Communication

This course draws primarily on attitude theories and uses the 5W model to explain and analyze the methods by which persuasive communication achieves its effects. In addition, it introduces several representative theories of persuasion (such as cognitive dissonance, the CD model, and ELM). Finally, the course covers approaches to implementing persuasive communication campaigns. Students are also required to conduct extracurricular research from both the persuader’s and the persuadee’s perspectives, and to present their findings in class.

This course examines how organizations use advertising to stay relevant and persuasive through paid media. It explores how to craft messages from a brand's attributes and unique elements, ensuring they offer clear benefits to the target audience. 

The course examines strategic brand management through the study of leading Spanish and Barcelona-based brands and industries. Students explore brand equity, positioning, identity, reputation, corporate and place branding, and integrated communications, while analyzing how businesses and institutions use culture, innovation, and strategic communication to build competitive advantage in global markets. Case studies span tourism, fashion, technology, culture, entertainment, food, banking, and other major sectors.

The course is designed to prepare students for leadership in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse workforce. Throughout the course, students are challenged to question, think, and respond thoughtfully to the issues they observe and encounter in the internship setting, and the designated city in general. Students have the opportunity to cultivate the leadership skills of problem-solving, deliberation, negotiation, teamwork, intercultural communication, and systems thinking. In addition, the virtual nature of the course, with classmates attending from different regions of the world, offers a unique opportunity for cross-cultural comparative analysis. This is a hybrid course, with both online and in-person components. Online components include instructor led webinars, video lectures, discussion forums, assignments, and readings. Face-to-face elements of the course include local events, site visits, workshops, guest speakers, and participation in a prearranged internship, where students are required to work approximately 200-240 internship hours over the 8-week term.

This course explores the theories essential to intercultural communication, deepening one's understanding of the influence of culture on perspectives, ways of thinking, behavior, and values. It also discusses the privilege of Japanese people as a majority group in Japanese society alongside concepts of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes against minorities. Last, it considers the role of educators in fostering citizenship among students in the current context of globalization. 

This course is conducted entirely in Japanese. An N1 level of Japanese language proficiency is required.

Working in cross-cultural teams, the class collaborates on a project centered on Japanese comedy. This experience fosters essential global competencies for an international society while deepening appreciation for Japanese comedic culture.

This course examines strategic public relations, including the use of effective communication to build mutual understanding and positive relationships between organizations (or individuals) and their publics. Core topics include: media relations, issues management, crisis communication, communication plans, public relations strategies and ethical practice.

This course examines communication in the business environment. There is a strong focus on the understanding the theory of communication in the business context and it's application to effective business writing at a high level, persuasive and appropriate verbal and non verbal communication, and interpersonal skills across teams and cultures.

Social media plays a major role in how people express themselves, interact with others, and construct their identities. It both reflects and shapes social interactions and norms, particularly those related to gender. In communication science, social media content represents an important research object for examining gender-related discourse. In this seminar, students learn how to conduct the six-step thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of YouTube comments in order to address gender-related research questions. They learn the full research process, from organizing and preparing the data to initial exploration and in-depth analysis. Students are introduced to qualitative data analysis software (e.g., MAXQDA) and gain hands-on experience in coding, categorization, and the systematic interpretation of the data. By the end of the seminar, students are able to conduct a thematic analysis independently to answer their own research questions.