Program Overview

Communication Program Overview

The Department of Communication at the University of New Hampshire emphasizes a range of studies in human communication, including rhetoric, media, and interpersonal communication. Students are taught to analyze verbal, nonverbal, and mediated messages from various perspectives, including historical, critical, interpretive, and empirical approaches.

Program Details

• The communication major prepares students for a wide variety of careers in business, media, marketing, government, education, health, advocacy, and social services.
• The department's primary focus is analytical rather than vocational, helping students develop an understanding of how communication works and how different modes of communication shape understanding and social relations.
• Students grapple with questions about how communication functions in real-world contexts, studying political issues, news events, cultural phenomena, and communication between individuals and groups.

Curriculum

Courses

• CMN 440A - Honors/The Language of Addiction: Stigma, Social Relations, and Drug Use: Explores how stigma functions as a byproduct of a system of social relations in which various forms of inequality are reproduced through discourses around drugs.
• CMN 455 - Introduction to Media Studies: Overview of mass communication history and theory.
• CMN 456 - Propaganda and Persuasion: Introduction to theories of propaganda and persuasion, examining symbolic strategies designed to secure or resist social and institutional change.
• CMN 457 - Introduction to Language and Social Interaction: Introduction to the study of the conversational basis of social reality, presenting an overview of interpersonal communication processes.
• CMN 500 - Public Speaking: Performance course focused on analysis of speaking situations and audiences, message construction, presentation, and critical evaluation.
• CMN 504 - Introduction to Argumentation: Study of persuasive discourse as inquiry and advocacy grounded in practical inductive and deductive reasoning.
• CMN 505 - Analysis of Popular Culture: Examines the development of popular cultural artifacts and practices within the 20th-century social history of the U.S.
• CMN 507 - Introduction to Rhetorical Theory and Analysis: Major precepts of rhetorical theory and their application in analysis and understanding of human communication.
• CMN 514 - Analysis of Online Identity: Explores how digital media technologies inform strategies of self-presentation and practices of identity formation.
• CMN 519 - Advertising as Social Communication: Social role of advertising, public policy debates concerning advertising, and methods of analyzing advertising messages.
• CMN 525 - Persuasion & Public Relations: Exploration of the persuasion genres, techniques, roles, and stages in the practice of public relations.
• CMN 529 - Data for Sale: Capitalism and the Surveillance Economy: Examines the relationship between capitalism and surveillance, considering the role of surveillance as a mode of economic world-building and social control.
• CMN 535 - Digital Democracies: Explores how emerging digital technologies enhance and obstruct the pursuit of democratic values.
• CMN 540 - Special Topics in Communication: Selected topics not covered by existing Communication courses, varying by semester.
• CMN 545 - Media, Religion, and Culture: Examines the impact of media on religious belief, practice, and institutions in an American context.
• CMN 562 - Collaborative Leadership in the 21st Century: Grounds the study of interaction in groups via theories of inter-organizational collaboration.
• CMN 567 - Gender, Race, and Class in the Media: Introduces students to contemporary critical scholarship on the construction of gender, race, and class in the media.
• CMN 580 - Lying, Deception and the Truth: Explores the structure and function of lying, deception, and evasion in human communication.
• CMN 588 - Analyzing Institutional Interaction: Examinations of institutional interactions in various settings, showing how the work of society gets done through interaction.
• CMN 596 - Special Topics in Media Studies: Selected topics not covered by existing courses in media studies, varying by semester.
• CMN 598 - Special Topics in Interpersonal Studies: Selected topics not covered by existing courses in interpersonal communication, varying by semester.
• CMN 599 - Internship: Internships designed to integrate classroom study and supervised practical experience in a work setting.
• CMN 607 - Persuasion in American Politics: Study of the forms and strategies of persuasive discourse employed by contemporary American political leaders.
• CMN 614 - Gender, Race and Technology: Explores the influence of gender and race on communication technologies.
• CMN 620W - Global Media, Culture, and Power: Examines the construction of culture and cultural difference in a global context.
• CMN 622 - Digital Rhetoric: Examines how traditional rhetorical theories and methods apply in contemporary digitized environments.
• CMN 634 - Media and Politics: Studies the role of the media in American politics and the impact of media evolution on future politics.
• CMN 635 - Contemplative Media Studies: Applies contemplative practices and principles to the critical analysis of media content, technology, and institutions.
• CMN 637 - Controversy and Reasoning in Law: Uses rhetorical analysis and criticism to evaluate communication practices in courtroom disputes.
• CMN 647 - Rhetorical Criticism of Media: Uses rhetorical approaches and methods in the analysis and criticism of contemporary forms of visual media culture.
• CMN 650W - Critical Perspectives on Film: Advanced study of film theory as cultural practice, with topics varying by semester.
• CMN 656 - Environmental Communication and Rhetoric: Examines environmental communication in public spheres, considering issues of public engagement, citizen activism, and public advocacy.
• CMN 657W - Media and the Environment: Explores the study and practice of the environment and media through a range of concepts.
• CMN 662 - Public Dialogue and Deliberation: Explores the theory behind the practice of public dialogue and deliberation, considering distinctions and appropriateness of different types and aims of public participation.
• CMN 666 - Conversation Analysis: Exploration of how participants in interpersonal communication display their orientation to the fundamental orderliness of conversational sequences.
• CMN 667 - Popular Music Studies: Provides an opportunity to critically examine and study popular music, representing one of the most significant global cultural industries.
• CMN 670 - From Silicon Valley to Foxconn: Global Digital Capitalism: Exposes students to the multifaceted lived experiences under global digital capitalism, grounding them in the history and theory of capitalism as an uneven world system.
• CMN 675 - Civil Discourse Lab: Public Dialogue, Equity, & Authenticity: Teaches students the theoretical underpinnings of civil discourse to promote public dialogue on "should questions" by connecting research to social/civic policy and ethics.
• CMN 676 - Civil Discourse Lab: Public Deliberation and Issue Framing: Focuses on public deliberation with special emphasis on creating a students' citizen's initiative review impact statement.
• CMN 685 - Gendered Rhetorics: Explores the social, rhetorical, and communicative construction of gender through contemporary contexts.
• CMN 696W - Seminar in Media Studies: Variable topics in media research, theory, and practice, which may be repeated for different topics.
• CMN 697 - Seminar in Rhetorical Study: Variable topics in rhetorical research, theory, and practice, which may be repeated for different topics.
• CMN 698 - Seminar Interpersonal Studies: Variable topics in interpersonal research, theory, and practice, which may be repeated for different topics.
• CMN 702 - Seminar in Interpersonal Communication Theory: In-depth concentration on a particular theoretical orientation in interpersonal communication.
• CMN 703 - Seminar in Rhetorical Theory: Focused study of problems in rhetorical theory construction through examination and criticism of selected theoretical frameworks.
• CMN 719 - Surveillance and Society: Tracks the historical development of surveillance, from its origins in embodied experience and record keeping through the rise of computing, social media, and big data.
• CMN 735 - Media & Ethics: Asks how human beings can flourish in the context of increasingly complex systems of digital media and information systems, emphasizing virtue ethics.
• CMN 740 - Seminar in Communication Research and Theory: In-depth concentration on particular theoretical and methodological orientations within communication research.
• CMN 756 - Rhetorics of Display: Examines a selection of displays to acquire perspective for understanding and evaluating how they engage with people.
• CMN 762 - Organizational Communication and Society: Demonstrates how communication is key to understanding how organizations work, exploring topics such as culture, identity, structure, systems, globalization, and change.
• CMN 772 - Seminar in Media Theory: Detailed analysis of major theories related to the interaction of communication technologies and society.
• CMN 780 - Communication and Sports Coaching: Explores the processes of communication underpinning learning in settings of movement and learning.
• CMN 785 - Communication and Deliberation Across Differences: Focuses on the art of rhetoric in a civic context, engaging with the rhetorical tradition to connect communication, democracy, knowledge, power, and equity.
• CMN 788 - Opening Everyday Interaction: Examination of how everyday human social interactions begin, providing hands-on experience analyzing verbal and nonverbal social actions.
• CMN 795 - Independent Study: Advanced individual study in rhetoric, media, or interpersonal communication, with a project developed with a supervising instructor.
• CMN 796 - Comm-Entary Journal: Serving on the editorial board of a student-run communication journal, which does not count toward the major.
• CMN 799H - Honors Thesis: Written thesis based on substantial and original research under the direction of a full-time member of the communication faculty, restricted to seniors seeking honors in the major.

Faculty and Research

The Communications Department faculty at the University of New Hampshire have a strong national and international reputation for their research and publications. They are committed to providing a strong liberal arts orientation that helps students develop their abilities to think critically and solve problems. The faculty believe in the importance of teaching and have won awards for teaching excellence, with about half of the department's tenure-track faculty members recognized for their teaching. They are also very active in university, community, and professional service.