Communication theory:
bridging academia and practice

This lecture provides the context of the course, defines the key concepts to operate with and introduces students to the field of Communication Studies. Here we discuss what communication is and set up the place of the theory in communication research and practice. What is the typology of theories and how to distinguish good theory from the bad one. During this class students will also learn major approaches to communication theory through the Craig's typology.

Interpersonal communication is an underlying field of communication studies. In this lecture students will learn the main concepts to explain and predict how relationships are built, maintained and followed upon the dissolution in human communication.

How group dynamics can be maintained and what are the main approaches to navigate effective group work? This lecture provides you with answers for these questions as well as it highlight the importance of leadership in group communication.

The main focus of this lecture is to introduce student to the field of rhetorics. This class focuses at theoretical approaches to persuasion and the ways how to craft messages that influence the audience. Here we discuss approaches to the public speaking and online communication.

In this lecture student will be provided with the brief history of media effects theories and further in-depth explanation of various traditions in media effects. Why some people are being more influenced, how do we select and process the information and what is the role of media in society? All these questions will be addressed in this class along with the case study in the end.

Social media in general can be considered as a quite new phenomenon. In this lecture we discuss the way how emergence of social media influences the society and the social order, go through the main characteristics of social media and distinguish what makes it popular among the larger audiences.

This lecture introduces students to the field of Public Relations, we discuss the main theories explaining and describing approaches to maintain relationships between organisations and strategic publics.

This class is devoted to the complex issues of critical theory considering culture, media, and the way norms and beliefs are reproduced in the existing society throughout communication patterns. Critical theory is all about the critique of existing social order and this lecture provides students with an in-depth understanding of how our society is functioning.

The final lecture revises all the chapters discussed so far and brings some insights on how theory can be applied to practice. Here we also introduce you to some aspects that haven't been covered.