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Communication Matters

It’s just that simple.  It’s hard to think of any human activity that does not involve communication and communication matters now more than ever in a global, interconnected, and multicultural world.  The way that people access and use information through social media and digital technology shapes the way they engage with the world.  Communication matters.  The way people debate and dialogue about important issues such as social inequality and diversity, climate change, health care policy, education policy, and economic policy influences the way we understand these issues and the actions we take to address them.  Communication matters.  The way that people interact with their health care provider, the way that leaders and managers talk to their followers and employees, and the way that people dialogue with each other when engaging with cultural differences matters. The way we communicate has consequences.

Communication matters in our personal, professional, and civic lives.  The quality of our  personal relationships and friendships is determined by the way we communicate with each other. It’s not surprising that most surveys of workforce skills that college graduates need for the contemporary workplace place communication toward the top of the list, if not the top of the list.  Communication is critical to a healthy democracy.  With the emergence of social media and other communication technologies, the way we consume and produce messages can help and hurt our political engagement.  Communication matters in every facet of lives.

Our program is designed to help students describe the way that communication works and the outcomes it produces.  When we understand the dynamics of communication we are better able to design interventions and change those dynamics to make better relationships, organizations, and societies.  Our faculty tackle some of the most important communication issues of the day such as the impact of information policy on organizations and society, how political rhetoric influences citizen engagement, how messages can be designed using games and social media to improve health outcomes, how media literacy can be developed to enable people to engage with a complex media and technological environment, how organizations communicate with the public during crisis, how we can facilitate difficult dialogues over race, and how digital technology influences our identity.

Our undergraduate and graduate programs aim to train the next generation of communication professionals and scholars.   It’s an exciting time to be in the field of communication and we invite you take a look at what we have to offer.  Let’s talk.