The purpose of this course is to examine current issues and topics in the field of communication, the impact of the issues on different aspects of social life, and the approaches that scholars used to study these issues. The students will identify the issues and topics important for communication research, review related literature, discuss the approaches to analyze and understand them, select issues of their interest, and study them using appropriate approaches and methods. The students will develop capacity to identify and study important issues in communication using empirical and other appropriate methods.

The course could be taught in two ways depending on instructor’s expertise and students’ interests: a) study important current issues in the field of communication. The class could examine a variety of issues covering a broad range of communication areas; 2) study a specific topical area in communication studies, such as issues in communication research in the digital age, or issues in research of Chinese communication.