Graduate Courses
The faculty has approval to offer the following courses in the academic years 2013–2014 and 2014–2015; however, not all courses are taught each semester or summer session. Students should consult the Course Schedule to determine which courses and topics will be offered during a particular semester or summer session. The Course Schedule may also reflect changes made to the course inventory after the publication of this catalog.
Communication Studies: CMS
CMS 180E, 280E, 380E, 480E. Conference Course in Communication Studies.
Readings in the literature of communication studies designed to expand the graduate student's opportunity for individual consultation both in research and in informational aspects of the work. One, two, three, or four conference hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
CMS 081M. Introduction to Graduate Studies in Human Communication.
Discussion of communication research, theory, and professional development. One lecture hour a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Admission to the graduate program in communication studies.
CMS 383K. Communication Theory.
Survey of philosophical and language-based approaches to communication; theory construction, research practices, scholarly writing. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
CMS 384K. Communication and Ethnography.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
Topic 3: Microethnography of Interaction. Introduction to the study of details of human interaction: the moment-by-moment organization of speech and embodied communication; the roles of different media of communication, such as language, gesture, and space; the construction of context; uses of the material environment; and the distribution of information in collaborative work settings.
Topic 4: Communication and Ethnography. Studies the use of language and communication in ethnographic methods, data collected, and in final reports in a broad range of approaches such as observation and participant-observation, field notes, surveys, interviews of various kinds, textual analysis, and experimental interventions.
CMS 386H. Seminar in Health Communication.
Theory and research in health communication. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections may also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser.
CMS 386K. Theories of Interpersonal Communication.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Interpersonal Communication Theory. Exploration of theoretical perspectives such as general systems theory; symbolic interactionism; rules theory; theories of language and nonverbal coding; theories of meaning; theories of information processing; and theories of persuasion. Theories pertinent to interpersonal, group, and mass interaction.
Topic 4: Discourse Analysis. Examines similarities and differences in the main kinds of discourse analysis and their basic assumptions and typical questions. Designed to develop skills at examining a piece of text or lecture to produce persuasive scholarly analysis.
CMS 386L. Group Communication.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Group Communication Processes. Study of theory and research in the dynamics of small groups, with emphasis on the interaction of message variables with other variables such as leadership, affiliation, cohesiveness, and social power.
Topic 3: Communicating in Groups and Teams. Focuses on the concepts and theories of communicative processes in task-oriented groups and work teams. Readings cover theory and research related to communication problems, dynamics, and practices in group and team settings. May also include the study of team development, decision making, and trends in group communication research.
CMS 386N. Research in Communication Studies.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Quantitative Research Methods. Broad coverage of social scientific techniques for collecting and analyzing communication data; includes measurement, design, and other areas. Some sections focus on organizational research.
Topic 2: Qualitative Research Methods. The use of observational and interviewing research techniques for studying human communication.
CMS 386P. Issues in Interpersonal Communication.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser.
Topic 1: Nonverbal Communication. Current theory and research in such areas as involvement and intimacy, gender, touch, space, environment, nonverbal behavior in children, appearance, and lying. Various methods and measurement techniques for assessing eye gaze, body motion, facial actions, vocal signals, and multichannel events.
Topic 5: Negative Interpersonal Communication. An overview of negative features of communication in interpersonal relationships. Examines avoidance, secrets, conflict, relational transgressions, negative emotions, and aggression and abuse.
Topic 7: Stereotyping and Prejudice in Interpersonal Communication. Examines problems posed by stereotyping and prejudice in interpersonal communication, and the research and theory aimed at reducing their impact. Designed to provide opportunities to seek constructive ways of defining and addressing stereotyping and prejudice; emphasis on recent research in the formation, maintenance, and application of stereotypes.
Topic 8: Metaphor in Communication. Examines the conceptual structure and expressive forms of the metaphor. Includes the study of classical and contemporary treatment of metaphor in linguistics, philosophy, and rhetoric. Also includes recent social scientific research on the use of figurative devices, such as metaphor, analogy, idiom, hyperbole, and euphemism, in strategic communication, specifically in managerial communication, political speeches, and religious discourse.
Topic 9: Perspective Taking. Examines social scientific research and theories that illuminate human ability to understand or adopt the perspective of others.
CMS 386R. Issues in Relational Communication.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Communication in Relationships. Theories of development and change; research methods; relationship types; gender and roles; emotion; self-disclosure; secrets; lying; compliments; conflict; complaints; persuasion; dissolution processes; rejuvenating, repairing, and maintaining relationships.
Topic 2: Family Communication. Communication and attraction, courtship, marriage, the role of children in the marital relationship, sibling relationships, the effect of spouses' occupations on the family, and dysfunctional families.
CMS 386S. Communication, Cognition, and Emotion.
The cognitive elements involved in social interaction, such as memory, comprehension, plans, decision making, and schemas. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
CMS 389C. Seminar in Peace and Conflict.
A survey of the literature and research in the communication of peace and conflict. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some topics also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser.
CMS 090F. Research Internship.
Participation in faculty-supervised research during the second full year of doctoral study. The equivalent of one lecture hour a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and eighteen semester hours of graduate credit at the doctoral level.
CMS 390J. Seminar in Philosophy and Rhetoric.
Topics in rhetorical theory, including such areas as philosophy of argument, rhetoric and epistemology, and ethics of rhetoric. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Pragmatism and Rhetoric. Examines classical pragmatism, with a focus on its meaning in regard to theories of rhetoric and communication, ideal senses of community, the art of rhetoric, and method in the study of rhetoric.
Topic 2: Comparative Rhetoric. Compares rhetorical practices from ancient and modern cultures. Examines various rhetorical traditions, as well as general methodological issues associated with analyzing rhetoric from non-Western traditions.
CMS 390M. Seminar in Language, Culture, and Interaction.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser.
CMS 390N. Political Discourse.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 2: Rhetoric of Social Movements. Philosophies, strategies, and effects of modern sociopolitical and religious movements designed to produce change.
Topic 3: Campaign Communication. An introduction to research surrounding the actors and texts of political campaigns. Covers voters, candidates, consultants, new constituencies, advertisements, debates, speeches, news coverage, party conventions, and new media environments. Focuses on how political discourse affects political life in the United States.
Topic 4: Politics, Media, and Society. Examines political life in the United States in relation to television and new media.
Topic 5: Politics, Media, and the Individual. Current research and theory in the area of media and politics with particular emphasis on individual-level effects.
CMS 390P. Rhetorical Theory.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Contemporary Rhetorical Theory. Investigation of recent definitions, issues, and trends in rhetorical theory, with emphasis on the philosophical bases of rhetoric and the relationship of rhetoric to other disciplines.
Topic 4: Burke and Symbolic Form. Covers a selection of books by rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke, as well as books and articles by recent scholars that use his ideas.
Topic 5: Foundations of Rhetorical Theory. Examines historical writings about rhetoric in the Western tradition, up through the Enlightenment. Covers various important figures in the history of rhetoric, including Plato, the sophists, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Augustine, Christine de Pizan, Vico, and Ramus.
Topic 6: Rhetoric and Social Style. A consideration of social style, including dress, entertainment, vehicles, and living arrangements as a system of communication. Special emphasis on the expressive and practical functions of such symbolic displays.
Topic 7: Rhetoric and Ideology. Explores Marxist contributions to rhetorical theory and criticism, with emphasis on ideology and hegemony.
Topic 8: Rhetoric of Publics and Counterpublics. Investigation of the role of rhetoric in public life in capitalism in history and today. Covers the roles of rhetoric and rhetorical criticism in the production and maintenance of publics, and discusses the formation and activities of social movements.
CMS 390R. Seminar in Rhetorical Criticism.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Basic Rhetorical Criticism. Elementary methods of analyzing public discourse, including the ways and the reasons that rhetorical analysis is attempted.
Topic 2: Advanced Rhetorical Criticism. Survey of six popular schools of thought, including dramatism, Marxism, and structuralism, and their implications for textual analysis.
Topic 3: Feminist Theory and Rhetorical Criticism. In-depth consideration of the premises underlying American and European feminism and the effects of such premises on critical experience. Special attention to the ways contemporary texts become gendered.
Topic 4: Rhetoric and Popular Culture. Survey of the ways film, television, popular literature, and consumer culture influence our attitudes and values. Consideration of a wide variety of contemporary theorists as well as experience in analyzing contemporary textual artifacts.
Topic 6: The Object. Investigation of conceptual and disciplinary anxieties about the object of speech in relation to the history of communication studies, and the deliberate jettisoning of the object in relationship to the history of cultural studies.
Topic 7: The Subject. Survey of contemporary theory with attention to subjectivity. Authors may include Alain Badiou, Judith Butler, Jodi Dean, Gilles Deleuze, Rene Descartes, Michel Foucault, Immanuel Levinas, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Slavoj Zizek.
Topic 8: Idiom of Haunting. Examines haunting as a central experience of modern subjectivity rooted in the ontotheological concept of communication. Explores, through the idiom of haunting and ghosts, how the arrival of postmodernity (particularly in respect to mass media technology) has altered how we think about communication and subjectivity in both popular and scholarly ways.
Topic 9: Rhetoric and Psychoanalysis. A survey of the various schools of psychoanalysis, and the ways scholars have related psychoanalysis to the object of rhetoric.
CMS 390S. Seminar in Organizational Communication.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 1: Narrative Communication in Organizations. Current theories of narrative and their applications to organizations. Topics include gossip, day-to-day news, and dramatic enactments of organizational communication.
Topic 2: Power and Politics in Organizational Communication. The communication implications of sociological and managerial approaches to the study of power and politics, with emphasis on ideas about structure, culture, ideology, information, conformity, voice, and dissent.
CMS 390T. Organizational Communication Theory.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 2: Organizational Communication: Macro. An introduction to selected macro-level or systemic variables in organizations, such as structure, technology, and environments, and to the ways these variables relate to organizational communication processes.
Topic 3: Postmodern Organizational Communication Theory. An attempt to integrate the concern in cultural studies for structure with the stream of organizational theory that focuses on chaos. Readings include Clifford and Markus, Clifford, Deleuze and Guattari, March and Olsen, Weick.
CMS 390U. Consultation in Organizations.
A review of social science literature and its application to problem solving and organizational development in field settings. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
CMS 392P. Seminar in Communication Technology.
Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Some sections also require consent of instructor or the graduate adviser; these are identified in the Course Schedule.
Topic 3: Communication in Virtual Groups. Examines how people think, feel, and communicate in geographically distributed groups using new technologies. Covers impression formation, impression management, anonymity and social identity, group norms, liking, conformity, trust, conflict, building common ground, and social influence processes.
Topic 4: Communication Technologies in Organizations. Examines the theoretical and empirical work on the communicative functions of technology in the workplace.
Topic 5: Computer-Mediated Communication Models and Methods. Examines the theoretical and methodological assumptions of computer-mediated communication research. Topics include online impression formation and impression management, online romantic relationships, digital deception, online identity shift effects, and the effects of perceived anonymity when using new communication technologies.
CMS 698. Thesis.
The equivalent of three lecture hours a week for two semesters. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: For 698A, graduate standing in communication studies and consent of the graduate adviser; for 698B, Communication Studies 698A.
CMS 398R. Master's Report.
Preparation of a report to fulfill the requirement for the master's degree under the report option. The equivalent of three lecture hours a week for one semester. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in communication studies and consent of the graduate adviser.
CMS 398T. Supervised Teaching in Communication Studies.
Teaching communication studies under supervision. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Offered on the letter-grade basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
CMS 399R, 699R, 999R. Dissertation.
Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Admission to candidacy for the doctoral degree.
CMS 399W, 699W, 999W. Dissertation.
Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Communication Studies 399R, 699R, or 999R.