • Comm 693D: Intro to Film Theory

In consultation with their Plan-of-Study committee, students will then select from permanent course titles and special topics, as well as courses outside the department, to complete their coursework.

Permanent Titles

  • 540: Internet Governance & Information Policy
  • 627: Fixing Social Media
  • 690E: Ethnography of the Digital
  • 705: Race, Media and Politics
  • 712: Political Communication
  • 724: Audience Research and Cultural Studies
  • 791E: Television Studies: Text, Culture, Industry
  • 794B: Critical Pedagogy
  • 794M: Field Research Methods in Communication
  • 795M: Performance Ethnography
  • 795N: Cultural Studies: Theoretical Foundations
  • Comm 796: Independent Study
  • 797E: Performing Survival
  • 797P: Media Archaeology
  • 797U: Special Topics—Techno Imaginaries and the Global South
  • Comm 896: Directed Research

Special Topics

In addition to permanent titles, graduate courses are often offered on a Special Topics basis. Topics offered in recent semesters include:

  • Argument, Conflict, and Mediation
  • Citizenships and Belongings
  • Communication and the Public Sphere
  • Consumer Culture
  • Content Analysis
  • Food as Communication
  • Intercultural Communication
  • Media Effects
  • Media Historiography
  • Media Literacy
  • Narrative and Mediated Storytelling
  • Political Economy of Communication
  • Technology, Ethics, and Media Justice