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16th Annual Grunig Lecture

Ph.D Alum Dr. Sung-Un Yang presented "Linking Organization-Public Dialogic Communication to Organization-Public Relationship Management." 

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COMM Speed Mentoring 2024

Thank you to our mentors!

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Register for Summer 2024 COMM Courses!

Satisfy a requirement. Stay on track for graduation. Courses fill quickly! Register for Summer Session today! #KeepLearningUMD

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16th Annual Grunig Lecture

Join Dr. Sung-Un Yang, UMD Department of Communication Ph.D. Alum, for an evening of invaluable insight!

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Dr. Catherine Knight-Steele delivers keynote at the 3rd Annual bell hooks Symposium

This year’s theme was Black Feminist Worldmaking

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The Department of Communication is committed to producing innovative and influential scholarship, service to the discipline and community, and leadership in the discipline and profession of communication. The Department of Communication’s mission is to provide quality undergraduate and graduate student education that prepares B.A., M.A., M.P.S., and Ph.D. students to successfully enter their chosen careers in communication and related fields through our educational leadership in communication research, theory, and practice. The Department achieves this mission through the pursuit of Communication for the public good.

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Highlighting Heroes and Ignoring Villains: Visual Framing of Polio and Polio Vaccine in Newspapers

Overall, this study contributes to the fields of visual communication, health communication, and international communication, particularly related to the Global South.

Communication

Author/Lead: Taufiq Ahmad
Dates:

Polio vaccine hesitancy remains high in Pakistan due to various socio-political, religious, and economic factors. To address this, the government of Pakistan and its international partners such as UNICEF have devised a multipronged communication strategy to counter resistance to polio vaccine in hard-to-reach areas of the country. In this strategy, mainstream news media has been identified as a key stakeholder, as they have the potential to reach a wide range of population and disseminate easy to understand messages including both visuals and text. However, less scholarly attention has been paid to how mainstream news media in Pakistan frame polio and polio vaccine in their visuals. This study aims to fill this gap. Using visual framing as a theoretical framework, we analyzed 115 images from three selected newspapers published from 2010 to 2022. Our results suggest that the newspapers depicted hard-to-reach areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province which were more affected by polio and highlighted the criminality and securitization of polio vaccine in the country. In addition, female polio healthcare workers, who are instrumental in eradicating the disease, have been given marginal coverage, reflecting the importance of gender sensitivity in the region. Overall, this study contributes to the fields of visual communication, health communication, and international communication, particularly related to the Global South.

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The Paradoxes of Modern Islamic Discourses and Socio-Religious Transformation in the Digital Age.

This critical essay tackles some of the significant transformations and paradoxes which the introduction of the internet invited in modern Muslim societies, with a special focus on two specific domains.

Communication

Author/Lead: Sahar Mohamed Khamis
Dates:

The introduction of the internet brought about many transformations in the political, social, cultural, and educational fields worldwide. This phenomenon of digital transformation introduced a myriad of positive, negative, and paradoxical impacts. This critical essay tackles some of the significant transformations and paradoxes which the introduction of the internet invited in modern Muslim societies, with a special focus on two specific domains. First, the realm of religious authority or obtaining authoritative religious knowledge in the age of the internet. Second, the realm of shifting gendered Islamic identities in the age of cyberspace. In exploring these complex and hybrid phenomena, special attention is paid to the tensions between the opposing forces of tradition and modernity, diversity and cohesion, hegemony and resistance, and globalization and localization in cyberspace, and their numerous and far-reaching effects.

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Building the new architecture of crisis management: Global experts' insights on best and worst practices for securing external funding

This study explores the best and worst practices for funded research through an expert consultation survey of 36 global communication scholars with track records of funding success.

Communication

Author/Lead: Brooke Fisher Liu
Contributor(s): Olivia Truban
Non-ARHU Contributor(s): Yan Jin, Wenqing Zhao, Andreas Schwarz, Mathew Seeger
Dates:

External funding is an important yet understudied area of inquiry in crisis communication research. With external funding being a keystone of assessing and broadening research impact in both academia and industry, it is important for scholarship to examine effective practices for funding proposals. This study explores the best and worst practices for funded research through an expert consultation survey of 36 global communication scholars with track records of funding success. Findings reveal motivating factors for seeking, securing and managing funding, as well as institutional factors. Findings also inform best and worst practices for securing external funding, including bridging theory and practice and establishing strong research partnerships.

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