Graduate

Health Communication focuses on processes by which communication creates healthy sustainable societies. We embrace multiple approaches from the humanities and social sciences to enhance critical thinking on how meanings are shared in a range of health contexts, ranging from everyday interactions to larger societal discourses. Research in this cluster highlights communication issues such as but not limited to: provider-patient interactions; health campaigns; global health; community-engaged health; food security; families and health; navigating health challenges among underprivileged peoples; health disparities; politicized health; identities and disclosures; health mis/disinformation; technology, media and health; psychological and relational wellbeing; and organizing initiatives for better health. 

Graduate Course Offerings: 

Health Communication; Health, Illness, Narratives, and Performance; Communication and Identity; Applied Communication Research; Communication, Technology, and Society; Interpersonal Health Communication; Patient-Centered Communication; Communication and Bullying; Materiality and Communication; Difficult Conversations; Culture and Health; Communication and Health Disparities; Postcolonial Theory; Discourses on Death and Dying

Cluster Faculty:

Ambar Basu; Keith Berry; Marleah Dean Kruzel; Laurel Friedman; Sonia Ivancic; Patrick McElearney; Joshua Scacco; Steven Wilson

Organizational Communication provides insights into how cultural, social, and political processes shape and are shaped by complex organizational phenomena. This multiperspectival area examines communication that implicates organizations (businesses, government agencies, non-profits, educational institutions, media, local and global communities, churches), in addition to the organization of the political economy and its impact on race, class, gender and other social categories. Research in this cluster highlights the role of communication and resilience, communication as constitutive of organizations, organizational identity, organizational culture, crisis, food sovereignty, advocacy, prejudice and justice, among other topics.

Graduate Course Offerings:

Organizational Communication; Career Communication and Strategies; Resilience, Communication and Resistance; Power and Control in Organizations; Materiality and Communication.

Cluster Faculty: 

Mariaelena Bartesaghi, Patrice Buzzanell, Eric Eisenberg, Linda Hughes-Kirchubel, Sonia Ivancic, Peter Jensen, Mahuya Pal

Interpersonal and Relational Communication focuses on processes and practices by which communication creates and sustains identities and personal/professional relationships, ranging from everyday interactions to larger societal discourses. Research in this cluster highlights the role of communication as people make meaning and navigate challenging conversations with family, friends, romantic partners, coworkers, community members, and health professionals. 

Graduate Course Offerings: 

Interpersonal Communication; Communication and Identity; Discourse Analysis; Family Communication; Autoethnography; Difficult Conversations; Communication and Resilience; Communication and Bullying; Interpersonal Health Communication; Language, Mind, and Social Interaction.

Cluster Faculty: 

Mariaelena Bartesaghi, Keith Berry, Patrice Buzzanell, Laurel Friedman, Marleah Dean Kruzel, Patrick McElearney, Madison Pollino, Steven Wilson

Media, Culture, and Performance examines how meaning is created, represented, and practiced in human, mediated, and applied communication across different sociopolitical contexts. Faculty in this cluster focus on identity and representation, media content and effects, culture and communication, and cultural and aesthetic performance. This interdisciplinary cluster embraces a variety of research methodologies, including critical, qualitative, quantitative, computational, and performance approaches.

Graduate Course Offerings:

Contemporary Cultural Studies; Race and Ethnicity in Communication; Latinx and Popular Culture; Communication, Technology, and Society; Performance Theory; Listening, Sound, and Performance; Health, Narratives, and Performance; Communication Pedagogy; Communication and Identity; Political Communication; Content Analysis; Critical Methods; Computational Communication.

Cluster Faculty:

Keith Berry, Aisha Durham, Aubrey Huber, Linda Hughes-Kirchubel, Navita James, Diana Leon-Boys, Patrick McElearney, Chris McRae, Joshua Scacco