Courses
The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
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COM CM 909: Thesis or Project Research
Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
Course credits slated for students writing a thesis. -
COM CO 101: The World of Communication: The Human Storyteller
Undergraduate Corequisites: Students must have taken or be taking CAS WR120 or equivalent while taking COM CO101.
Introduces students to many fundamental principles of communication. Students also learn about the intertwined nature of communication professions as they explore the major fields of study in communication. Guest lectures from various industries inform students of potential future career paths. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Digital/Multimedia Expression. -
COM CO 201: Introduction to Communication Writing
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120)
The College of Communication's core undergraduate writing course. Students refresh their grammatical and stylistic skills and apply those skills to professional writing assignments. Prepares students to write with clarity, conciseness, precision, and accuracy for the communication fields. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Research and Information Literacy. (Students on the Hub cannot take WR100 as a pre-requisite.) -
COM CO 305: Photography Fundamentals
This course welcomes all students from the College of Communication as well as those throughout Boston University. In this course, students will learn traditional shooting and editing skills using a DSLR. Students can also use a smart phone and cloud-based editing to cover photo assignments. CO305 Photography Fundamentals covers: camera operation, image processing, image tagging, caption writing, and publishing. Assignments will be processed in black and white during the first half of the semester, color is introduced later in the course. We will cover the basics of file management and creating a photo portfolio. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation. -
COM CO 500: Directed Study
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COM CO 520: COM Co-Op
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COM CO 532: Copyediting Fundamentals
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (WR 120 or equivalent).
Part grammar lab and part editing workshop, Copyediting Fundamentals offers a deep dive into developing effective prose style for different areas, including reports, articles, essays, and press releases. Students get instruction in grammar, usage, and copyediting--beyond the AP Style Guide and across genres. The course provides an in-depth look at changes in usage over time and equips students with necessary skills for using various style guides or creating their own. Writers and editors across the university will gain an understanding of how closely their reputations are linked to clean copy. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing- Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
COM CO 575: COM Prof Exp
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COM CO 704: Teaching Techniques
Required for and open only to COM CO 101 graduate teaching assistants. Designed to acquaint teaching assistants with strategies for effective teaching and equip them with techniques for conducting the basic undergraduate communication course. Students increase their proficiency in leading discussion sections, appraising student progress, and handling problem situations. -
COM EM 700: Introduction to Emerging Media Studies
Drawing on scientific research and relevant news & industry examples this course will examine topics related to new media and communication technologies. The first portion of the course will explore key dimensions related to new communication technology. The latter portion will include deep dives into particular media technologies (ranging from smart phones and laptops to newer, emerging media formats such as social games, mobile virtual reality, and wearable sensors), each characterized to varying extents by these dimensions. Throughout the course we will explore relevant theoretical concepts and processes related to new media and communication technologies. Along the way we will identify patterns of media usage and, in turn, review the psychological effects and social consequences of that usage. Additionally, we will consider the larger context in which these technologies -- and the means for empirically studying their use and effects -- have developed. -
COM EM 747: Trending Insights: Social Data Analysis and Visualization
This course familiarizes students with social -scientific methods for large scale data analysis and visualization, including the application of relevant user and concept networks, time and spatial models, sentiment mapping, and comparison of matrices. In addition, the use of germane software in emerging and digital media research is developed. Most importantly, however, this course has a dual structure where students learn to not only carry our advanced analyses of large datasets, they also engage with how to visually represent with a wide-ranging skillset to scrape data, mine data, and present data in fields of specific areas of inquiry. -
COM EM 755: Measuring Media Effects
EM 755 provides training in the logic, design, and implementation of experimental research methods for measuring media effects on individual users. The course includes a practicum component, in which students employ biometric research tools in the Communication Research Center (CRC) to conduct original research on the use and effects of emerging media technologies. To this end, the course will consist of a combination of regular class meetings and laboratory activity. By the end of this workshop course, students will have a sound understanding of the underlying rationale and purpose of experimental research and hands-on experience completing data collection and analysis related to media processing and effects. -
COM EM 757: User-Producers 2.0: Developing Interactivity
The shift in medial production toward dynamic user-production is harnessed in this class. Students will evaluate and critique prevailing practices in co- creative media output as well as become proficient in developing online media with cutting edge and open source software tools. Technical aspects of this class include HTML, CSS, and Wordpress, as well as audience interfaces and analytics. -
COM EM 777: Masters Collaboratory Project
This year long course introduces students to the theories, method and conventions of applied research in communication and the social sciences. It aims to do this through reading, practical applications and in-class discussions. Students will have the opportunity to work with local organization (the "project sponsor") in the Boston area to design and implement a research project. Throughout the process, students will work closely with their peers, the sponsor and the course instructors to develop the project and to evaluate work in progress. -
COM EM 793: Psychology of Emerging Media
This course examines the psychological aspects of emerging media. Theories and empirical research from communication, psychology, and human-computer studies will be used to explore: psychological responses to new media technologies; uses and effects of technological features, such as agency, navigability, and modality, on users' thoughts, emotions, and behaviors; the nature and dynamic of interpersonal and group interaction when mediated by new media technologies; cognitive and emotional processing of new media; issues of source, self, and privacy altered by new media. -
COM EM 797: Connecting Humans: Networks, History and Social Media
This course offers a critical survey of the cultural, social, and political impacts of emerging communication technologies, as they have advanced over time to contemporarily include online, mobile and social media. Special attention will be paid to networks and their relationship to the ways individuals, groups and organizations communicate within society. Our work here situates the changing nature of networks in media from broadcast network models to social network ones. As such, it is both historically informed and theoretically inclusive. An important component of study also incorporates an immersive social network experience as part of this class, which is to say that the class becomes its own online social network and students are peer collaborators. -
COM EM 808: Upper-level Seminar
The seminar will aim to enhance the core competencies in the areas of teaching, project management and leadership, communication, and self-awareness. Further, it will aim to add new perspectives in the areas of research skills and discipline-specific knowledge. Designed to develop and refine professional skills among graduate students. This course entails reflexive consideration of teaching practices and praxis, methods of professionalization, skills for success in the academic and non- academic intellectual environments, and effective self-presentation in higher- level settings. Additionally, on an intermittent basis, researchers and speakers from a variety of backgrounds present their views about research, theory, and professional achievement. -
COM EM 831: Critical Studies, History and Philosophy of Emerging Media
This course develops a high level of sophistication for students in the emerging media studies field concerning critical studies of emerging media as well as philosophical perspectives on emerging media. It aims to do this through readings, in-class discussions and analytical writing assignments. Through group discussion and classroom lecturers and analysis, students will develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between critical approaches and philosophical and historical studies of emerging media. The merits and limitations of different methodological approaches and intellectual approaches are probed. -
COM EM 847: Time, Place & Social Data: Advanced Issues in Large Scale Analysis & Visualization
This course provides a specialized emphasis on data processing and predictive modeling through time series and panel regression modeling. In doing so, it trains students in advanced social-scientific methods for large-scale data analysis and visualization. This course also incorporates approaches that integrate the analysis and graphing of social data and corresponding networks using both time and spatial models. -
COM EM 855: Computer-Assisted Text Analysis
Given the large volume of text data available in different social media sites, computer-assisted analysis has become extremely important in the field of media and communication, be it industry or academia. This course introduces students to several advanced approaches of computer-assisted text analysis, including semantic network analysis, sentiment analysis, topic modeling and text visualization. The objective of this course is to teach students to apply these methods to test/advance/develop theories or to solve real world problems. The focus of this course is on media and communication. Students can apply the knowledge and skills acquired to any social science research that deals with text-based data.
