101 - 110 of 125 results for: COMM

Approaches to social science research and their theoretical presuppositions. Readings from the philosophy of the social sciences. Research design, the role of experiments, and quantitative and qualitative research. Cases from communication and related social sciences. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

An introduction to a broad range of social science research methods that are widely used in PhD work. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

This course will focus on advanced research on social media with an emphasis on interpersonal dynamics. The course will emphasize key theories from psychology and communication that bear on behavior and social media. Students will develop a research project in the course that draws on one of the primary methods from the social media space.

In this course we develop a model of how language reflects social and psychological dynamics in social media and other technologically-mediated contexts. The course lays out the main stages of analyzing language to understand social dynamics, including using theory to identify key discourse features, feature extraction, and classification and prediction. The course will draw on action-oriented language approaches to understand how people use language (e.g., grounding and joint action models), and then build on this approach to understand how discourse features from natural language can be used to answer questions from a wide range of social science questions, and ultimately, to the design of new technologies. Instructor consent required to enroll.

Topics include the theoretical construct of person identity, the evolution of that construct given the advent of virtual environments, and methodological approaches to understanding virtual human representation. Prerequisite: PhD student or consent of instructor.

This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.

The social and psychological processes involved in asking and answering questions via questionnaires for the social sciences; optimizing questionnaire design; open versus closed questions; rating versus ranking; rating scale length and point labeling; acquiescence response bias; don't-know response options; response choice order effects; question order effects; social desirability response bias; attitude and behavior recall; and introspective accounts of the causes of thoughts and actions.

Digital devices (e.g., computers, smartphones, wearables) and platforms (e.g., social media sites, forums, virtual worlds) mediate much of our daily life. Each time we use digital media for communication, information seeking, or entertainment, we leave behind psychologically revealing digital footprints. In this course, we will explore how digital footprints can be used to understand individual differences in thinking, feeling, and behaving. Class activities and assignments will require students to apply the concepts to their own research projects. Course enrollment limited to PhD-level students.

Workplace cultures and professional communities are currently being profoundly reconfigured through digital technologies, algorithmic tools, and online platforms. Many of these developments are recent. Yet previous waves of technological innovation came with comparable effects on work practices, occupational identities, and organizational dynamics. This graduate seminar explores the relationship between work, technology, and communication from a science and technology studies (STS) perspective. The students will read classic studies of workplace cultures as well as recent research on digital labor in order to better understand how work is changing in the twenty-first century.