Communication

This course introduces the basics of management communication theories and strategies. Topics include audience analysis, communicator credibility, message construction and delivery, channel choice, and organizational context. The primary focus involves interpersonal skills, the skill of active listening, reflective responses, organizational communication and network, stakeholder and system theory, and communication skills, crisis communication and management, negotiation, presentation skills, cross-cultural communication, writing strategies, public relations, etc. The course includes the study and discussion of communication theory and business cases in order to analyze and understand the strategic thinking and skills in communicating with others both within and outside the organization.

The course examines characteristics of critical thinking and expression in news commentary, topic selection of news  commentary, viewpoints in news commentary, argument and narrative effect of news commentary, argumentation of news commentary, structure of news commentary, title of news commentary, language of news commentary, and professional writing types of news commentary.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course introduces students to humanitarian and social communication and discusses how social problems are constructed and represented. In particular, the course explores how humanitarian issues and crises have been historically publicized through the media and examine the challenges posed to humanitarian organizations by the advent of digital media. The course discusses how the use of poverty porn, celebrity humanitarianism, and new media narrations of otherness affect the communication of organizations looking for effective ways to bring about change in the developing world. The use of case studies prepares students to lead strategic planning for NGOs’ communication and government agencies while also understanding the role that communication has in affecting social change. At the end of this course the student is able to critically evaluate and comprehend the different concepts and methods used in the field of social and humanitarian communication. In particular, through the use of examples and case studies, the student is acquainted with: the complex system of relations that connects poverty, development, solidarity and the representation of sufferance; the different forms of communication employed in the media by social and humanitarian organizations, the processes of construction of social problems, the principles regulating the design of social communication campaigns, and the different implications that the use of strategic tools (e.g. storytelling, celebrities, branding) have on this specific segment of communication.

This course covers the fundamentals of journalistic communication and the techniques and journalistic expression in the audiovisual media. Other topics include: the historical origins of journalistic information; its social, economic and political causes; its evolution and its impact on contemporary societies; rhetoric and argument in informative speeches; theory and analysis of the information in the audiovisual media; and globalization and social change in 21st century journalism.

This course studies theoretical texts regarding communication and media from a sociological standpoint. The course takes both a theoretical and methodological approach to analyzing communication and media.