Communication

This course covers the influential factors that play a role in creating a successful marketing strategy. It focuses on the world of wine and the champagne industry in particular. It highlights the region, important players from the vine to the wine, and the production process. Finally, the course considers the marketing of luxury: what constitutes luxury, who it attracts, and how to sell it.

This course examines classical theories in persuasion, attitude change and behavior change. It includes perspectives of social psychology and communication, with a focus on equipping students with the ability of applying persuasion knowledge in various business and interpersonal contexts.

Why are social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram popular globally? How have these platforms increasingly become part of the material basis of our daily experiences, and what are the consequences of such developments? This course introduces key theories and research in media studies. It examines a range of issues concerning the changing media landscape in which we live in at the local and global levels. Special emphasis is placed on the implications of social media for contemporary society; the emergence and consequence of celebrity culture, and the reinvention and reposition of “traditional” media in post-network context. 

This course explores the social implications of the digital revolution, including ethical issues associated with algorithmic design and privacy at the intersection of political communication, data science, ethics, and policy. It mainly discusses the use of data and datafication in society from social and psychology lens. The first part of the course covers the creation of “big data” that is recorded and circulated in the form of data beyond particular moment and place. Next, it covers selected topics in which such data is being used to understand or influence people’s behavior in (political and other subfield of) communication. Finally, the latter part of the course covers various ethical and societal implications of big data and its applications in society.

This course examines the tremendous impact of social media on many walks of life, with a special emphasis on how social media have been transforming the profession of journalist and how the public now consumes news and information. It also offers a look beyond the field of journalism to consider how social media and online communities are profoundly affecting the ways in which young people form their identities and then how those identities develop later in life. Special sessions tackle the influence of social media on the construction of identity, and on the relationship and community building. Many of these issues are discussed in the context of Central and Eastern Europe and the Western experience of social media is compared to the situation in the post-communist world. The course addresses many questions related to social media, including the definition of social media; the role of social media in the formation of community; the role of social media as a uniting or dividing factor; the differences in the consumption of social media in Central and Eastern Europe; the role of social media technologies in constructions of youth, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality; the effect of social media improving on the state of journalism; changes in the role of the journalist with the advance of social media; and others.