Graduate Program: Areas of Concentration
Interpersonal Communication
The interpersonal area focuses on interactions in social and personal relationships. We examine how communication functions—including emotion, health, identity management, conflict, and maintenance—in relational contexts such as families, friendships, and romantic relationships.
The Faculty
The interpersonal faculty are experts in a variety of methodological approaches (e.g., qualitative, quantitative, and experimental) to the study of interpersonal relationships. They are interested in topics such as emotional communication, aggression, stress, intimate violence, conflict, physiology, health, and the discursive construction of identity.
Graduate Coursework
Coursework in this area focuses on interpersonal and relational communication theory and research. In class, we investigate how various relational contexts affect the multiple meanings, functions, and outcomes of communicative behaviors. Through class projects and participation in outside research teams, graduate students receive training in developing and advancing interpersonal theory and/or method. The collaborations between faculty and graduate students have often resulted in publications in national and international journals.
Interpersonal Sample Plan of Study (Word)
Organizational Communication
The Organizational Communication area focuses on the various ways in which we produce, enact, and generally conduct our lives in various organizational contexts. We explore organizations at the interpersonal, cultural, and social levels, with emphasis on creating ethical, constructive communities in both for profit and non-profit settings.
The Faculty
The organizational communication faculty use a variety of methods—including rhetorical, qualitative, and quantitative—to explore organizational communication phenomena. They explore topics such as socialization processes, power in organizations, identity, identification, emotion management, and managing destructive workplace processes.
Graduate Coursework
The coursework is designed to provide both breadth and depth of knowledge about organizational communication. The classes explore the various ways in which we can define organizational communication, the ways in which organizations themselves are a product of communication. The courses also examine intimate and significant communication processes by which we are defined and define ourselves as organizational members. The research collaborations between faculty and students have resulted in numerous publications in scholarly journals.
Organizational Sample Plan of Study (Word)
Mass Communication
The mass communication component of our program focuses on theory and research related to media content, the media's influence on individuals and society, and audiences' reception of mass media. At the graduate level, mass communication courses provide students with a strong foundation in mass communication theory and research. We focus on training our graduate students, one-on-one or in small teams, to produce publishable research. Topics of recent faculty-student collaborations include prosocial effects of anti-discrimination Internet content on attitudes and beliefs, the contribution of media exposure to college students' endorsement of the hookup culture, and the darkside of fandom on the Web.
The Faculty
Our mass communication faculty examine the representations of gender, race, class, and sexuality in traditional (e.g., TV, film, and magazines) and new media (e.g., Internet and video games); and the influence of these representations on perceptions of self and others, behaviors, and culture at large. Their research has been published in top-tier communication journals and has received notable research funding.
Graduate Coursework
Coursework in mass communication is designed to cover both theory and current research, as well as to expose students to quantitative, qualitative, and critical approaches to the study of media. In class, we investigate the role of media in society, as well as the role of media in constructing knowledge, values, attitudes, and behaviors for the individual. Students have the opportunity to collaborate with faculty or peers, or to develop individual projects.
Mass Communication Sample Plan of Study (Word)
Political Communication
The Department of Communication at the University of Missouri features a national and internationally known political communication faculty, whose study of politics and communication encompasses the communicative activity of citizens, individual political figures, governmental institutions, the media, political campaigns, advocacy groups, and social movements.
The Faculty
The Department's political communication faculty and graduate students pursue research that addresses political communication topics in all contexts and levels of analysis, employing a variety of methodologies.
Graduate Coursework
Political communication coursework is designed to help students understand theory, research, and current and historical political issues. Students work both with the instructors and independently to create research in their areas of interest.
Political Sample Plan of Study (Word)
Generalist
Generalist Sample Plan of Study (Word)
|
