Communication

This course considers how scientists, journalists, and film makers communicate about climate change; what measures are used by activists, social media users, and "green influencers" to convey urgency and persuade others to engage; and how the challenges and solutions of the climate crisis can be visualized using stories, short videos, memes, news, infographics, and other media. It introduces people whose job it is to communicate about climate change and discuss issues such as trust, greenwashing, attention, engagement, mobilization, urgency, and apathy. The course is built on active participation: students collect and analyze a variety of climate change communication and team up with others to create a media product as part of their exam.

This course examines negotiation theory and practice, equipping students with the tools to effectively negotiate in diverse situations. Through an experiential learning approach, students will engage with negotiation strategies across a broad range of themes, including conflict resolution, salary negotiation, cross-cultural negotiations, and the psychological aspects of persuasion. 

This course offers a study of strategies and tools for drafting and presenting any type of text or oral speech in the academic environment.

In this course, students are introduced to the main ways in which the rise of digital cultures have disrupted existing political forms and structures. Students focus initially on identifying different understandings of politics prior to the rise of digital cultures and then explore the ways these have been changed. Part of this change is the increasing advancement of digital technologies and rise of platforms, leading to new shapes of political communication and the mediation of politics. In this course, digital politics is examined through some of its key political manifestations: for example, through changes in election campaigns globally, including in the Global South, through piracy and the Pirate Party; online censorship in the UK, China, and other parts of the world; privacy and ownership in Facebook and other social media platforms.

This course examines language and politeness (and by extension also language and impoliteness). The first part of the course will provide a critical overview of major approaches to linguistic (im)politeness, including early classic politeness and impoliteness theories and more recent developments in the field and look at how (im)politeness is defined, theorized and analyzed differently by different approaches. The second part of the course will turn to topics in relation to linguistic (im)politeness such as (im)politeness and culture as well as (im)politeness in (social) media communication. Examples will be drawn from a wide range of sources such as everyday conversations, political communication and online communication.

The human voice is a highly flexible tool for communication with others. The course familiarizes students with the main concepts underpinning the psychological processing of the human voice, and to introduce them to research on the perception and expression of speech, emotions, and identity. The content covered ranges from basic articulatory and acoustic properties of verbal and nonverbal vocal behavior (e.g. speech, laughter), to social and cognitive aspects of voice processing (e.g. identity recognition, evaluation of personality traits), and the neural underpinnings of human voice processing.

This course enables students to work strategically with internal communication in organizations. The purpose is threefold: to understand, explain, and critically reflect on key concepts, theories, and models relevant to the internal communication in organizations; use these to critically analyze, discuss, and assess examples of internal communication in organizations in different situations and under the influence of different contexts; and plan, prepare, and evaluate internal organizational communication material. The course covers key aspects of strategic internal communication in organizations and introduces key concepts, theories, and models within the field of internal communication, including knowledge of opinion formation as a phenomenon, organizational structures, the role and function of internal communication in an integrated strategic perspective, the interaction between communication and organization, and communication between management and employees. The course also deals with the planning and preparation of different types of strategic internal communication in relevant internal communication channels and media such as employee magazines, newsletters, intranet, and internal social media. The course is relevant for students who wish to work with internal communication in a strategic perspective, particularly focusing on managers and employees as active opinion makers of internal communication in relation to specific organizational situations and challenges.

This course introduces students to a wide range of texts (literary, visual, and academic), concepts, ideas, theories, and practices, both historical and contemporary, and the skills they need to analyze them. The course is divided into two 5-week blocks, devoted respectively to reading literary texts, visual cultures, cultural theory and politics, and linguistics. 

This course provides a holistic understanding of the global fashion market and effective strategies for success in this dynamic and innovative industry. With a focus on managing the Korean fashion industry, this course covers a range of topics that reflect the unique characteristics and trends of the Korean fashion markets. 

This course examines the evolving realities of the various media industries in Hong Kong, China, and beyond. The overarching questions to be discussed in the class include: How can one characterize the configuration of the contemporary media industries? What are the key trends underlying the transformation of the media industries? What are the implications of these transformations for “media workers”? What does it mean by working as a journalist, a creative content producer, an advertiser, etc. in the contemporary world and in the future? What are the communication practices involved in the various industries? What are the broader social, cultural, and political implications of the transformation of media work and media industries?