New Courses this Semester:
CMS 367I - RISK COMMUNICATION
Roselia Mendez Murillo - roselia.mendezmurillo@austin.utexas.edu
TTH – 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM @ CMB 2.104
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
DESCRIPTION: Risk communication refers to two-way interactive “communication intended to supply laypeople with information they need to make informed, independent, judgments about risks to health, safety, and the environment” (Morgan et al., 2002, p. 4). Throughout this course, you will learn about risk assessments, risk perceptions, theories and models that aid in message design, channel options, and barriers to effective risk communication. Across all topics, you will be encouraged to consider how access to risk information, perceptions of risk, and responses to risk messages can vary depending on the audience’s race, ethnicity, immigration status, income, education, age, ability, sexual orientation, and geographical location.
CMS 367P - SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICS
Ashwin Rajadesingan - arajades@austin.utexas.edu
MWF– 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM @ CMB 2.102
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
DESCRIPTION: Why would a country’s President/Prime Minister have a LinkedIn profile? Are they really looking for their next gig? How do political campaigns on Facebook and Twitter differ? Why do online political discussions between ordinary citizens seem angrier than offline ones? In this course, we explore answers to such questions about political communication on social media drawing on communication theories around self-presentation, imagined audience, affordances and identity. More broadly, the course will provide a necessarily incomplete view of how politicians, activists and ordinary citizens engage with politics on social media in the 21st century.
Spotlighted Courses:
CMS 352D - THE DARK SIDE OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Craig Scott - craig.scott@austin.utexas.edu
TTH – 3:30 – 5:00 PM @ DMC 3.206
Flags: Independent Inquiry
Minors: N/A
DESCRIPTION: This course examines some of the problematic aspects of organizations we don’t always pay as much attention to as we should. The first half of the semester is focused on key organizational processes that often operate in the shadows through a communication-based approach (such as bullying, harassment, workplace violence, stress, wrongdoing, surveillance, and other ethical problems). The second half of class examines a variety of dark and otherwise hidden organizations in our society that communicatively conceal themselves and/or their members from key audiences. These include secret societies, anonymous support groups, cults, hacktivist organizations, crime rings, terrorist cells, special military units, aspects of the informal economy, and more. Class assignments for this independent inquiry course focus on creating practical and informative communication deliverables.
CMS 356T - Organizational Transparency
Shiv Ganesh - shiv.ganesh@austin.utexas.edu
T – 3:30 – 5:00 PM @ CMA 3.214
Flags: Ethics
Minors: N/A
DESCRIPTION: This course will introduce students to the ethical complexities involved in transparent organizational communication, addressing a range of questions and issues, including: is transparency always ethical? Do organizations now have a choice to not be transparent? How is transparency related to corporate and state power? How is it related to the relentless visibility afforded by the digital age? How is transparency caught up in ethical issues surrounding surveillance, privacy and secrecy? What forms of ethical practice can transparency take? Students will address these questions in two parts. In the first part of the course, they will be introduced to fundamental dynamics of transparency, including how it operates as a form of ethical communication, its relationship with disclosure, trust, and surveillance. Next, students will analyze transparency in a range of contexts, including corporate performance, supply chains, environmental reporting networks, and activism and collective action. Throughout, we will focus considerably on environmental issues, but will also take into account other key ethical issues in transparency. The course carries an applied ethics flag.
CMS 362E - Environmental Communication
Stacey Sowards - stacey.sowards@austin.utexas.edu
W – 1:00 – 2:00 PM @ DMC 4.212
MF – 1:00 – 2:00 PM @ Asynchronous
Flags: Writing
Minors: Leadership in Global Sustainability ('22-'24)
DESCRIPTION: This course is designed to explore various environmental theories as they relate to communication contexts. We will examine how communication plays a role in environmental issues such as journalism and news reporting, sustainability, consumerism, politics, environmental organizations, and tourism. We will also examine how environmental theories and communication contexts play out in local, national, and international debates and contexts, particularly as related to race, ethnicity, social justice, and globalization. This course is also designed to connect theories to environmental experiences in the world, through self and practical observations as well as intersections of race, gender, sexuality, ability, and class.
All Undergraduate Courses:
Lower Division:
CMS 306M - Professional Communication Skills
Instructor TBA
DESCRIPTION: The major aims of this course are to make you a more effective, ethical, and professional communicator, analytical thinker, and critical listener. Throughout the semester, you will study the theories and principles of effective communication and practice applying these principles through individual and team presentations. By the end of the semester, you should be able to plan and prepare professional meetings and presentations; deliver a well-organized speech; analyze and adapt to various audiences; and adjust to different speaking situations, purposes, and contexts.
Various Sections, Hybrid & Web-Based options available
Flags: Ethics
Minors:
- Communicating for Development & Philanthropy (REQUIRED)
- Professional Sales & Business Development (REQUIRED FOR NON-BUSINESS MAJORS)
- Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 307K - Internship
Instructor Approval Required
CMS 210 - Forensics Worshop
Randy Cox - mrcox@austin.utexas.edu
Brendon Bankey - brendon.bankey@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This class is a workshop course dedicated to the proficiency of the student in intercollegiate competitive forensic events. This course is directly associated with the nationally ranked traveling Forensics Team, and as such, admission into the course is through an audition process.
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 310K - Team-Based Communication
DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this course is to provide an experiential understanding how individuals communicate in teams, how teams are created and defined through communication, and how teams communicate with other teams across organizations. Understanding team communication is crucial to understanding organizational communication and will strengthen future teamwork experiences.
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 313M - Organizational Communication
DESCRIPTION: This class focuses on learning through experience. You will apply organizational communication research and theory to assess and generate insight about a real organization. To help you prepare, this class includes vodcast-style lectures, readings, self-directed activities, online group discussion, and exams.
Flags: None
Minor: Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 314L - Language, Communication, & Culture
DESCRIPTION: In our daily lives, we use different modes of communication depending on whether we are participating in classroom discussion, talking with our parents or boss, hanging out with our friends, or visiting a different country. However, rarely do we have the opportunity to consciously reflect upon our communicative behaviors. In this class we will unpack some of the ways culture and society influence our communication, as well as how our communication affects the culture and the society in which we live. Becoming aware of the effect that our words, shared meanings, and contexts have on how we express ourselves can be the difference between positive and negative communicative experiences.
Flags: Writing
Minor: Global Communication (Elective)
CMS 315M - Interpersonal Communication Theory
John Daly - daly@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: Relationships are all about communication. You build them, maintain them, and end them through communication. In this class, you’ll learn lots of interesting things about communication and relationships that you can use every day. We discuss topics like how to make sure people understand and remember what you say, meet people and develop relationships with them, make yourself more likeable and credible, build and maintain friendships, be a better story-teller, get others to change their minds and behaviors, argue effectively, use communication techniques that will make you happier, and handle challenges such as shyness and loneliness, unfair fighting, rumors and gossip, long distance relationships, jealousy, cheating, breaking up, and talking to people about death and dying.
Flags: None
Minor: Science Communication (elective)
CMS 316L - Interviewing Principles & Practices
DESCRIPTION: The art of asking the right questions and being a good listener and how these influence your personal and professional effectiveness is our central focus. For many careers (e.g., law, medicine, law enforcement, business, journalism), questioning and listening skills are crucial every day. Successfully interviewing for a job requires strong interviewing skills. This course teaches you how to prepare and conduct informational, probing, persuasive, and employment interviews. Course projects emphasize the practical application of interviewing skills in the professional world. You will build your network by interviewing professionals in a field of interest to you; participate in an investigative probing interview; and research a career that interests you, construct a resume and cover letter, and practice answering and asking questions in mock employment interviews. This course offers you the unique combination of interviewing principles, real-world experience, and learning outside the classroom.
Flags: None
Minor: Science Communication
CMS 317C - Speech in American Culture
DESCRIPTION: This course is a selective history of how speechmaking and public discourse has shaped the politics and culture of the United States. With a specific focus on the rhetorical, material, and ideological dimensions of American discourse, this course focuses on how the country’s founding and enduring ideals have been deployed, challenged, appropriated, and subverted throughout its history. With an emphasis on public oratory from a range of rhetorical frameworks, we will examine specific American cultural artifacts through the lenses of: presidential oratory; American myth and metaphor; the critical discourses of the Black prophetic tradition; the flexibility of American populism; neoliberalism; America’s distinct yet lesser-known social movement traditions and uprisings; American media, narrative, popular culture, and more. Overall, this course is dedicated to fostering students’ capacities for critical engagement with American public communication as empowered democratic citizens.
Flags: Writing
Minors: N/A
Upper Division
CMS 321D - Communication for Development & Philanthropy
Jennifer Jones Barbour - jonesbarbour@utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: In the US, there are over a million not for profit organizations. These organizations generate hundreds of billions of dollars through donations and volunteers. In this course, we will pay close attention to the ways that nonprofit organizations communicate with their many audiences (and identify those audiences) in order to identify successful strategies for communicating for development and philanthropy. Additionally, we will discuss the history and development of philanthropic organizations in American society and learn about the habits and approaches of successful leaders and entrepreneurs in the not for profit sector.
Flags: Writing
Minors: Communicating for Development & Philanthropy (REQUIRED)
CMS 323R Rhetoric: East and West
Scott Stroud - sstroud@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course will examine the various ways that cultures from around the world have used communication and argument. How do cultures use logic, stories, myth, and the spoken word to make their points? How do cultures differ in their habits of communication? Are there any similarities across different cultures in how they communicate? To sharpen the focus of this course, we will mainly confine ourselves to some very important cultures from western and non-western areas. To further enhance the depth of this course, we will confine ourselves to these cultures during their ancient and classical phases. We begin by reflecting on the sort of method one can utilize in studying the rhetorical practices of various cultures. Do our current cultural values affect how we see and evaluate the rhetorical practices of other cultures? The majority of this course will involve an exploration of the various ways of communicating and arguing in cultures such as Greece, India, China, Japan, Egypt, Rome, and in Native American culture. We will cover both original readings from these cultures, as well as secondary analyses of their rhetorical practices. We will focus on questions such as: How do these different cultures convey important messages? How do they use stories, examples, and logical arguments to do so? How do they differ in what they want to accomplish with their practices of communication? What is valued enough to be translated into important communication practices. We will take as a topic of particular concern that of moral cultivation—and how communication practices plays into the project of creating better people. While exploring the details of various cultural rhetorics, we will engage issues as varied as the Zen Buddhist use of kōans in training for enlightenment, logical argument by Socrates in ancient Greece, the use of parables by Jesus and other figures from the middle east, Roman views on the ideal orator, Egyptian views of how written texts can influence the dead individual’s fate in the afterlife, and how ancient Indian culture used stories to convey its deepest moral truths. We will also see differences among cultures. For instance, both Roman Stoics and Indian philosophers had similar ideas on moral duty and how to manage our emotions, but they found very different ways to argue for these positions. Students will be particularly sensitive to areas of divergence or convergence, and will have the opportunity to write a research paper on a topic of their own choosing in intercultural rhetoric.
Flags: Global Cultures, Writing, Ethics
Minor: Global Communication (Elective)
CMS 330 - Interpersonal Health Communication
Erin Donovan - erindonovan@utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: CMS 330 is designed to give you an overview of phenomena within the scope of interpersonal health communication. You will become familiar with fundamental communication processes that are involved in managing physical and mental health. Ideally, you will develop an awareness of how communication among friends, family members, and health professionals influences people’s well‐being, and how, in turn, health and illness shape communication and relationship dynamics. You will demonstrate your understanding of effective interpersonal health communication by skillfully analyzing communication events as part of class discussions, through exams, and in your written work. Topics covered will include the patient experience, managing sensitive health information, social support and coping, and health professional communication.
Flags: Writing, Independent Inquiry
Minor: Health Communication (Elective)
CMS 332D - Digital Ethics
Scott Stroud - sstroud@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course explores the ethical issues inherent in our use of digital and online media. We will engage a range of current issues and topics through the application of important moral theories, attending to how new technologies often challenge what we know about morality, virtue, and the good life. We will use the analysis of case studies to encourage reflection and discussion over contemporary issues in digital ethics. Topics to be covered include the ethics of hacking, Anonymous operations, online privacy, blogging ethics, online shaming and activism, revenge pornography, online free speech, trolling, social media and virtue, WikiLeaks and issues in online journalism, as well as other contemporary topics dealing with digital media.
Flags: Ethics, Writing
Minors: N/A
CMS 332K - Theories of Persuasion
Brendon Bankey - brendon.bankey@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: Persuasion is the process by which we change or reinforce the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of others. Persuasion is intrinsically a communication process and typically a strategic one. In this course, we will survey research and theory on persuasion in the social sciences (communication studies, economics, advertising, marketing, management, psychology, sociology) and consider its application in various communicative contexts. We will also investigate how strategies of persuasion that have traditionally been used in interpersonal and mass communication (TV, radio, newspapers, etc.) are now employed in computer software and media (digital, social, etc.) technologies.
Flags: None
Minors:
- Communicating for Development and Philanthropy (Elective)
- Health Communication (Elective)
- Professional Sales & Business Development (1 of 4 options)
- Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 335 - Strategic Sales and Event Planning
Randy Cox - mrcox@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course is designed as a theoretical and practical instructional setting for the preparation of large scale sales events and conferences. This course is an academic service learning course, and includes the integration of basic & advanced communication skills and the application of planning techniques for non-profits events/functions. You will research the client, investigate political venues, conduct phone based information interviews, and give individual and/or group sales presentations and event overviews tailored to chosen events. Additionally, students will be involved in the planning and execution of actual campus or communisty based non-profit events and will compare their "real-world" experiences to class objectives and content. As a result, attendance at some out-of-class scheduled events will be a requirement of the course.
Flags: None
Minor: Professional Sales & Business Development (1 of 4 options)
CMS 337 - Building Sales Relationships
Gerald Nemeroff - gerald.nemeroff@mccombs.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: Whether you’re interested in sales, leadership, marketing, customer service, or entrepreneurship, this course provides a solid foundation in developing long-term, trusting client relationships. Through readings and discussions, we’ll thoroughly explore and critique the consultative business-to-business sales process that covers a series of steps: prospecting, assessing client needs, handling objections, closing, presenting, and following-up. We won’t forget technologies—e.g., email, telephone, social media, the Web, PowerPoint, CRM, AI, and mobile technologies; they play an integral role in client communication. You’ll apply the course content by researching a product or service, using the relationship-sales process, and selling to a mock client. We use role plays and simulated sales teams as an integral part of learning. This course carries the Ethics flag and is designed to equip you with skills that are necessary for making ethical decisions in your adult and professional life.
Flags: Ethics
Minors:
- Communicating for Development and Philanthropy (1 of 3 options)
- Professional Sales & Business Development (1 of 2 options)
- Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 338 - Leadership Stories
Joe Cutbirth - jcutbirth@utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course is designed to help you develop a conceptual, practical, and personal understanding of leadership. We draw on public narratives and behavioral ethics to explore how media shape and present notions of leadership and the implications that process has for our society. We use the lived experience of a traditionally marginalized group to examine how leadership plays out in all our daily lives, and you engage a process of ethical reflection as your write your own leadership story.
Flags: Cultural Diversity, Ethics
Minors:
- Communicating Social Issues (Elective *2022-2024 catalog)
- Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 339K - Working Virtually - WB
Dina Ramgolam - dina.ramgolam@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: No longer is it a given that when we work for an organization that we share the same physical work space as our co-workers and managers. Remote work arrangements are becoming an everyday reality in the contemporary workplace. This class offers an opportunity to think critically about what it means to work at a distance and utilize valuable tools to work successfully in such environments.
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 340K - Communication & Social Change
Joel Rollins - jd.rollins@utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This class will examine the complex process of social change through exploring the connection between social change agents and communication. The central question we will interrogate here is this: What role does communication play in social change? Attendant to this are three other questions: (1) What are the complexities facing underrepresented cultural groups in the US as they advocate for social change? (2) What ethical issues confront social change agents as they attempt to move people to collective action? (3) Given a rhetorical situation, why do social change actors or detractors choose one pathway over another? Here we will examine both theories of social change and social movements, as well as case studies of advocacy advertising, civic advocacy, public relations campaigns, and, of course, social movements. Specifically, we will focus on rhetoric, motives, and ethics. Rhetoric pertains to the messages produced by participants engaged in the process of social change. The account here emphasizes both the crucial importance of language as it is actually used in the form of discourses that express relations of power and bodies of knowledge as well as the tactics and strategies used to foment and resist social change. Significant ethical questions are embedded within these symbolic practices--questions that swirl around and cut beneath what we have come to know as civic, public, or community activism. Why is studying communication and social change important? All social movements begin with language. For a view that gives one pause: The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words.
Flags: Cultural Diversity, Ethics
Minors:
- Communicating for Development and Philanthropy (Elective)
- Communication & Social Change (Elective)
- Communicating Social Issues (Elective *2022-2024 catalog)
- Leadership in Global Sustainability (Elective *2022-2024 catalog)
CMS 341 - Digital Communications - WB
Dina Ramgolam - dina.ramgolam@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: How do digital technologies shape our communicative behaviors and experiences? Or, is the question: how do we shape the use of digital technologies? The goal of this course is explore the challenges and opportunities brought about when communicating in this ever- evolving digital world. We will consider to what degree computer-mediated communication helps or hinders us in accomplishing our goals as individuals, friends, romantic partners, workers, and citizens.
Flags: None
Minor: Health Communication (Elective)
CMS 342C - Communication & Civic Participation
Sharon Jarvis - sjarvis@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: The legitimacy of a democracy is often measured by the participation of its citizenry. Many political researchers have worried about youth participation since the 1970s. As the nonpartisan Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement writes, young people have been very politically active this past year. Our goal in this class is to study these patterns and think about the role(s) younger Americans can play in our democracy. Whether you are Republican, Democratic, fiercely Independent, completely non-partisan, or apathetic is your business rather than ours. There is no partisan or ideological line to follow in this course. No student will ever be penalized for respectfully disagreeing with the readings or class discussion. Students from a variety of stances have excelled in this class in the past. We are very happy you are with us this semester.
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 342K - Political Communication
Sharon Jarvis - sjarvis@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: Welcome to Political Communication, a course that examines the practice and theory of political communication in the United States. A democracy has always depended on open and direct communication between its citizens and those who govern them. In the United States, this has been true since colonial times. But with the advent of mass and social technologies, the range, depth, and importance of communication practices have changed in dramatic ways. Today, the White House has its own press office, Web site, email address, and Twitter account. Entire new specializations have developed in the world of politics—spin experts, investigative reporters, media handlers, and lobbyists—all of these persons now crowd on top of one another in Washington D.C. and in Austin, Texas. In this class, we will study these phenomena, these people. This is a “citizen’s course” that will challenge us to rethink our views of politics. Whether you are Republican, Democrat, fiercely Independent, or completely non-partisan; liberal, conservative, or apathetic is your business rather than ours. There is no partisan or ideological line to follow in this course, and no student will ever be penalized for respectfully disagreeing with the readings or class discussion. Our primary goal in this class is to ask and examine whether or not democracy is made better or worse, helped or harmed, by contemporary communication practices and technologies.
Flags: Writing, Ethics
Minors:
- Communicating for Development and Philanthropy (Elective)
- Communication & Social Change (Elective)
- Communicating Social Issues (Elective *2022-2024 catalog)
- Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 344K - Lying and Deception
Kyle Kearns
DESCRIPTION: This class will examine the complex process of social change through exploring the connection between social change agents and communication. The central question we will interrogate here is this: What role does communication play in social change? Attendant to this are two other questions: (1) What are the complexities facing underrepresented cultural groups in the US as they advocate for social change? (2) What ethical issues confront social change agents as they attempt to move people to collective action? Here we will examine both theories of social change as well as case studies of advocacy advertising, civic advocacy, public relations campaigns, political campaigns, and social movements. Specifically, we will focus on rhetoric, motives, and ethics. Rhetoric pertains to the messages produced by participants engaged in the process of social change. The account here emphasizes both the crucial importance of language as it is actually used in the form of discourses that express relations of power and bodies of knowledge as well as the tactics and strategies used to foment and resist social change. Significant ethical questions are embedded within these symbolic practices; questions that swirl around and cut beneath what we have come to know as civic, public, or community activism.
Flags: Ethics
Minors:
- Communicating Social Issues (Elective *2022-2024 catalog)
- Health Communication (Elective)
- Professional Sales & Business Development (Elective)
- Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 345P - Communication & Public Opinion
Natalie Stroud - tstroud@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: We often hear about public opinion, but what is it? Is it what public opinion polls measure? Are we all members of the public or just some of us? Are the media able to influence public opinion? What role does public opinion play in politics? In this course, we will investigate what public opinion is and how it is measured. We will explore how public opinion changes and how the media affect public opinion. Further, we will examine whether we are influenced by our perceptions of public opinion. If we hold a minority viewpoint, will we behave differently than if we hold a majority viewpoint? We also will consider normative implications – what should the role of public opinion be in a democracy?
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 346 - Using Communication Technology at Work
Samantha Shorey - sshorey@utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: How do people use communication technologies in the contemporary workplace: email, instant messaging, smart phones, social media, and video conferencing? In this course, we will explore the complicated relationship between organizations, employees, and their devices. We will engage with scholarly theories, empirical research and practical case studies to examine workplace technologies—asking questions about their capacity for information delivery, connection, productivity, self-expression, and control. Throughout the quarter you will perform a series of independent inquiries that use scholarly and popular-press literature as a lens to examine your own experiences. You will build a skill set for assessing the potential benefits or challenges of technology in any professional environment.
Flags: Independent Inquiry
Minors: N/A
CMS 347S - Communicating with Stuff - WB
Katie Bradford - katie.bradford@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This is a course about how we use material objects as a means of communication, particularly in the public realm. As we are engaged in upper-level, web-based, asynchronous, and mostly independent student work, this course is best suited for students who are organized and self-motivated. In the first half of the course, you read books, participate in a class discussion board, and engage with videos and instructor-recorded slideshows to learn theories and concepts about how people communicate with stuff. Then in the second part of the course, you apply the theories and concepts learned to your own original, independent research project. This project involves analyzing a category or example of “communicating with stuff” that interests you. CMS 347S carries the independent inquiry flag, which means the course teaches you to independently investigate and develop your ideas through a step-bystep process of inquiry, including topic selection, resource selection, resource analysis, and outlining. You also develop peer-review skills and participate in the sharing of ideas with others. Through this process, you ultimately create a project in which you present your independent research and analysis.
Flags: Independent Inquiry
Minors: N/A
CMS 348 - Communication Research Methods
Nik Palomares - nik@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course is about the various tools and approaches (i.e., methods) quantitative scholars use to conduct social scientific research in communication. We review several meaningful details regarding these research methods including the circumstances when you would want to use some tools over other tools. Specifically, we cover: why research methods are important, what science is, the role theory plays in conducting research, the ethical guidelines researchers must follow, the steps to conduct social scientific research, how to conceptualize variable in research, how to measure (i.e., operationalize) variables, how to acquire (sampling) participants for research, and more. We will also cover three major methods for social science research in communication—experimentation, survey research, and (unobtrusive) content analyses— including the pros and cons for each of these three general methods of inquiry; though we will focus on experimentation in the application of course material for validity reasons. We will do this along the way via working on at least two collect data efforts for legit experimental studies on the topics of cyberbullying and misinformation; that is, we will all design and collect data as a class for two experiments. These bona fide research projects will be led by me and the TA with each of you contributing as legit collaborators (and even potential coauthors in a publication in a communication journal depending on how things progress). More on this later, but for now, please know that the research experiments will give you the opportunity to put into practice the tools and approaches about which you are learning in bona fide social science on meaningful communication topics. Learning methods by using methods is the best practice; thus, that is what we shall be doing all in the span of the 15 weeks semester. Based on your involvement in one of the two experiments, you will write a sole-authored term paper wherein you justify, describe, and critique your specific part of the study and its method (more on this later). Overall, the course gives a general, solid foundation to empirical quantitative research methods by engaging in your own research study to answer questions that interest you. And you might even end up with a publication; that’s just facts or on gawd or something slangy that will let ya know I am serious.
Flags: Quantitative Reasoning
Minors: N/A
CMS 353C - Communication for Innovation
Jeffrey Treem
DESCRIPTION: This course examines the critical role that communication and communicative processes play in developing innovative ideas, products, and ways of approaching problems. Drawing on a variety of behavioral theories and empirical research, students will develop a better understanding of the challenges associated with facilitating innovation in organizations and learn strategies for improving work effectiveness. Classes will focus on critical thinking, problem solving, and application, and students will actively participate in case studies and group activities designed to simulate a variety of organizational contexts. Topics covered include: motivation, decision making, organizational culture, knowledge sharing, and idea generation.
Flags: None
Minors:
- Entrepreneurship (Elective)
- Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 354 - Conflict Resolution
Lawrence Schooler - larry.schooler@austin.utexas.edu
Katie Bradford - katie.bradford@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course helps students learn to systematically analyze conflict in communication. Through readings, written reflections, analysis of conflicts, and practice with and evaluation of communication behaviors thought to be effective in conflict talk, we examine the effects of communication on conflict, and of conflict on communication. An understanding of conflict and how to resolve it, when applied, can influence one’s personal and professional effectiveness; therefore, this course offers students the opportunity to assess and improve their own communication skills.
Flags: Writing, Independent Inquiry, Ethics
Minors:
- Communication & Social Change (Elective)
- Communicating Social Issues (Elective *2022-2024 catalog)
CMS 355K - Intercultural Communication
Jürgen Streeck - jstreeck@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: In this course, you will:
• develop a profound, well informed understanding of the elusive thing we call ‘culture’ and of ways in which culture has been conceptualized in the humanities and social sciences (especially anthropology);
• gain insight into the relationships between language and culture;
• learn about ways in which culture impacts how people within a given society communicate with one another through language and the body;
• become able to distinguish between communication problems that are due to cultural and linguistic differences and those that are the consequences of stereotypes, prejudice, ethnocentrism, and racism;
• be given methods to recognize and transcend biased thinking and thinking in stereotypes within yourself;
• know about, and know how to practice, ‘best practices’ for preventing and repairing misunderstandings in intercultural encounters.
Flags: Global Cultures
Minor: Global Communication (Elective)
CMS 356C - Collective Action
Shiv Ganesh - shiv.ganesh@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: Collective action is a fundamental part of our social behavior and refers to any process whereby groups of people attempt to make decisions and act towards a common good. Collective action covers a vast field and include both collaborative and contentious forms of social action. Two interrelated factors have irrevocably changed how we view collective action: globalization and digitization. In this class, students will obtain insight into how globalization and technology have impacted how we organize and communicate to achieve better collective outcomes about the public good, using major environmental, social and economic issues as its ground. It will review a range of perspectives on collective action, and examine communicative elements of collective action in a variety of global contexts, focusing on India and Aotearoa New Zealand as non-US contexts in the last portion of the course.
Flags: Global Cultures
Minors: N/A
CMS 358 - Communication and Personal Relationships
René Dailey - rdailey@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course is designed to examine communication in intimate relationships such as friendships, dating relationships, and marital relationships. The general goals of the course are to help students become familiar with the topics and theories related to communication over the course of these intimate relationships from the beginning stages to relational dissolution. Specifically, this course addresses the communication involved in: attraction, intimacy, relational transgressions, relational maintenance and repair, conflict, and social support. This course also carries the Independent Inquiry Flag. Independent Inquiry courses are designed to engage you in the process of inquiry over the course of a semester, providing you with the opportunity for independent investigation of a question, problem, or project related to your major. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from the independent investigation and presentation of your own work.
Flags: Independent Inquiry
Minor: Health Communication (Elective)
CMS 358C - Identity in Relationships
Madeleine Holland
DESCRIPTION: Every individual brings a complex set of identities with them into their social lives. “Who we are” is influenced by the unique combination of our gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, education, income, ability, and much more. This course will examine the influence of these identities and many more as they relate to our relationships with our friends, families, partners, and selves. This course is a survey course, meaning we will cover a broad range of topics, with the opportunity to engage with each of them in more depth during class and through course assignments. Through research, videos, activities, and class discussions, you will gain knowledge of the major theories in interpersonal communication that relate to identity as well as current issues related to identity.
Flags: Cultural Diversity
Minor: Communicating Social Issues (Elective *2022-2024 catalog)
CMS 364K - Gender & Communication
Elin Hartelius - j.hartelius@austin.utexas.edu
Stacey Sowards - stacey.sowards@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this course is to understand and discuss the relationship between gender and communication as well as intersectional aspects related to gender (race, ethnicity, language, sexuality, class standing, ability). This course examines the assumptions of traditional communication practices and the perspectives of feminist thinkers and scholars who have written extensively about communication and language. This course is also designed to connect theories to gendered experiences in the world, through self and practical observations as well as intersections of race, gender, sexuality, ability, and class.
Flags: Cultural Diversity, Writing
Minor: Communicating Social Issues (Elective List *2022-2024 catalog)
CMS 366C - Celebrity Culture
Joshua Gunn - josh_gunn@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course traces the increasingly central importance of fame and celebrity over the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Beginning with the lyceum movement in the nineteenth century, students will investigate the infrastructure of celebrity in relation to education, entertainment, and politics. Students will learn about the star system of early Hollywood and emerging norms of publicity (e.g., radio and television) in order to better understand how celebrity has evolved vis-à-vis communication technologies. The course is also designed to understand better the formation of publics and counterpublics through the example of celebrity. Figures of interest will include stage stars and promoters such as Mae West and P.T. Barnum; film figures past and present such as Rudy Valentino and Tom Cruise; music celebrities such as Beyoncé and Lizzo; cultural celebrities such Jenna Marie Ortega; and the emergent “political celebrity” of figures such as Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is fundamentally a theoretical course designed to help students think more critically about the intersection of entertainment and civic engagement in our time.
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 366R - Religious Communication and Paranormalism
Joshua Gunn - josh_gunn@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: “The supernatural is by definition,” wrote Kenneth Burke, “the realm of the ‘ineffable.’ And language by definition is not suited to the expression of the ‘ineffable’” (The Rhetoric of Religion; Berkeley: U of CA Press, 1972, p. 15). The consequence of this problem is a kind of stuttering that Josh calls the “rhetoric of religion,” the attempt to talk about something that cannot be talked about. This course begins with the assumption that all religious discourse, from the most commonplace to the most bizarre, is based on an ambivalence that might be expressed this way: “The truth is beyond my ability to symbolize it, but let me try anyway.” In this course we will explore both secular and religious occurrences of this kind of ambivalence, the ways in which it is used instrumentally, and the ways in which it uses us!
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 370K - Internships in Communication Studies - WB
Keri Stephens - keristephens@austin.utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: This web-based internship course is ideal for you if you’re ready to apply what you’ve learned in UTexas courses to a hands-on work experience. As the instructor, I’m here to be a resource; I’ve taught this course for 14 years and I spent a decade in industry prior to my academic experience. Students in this class are at vastly different places in their career development, and my objective is to allow you to customize your learning experience to achieve your goals. You will have options for each assignment because my goal is to help you get the most from this course. You’ll also write two brief reflection papers to both update me on your internship and reflect on your experiences, and one brief article review. Finally, your supervisor will evaluate your performance and I’ll teach you how to be actively engaged in that process starting with negotiating your contract. Along the way, I’ll provide many optional resources to help you turn this class into a life-long learning experience. I suggest you keep in close contact with Career Services because they offer many services that are very complementary to this class https://moody.utexas.edu/careercenter
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 372D - Politics of National Memory - DC
Craig Scott - craig.scott@austin.utexas.edu
Flags: None
Minors: N/A
CMS 372K - Advanced Organizational Communication
Joshua Barbour - barbourjosh@utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: Organizations influence all aspects of society (e.g., neighborhoods, family, work, governance, entertainment, healthcare). By offering an understanding how organizations function, this course aims to help us better navigate our civic, familial, and personal duties and prepare us to help manage the organizing in which we will find ourselves. We will discover patterns in organizing that can be constructive/destructive, effective/ineffective, or just/unjust. We will also practice new ways of relating and develop research-based recommendations for improved communication practice. Topics include the history, problems, and promise of the corporate form; organizational socialization; organizational culture participative management; self-managing teams; and organizational communication design.
Flags: Independent Inquiry, Writing
Minor: Science Communication (Elective)
CMS 372T - Time Matters
Dawna Ballard - diballard@utexas.edu
DESCRIPTION: The pace of life in contemporary (post)industrialized society brings to fore the centrality of time to our existence as social and communicative beings. In this course, we will explore a range of “timely” issues emanating from societal shifts we have witnessed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These include increasing “work-life” tensions, shrinking vacation time, information overload and distraction, multitasking, anytime/anywhere communication, chronic sleep deprivation, and a host of other timerelated issues that shape and are shaped by our communication behaviors. To provide more insight into these and other contemporary challenges—which constitute an area of scholarship called chronemics—we will consider the human experience of time across diverse social, cultural, and historical contexts. Drawing from positive communication scholarship, we will also consider ways to improve our own quality of life through our experience of time including mindfulness practices. This course carries the Global Cultures flag. Global Cultures courses are designed to increase your familiarity with cultural groups outside the United States. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from assignments covering the practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one non-U.S. cultural group, past or present.
Flags: Global Cultures
Minors: Health Communication (Elective List)
In-Depth Course Info Coming Soon!
Others Courses:
CMS 377K - Faculty-Led Research
CMS 178K, 278K, & 378K - Student-Led Research
*Note: CMS 378K carries an Indepdent Inquiry Flag, not 178K nor 278K