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 Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • COM CM 824: Technical Writing for Communication Research
    Teaches students to develop clear and concise research proposals and write detailed research reports incorporating appropriate methodological sequences, techniques, and strategies. Teaches students to interpret the results of quantitative analyses in a layperson's terms and relate their implications to a client, as well as to analyze the standards and pricing structure of competing agencies and available subcontractors in a given market. 1st sem.
  • COM CM 831: International Communication
    Factors of international communication; cultural, economic, political, and social influences. Role of communication media in effecting social change in a wide variety of countries. 1st sem.
  • COM CM 901: Directed Studies
    Supervised reading, fieldwork, or research for student's specific needs. 2 or 4 cr.
  • COM CM 909: Thesis or Project Research
    Course credits slated for students writing a thesis.
  • COM CO 101: The World of Communication: The Human Storyteller
    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.
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • COM CO 106: Public Speaking and Social Media Communication
    We will examine construction methodologies and best practices regarding verbal and visual aspects of in-person and virtual presentations, investigate timely digital tenets of modern careers including developing your online footprint, ethical/legal guidelines, and transferring online success to offline outcomes. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Oral and/or Signed Communication.
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • COM CO 201: Introduction to Communication Writing
    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.)
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • COM CO 500: Directed Study
  • COM CO 520: COM Co-Op
  • COM CO 575: COM Prof Exp
  • 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 500: Introduction to Emerging Media
    Drawing on social scientific research and relevant industry examples this course examines topics related to emerging media and new communication technologies. From a variety of perspectives, including historical, economic, and psychological, the course examines underlying dimensions and affordances of "emerging media" and, in turn, the psychological effects and social consequences of these technologies. Applications of theory to a variety of topics and social issues will be discussed. 2nd Semester. 4 Credits.
  • COM EM 544: Social Consequences of Emerging Media
    This course examines the social impact of new media. Theories from both quantitative and qualitative research will be used to explore: The role of new media technologies on a number of social entities, including interactions, networking, identities, capital and resources; Effects of new media on civic and political participation; societal implications of the persuasive role of new media in a variety of contexts (entertainment, health, advertising, etc.)
  • COM EM 555: Measuring Media Effects: Experimental Design & Measurement
    This courses provides training in the logic, design, and implementation of experimental research methods. The course includes a practicum component, in which students employ novel laboratory research tools in the Communication Research Center to complete original empirical research on the use and effects of emerging media technologies. By the end of the course, students will have a sound understanding of the underlying rationale and purpose of experimental research and hands-on experience using cutting-edge research technologies (including biometrics such as galvanic skin response, eye- tracking, and facial expression analysis) for data collection and analysis related to media processing and effects.
  • COM EM 561: Special Topics
    Graduate Prerequisites: Consent of advisor and instructor. Supervised reading, fieldwork, or research for student's specific needs. Topics and activities are structured as needed when a regularly scheduled class in the specific subject area is unavailable.
  • COM EM 737: The Marketplace v. Regulation: Emerging Media and Communication Policy
    Social media and other forms of data creation and manipulation are posing profound challenges to traditional legislative and regulatory arrangements. Issues ranging from privacy to equal access, from spectrum allocation to market concentration and from intellectual property to secrecy have become quite contentious due to the power of digital technologies. Innovative services can collect data in ways that can have poorly understood ramifications. This course surveys the laws and regulations that apply to emerging media and probes the major policy issues in detail with a particular emphasis on the situation in the U.S.
  • 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 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 HTML5, CSS, and Java Script, as well as audience interfaces and analytics.
  • COM EM 761: Emerging Media Special Topics
    Selected issues in mobile communication and social media. This course investigates a series of emerging issues concerning the communication aspects of mobile and social media technology. Lectures by the instructor will be supplemented by guest commentaries and discussion, field trips and the presentation by students of their semester-long research projects. There will be extensive weekly reading assignments, weekly reaction papers and a term paper. The term paper is to be based on original inquiry and data collection. Among the topics covered during the semester are public participation in governmental policy via social media, the reception of new technology such as Google Glass, personal privacy effects of big data, prospects for citizen journalism, and the effects of mobile communication on social interaction. By the end of the semester, the student should have a firm grasp of selected issues concerning mobile and social media from both a policy and behavioral perspective. Enrollment is by permission of instructor. Students interested in taking this course should contact Prof. Katz via email and include a brief summary of their background and explain their interest in the topic.
  • 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.

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