Communication & Journalism

The Department of Communication & Journalism (C&J) holds academic scholarship, teaching, and service to the community and field as its guiding principles. Communication is our focus, with emphasis on the understanding and appreciation of diverse messages and meanings. The wide applicability of skills gained by working with our department are applicable to all fields, and makes us one of the more popular majors at UNM.

Our offerings explore the social skills, societal dynamics, and professional environments of communication from a variety of standpoints: intercultural, interpersonal, rhetorical, health, organizational, environmental, strategic, broadcasting, print journalism, and mass communication. Students learn communication theories and have opportunities to apply these ideas in practice. Our faculty are nationally and internationally renowned for their research and are known on campus as excellent teachers, regularly winning university-wide awards.Our students are diverse, on a domestic and global scale, and bring a passion for understanding - and engaging in - the role communication plays in the creation of our world. Students have access to department equipment, independent study and research opportunities, a Departmental Honors Thesis program, scholarships, and internships with local and national entities.

We offer degrees in Communication and Journalism and Mass Communication, each with different concentrations so you can tailor your major to your goals and interests, along with Online Degree options. There are also minors available to students in other departments.

Communication

Our Communication major programs help prepare students for any career that involves or emphasizes communication (including management, human resources, and public relations), and provide an excellent foundation for further academic research in media studies. We offer six different concentrations:

Critical Studies in Mass Media (offered in partnership with the Department of Film and Digital Media)
Environmental Communication
Intercultural Communication
Interpersonal Communication
Organizational Communication
Public Communication
Media Studies

Critical Studies in Mass Media: Offered in partnership with the Film and Digital Media Department, this concentration gives students the critical lens of the Media Studies concentration with the practical skills of visual and audio storytelling, including all aspects of video production (writing, cinematography, directing, producing) and legal aspects of film and new media (the Internet).
There is no minor required for the Communication - Critical Studies in Mass Media B.A. degree.

Environmental Communication: How we communicate about nature and the environment shape human relations with and within the natural world. Policies and actions that affect our environments and ecosystems are influenced by the public discussion of the environment, in politics, media, and education. Students in this timely, rich, and relevant field of study examine such things as messages about the natural world produced through advertising, news media, popular culture, and culture at large, as well as current issues in environmental justice, nature and childhood, and ecocultural relations in the U.S. and abroad.

Intercultural Communication: Students focus on the dynamics of interaction and relationships between individuals and in small groups, with options to study the influence of language on daily life, cultural influences in communication across ethnic and national boundaries, conflict mediation, nonverbal communication, race, gender, and workplace communication. Intercultural Communication will help prepare students to enter more specialized academic pathways or careers, including multinational business, international relations, diplomacy, multicultural conflict management, personnel training, and bilingual education.
Also available as an Online Degree

Interpersonal Communication: Students examine the application of interpersonal (person-to-person) communication in personal and professional relationships, including the impact of language, cultural differences in communication, conflict resolution, nonverbal communication, romantic and platonic relationships, and communication in health care settings.
Also available as an Online Degree

Organizational Communication: Organizational communication is the study of the collective and interactive process of gathering and interpreting messages, including communicative processes as conflict, leadership, technology, networks, group interaction, and decision-making. Our program offers courses on theories of organizational behavior with emphasis on communication patterns and practices, superior-subordinate communication, formal and informal communication networks, and authority and power.

Public Communication: This concentration focuses on the principles and frameworks that explain communication options and strategies, such as argumentation and persuasion. There are opportunities to focus on political communication.

Media Studies: This concentration focuses on the principles and theories of mass communication systems in the United States, including evaluations of radio/television programming content from the perspective of the journalistic and academic critic, examinations of theoretical issues and production elements as they affect programming genres, including history, gender, race, and media communication theories.

Journalism & Mass Communication

Our Journalism & Mass Communication major programs give students hands-on experience in journalistic and strategic storytelling on a large, public scale. Students are grounded in their fields by learning the writing process and style for their chosen media, along with courses that explore ethics and multimedia and visual communication.
There is no minor required for Journalism & Mass Communication B.A. degrees (any concentration).

We offer three concentrations:

Digital Field Multimedia (offered in partnership with the Department of Film and Digital Media)
Multimedia Journalism
Strategic Communication

Digital Field Multimedia: Students explore broadcast fields (television, Internet, radio) by using the tools of digital media. Students develop technical and creative skills with the Film and Digital Media core courses, while honing their information gathering, verbal storytelling, and ethical decision-making skills with the Multimedia Journalism courses.

Multimedia Journalism: Our Multimedia Journalism concentration combines print, broadcasting and online journalism and helps to prepare students for a variety of careers and positions with media companies. Students hone their information gathering, verbal storytelling, and ethical decision-making skills through courses on topics such as journalism and social media, fake news and disinformation, and video journalism.

Strategic Communication: This concentration prepares students for a variety of careers in fields such as public information, marketing, information management, event planning, advertising, and public relations. Students will acquire effective communication knowledge, strategies, and skills that will allow them to offer strategic leadership to any organization. In the course of this program, students will learn about the theories, history, and ethical and legal considerations underlying strategic communication. They will become familiar with a complete range of current communication tools (research, writing, design), including traditional broadcast and print media, as well as digital media, and how to use them in an integrated, strategic way.