Program Description
The Master of Arts in Communication, Technology and Society examines how people use technology to pursue long-term communication goals, including interpersonal, group, identity, and community relations, decision-making, virtual organizing, and health, political, and social movement campaigns. The program emphasizes the impacts and interconnections of communication technologies in society and culture from the full range of theoretical and methodological approaches. Graduates are prepared to enter teaching, business, politics, or social organizing as communication practitioners with expertise in a variety of fields, directly impacting economic development in the region and across the nation, or to continue their education through the doctoral level at major research universities.
Departmental faculty are committed to providing students with opportunities for academic and professional development and believe that individuals continue to develop their expertise throughout their careers. The MA program provides a variety of opportunities to engage in scholarly and professional development activities outside the classroom, including participation in colloquia offered by communication scholars, professional workshops, internships, applied projects, and study abroad. Students are encouraged to become active members of international, national, regional, and state academic and professional associations, and to participate in as many of these development activities as possible while at Clemson in order to build network contacts in the communication discipline before graduation.
Students selecting the thesis option complete and publicly defend a project representing a significant contribution to the body of knowledge regarding the communication phenomenon that is the focus of the thesis project. A thesis committee is selected in consultation between the student and his/her advisor and is comprised of faculty from the Department of Communication, but may also include faculty representing associated disciplines on the Clemson campus.
Students selecting the comprehensive exam option are assessed in their knowledge in several areas, such as the history and distinguishing characteristics of the communication discipline, relevant communication theory, the range of research methods used in communication research, communication ethics as they apply to communication mediated by technology, how communication mediated by technology may be used to pursue long-term goals in communication (e.g., social movements, health, community, interpersonal, small group, organizational), the relations between communication technologies and social and cultural identities and institutions, and material representative of the student’s identified area of emphasis. The exam committee is selected in consultation between the student and his/her advisor and is comprised of faculty from the Department of Communication, but may also include faculty representing associated disciplines on the Clemson campus.
Additional information about the MS in Communication, Technology and Society is available at http://www.clemson.edu/caah/communication/graduate/index.html.
