Program Overview
The Department of Communication offers the Ph.D. degree. The Ph.D. degree requires a minimum of 66 credits beyond the Bachelor’s degree plus 12 credits for the dissertation. Plans of study conforming to specific program requirements are prepared individually in consultation with faculty advisers.
Applicants to the graduate program should meet all requirements for admission to the Graduate School and should have a good undergraduate background in communication or a related field. It's common for successful applicants to also have a Master's degree; although a Master's is not required to apply.
Applicants are required to submit a writing sample of no more than 25 pages as well as 3 letters of recommendation along with the graduate school's requirements..
Our graduate program approaches communication as the primary social process through which social realities are constituted, maintained, and changed. Those varied processes and contexts constitute the core of our work, with opportunities to pursue communication theory and research in the following areas:
- Media Effects and Popular Culture
- Media, Technology, and Society
- Rhetoric and Performance Studies
- Social Interaction
Our faculty offers a wide variety of methodological expertise, some resolutely social scientific, others rooted in the humanities, including but not limited to:
- Critical Text Analysis
- Performance Studies
- Ethnography
- Survey/Experimental Designs
- Content Analysis
- Computational Methods
Our doctoral program is known for:
- R1-Level Research Productivity
- Interdisciplinary, Boundry-Spanning Scholarship: our department is represented by scholars in humanities and social science
- Social Justice Perspective that recognizes that links between theory and practice, believing that knowledge matters outside of the academy
- Comparative and International Focus with many of our faculty being born and raised outside of the U.S. context
Our graduate student body is known for:
- Being Diverse and International
- A Strong Job Placement: Based on a recent alumni survey, the majority of our Ph.D. students (70%) are employed at universities in the U.S. and abroad. Of these (60%) have secured tenure track academic appointments in the U.S. (43%) and abroad (17%), at institutions ranging from Simon Fraser, Vanderbilt, National University of Singapore, and University of Colorado, Boulder, to private collages (Emerson, Bentley, Wooster, Boston) and smaller state (Framingham, Western Washington) and private universities (Santa Clara, Sacred Heart, Mary Washington,) or community colleges (Manchester, Northern Virginia, Berkshire).
- A Global Alumni Network: our alumni can be found teaching, in research posts, and in other jobs across the United States and around the world.
Graduate students may focus their programs on different areas of the discipline depending on individual interest and circumstance. Ph.D. students are required to develop a research tool in relation to their research interests and in consultation with their guidance committees.
Courses: The department’s course offerings implement a three-level curriculum. The base of the curriculum is a three-course core consisting of a survey of concepts and theories of communication and both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. At least one additional survey course in the student’s primary area is also required. In addition, a 1-credit Proseminar is also required of all entering students.
Consistent with our understanding of graduate study, many of the most important courses are topical seminars (offered at the 600 and 700 levels), the content of which varies from semester to semester. Recent offerings include: Media Archaeology; Critical Pedagogy; Cultural Studies: Theoretical Foundation ; Media Historiography; Communication in the Public Sphere; Content Analysis; Media Literacy; Consumer Culture; Race, Media, Politics; Audience Research and Cultural Studies; Food and/as Communication; Performance Ethnography; Ethnography of the Digital; Field Research Methods in Communication; Technological Imaginaries and the Global South; Performing Survival; Networks in Digital Information Infrastructure; Fixing Social Media; Television Studies Text, Culture, Industry. For a more complete description of available courses, please consult the current semester schedule.