Strategic Communications
Strategic communication is about finding solutions to complex advertising and public relations problems in the corporate, non-profit, and government sectors at both the domestic and international level. The Strategic Communications area is designed to enhance students’ capacity to understand and explore the theories, methods, and tools used to structure persuasive messages. The area explores the dynamics of the political, legal, social, and cultural environments that interact to define a communication problem. Students learn to identify communication-related issues and how to create, implement, and evaluate effective communications strategies to solve them.
Through course work and research, students develop comprehensive understanding of communication theory and practice used to develop persuasive message strategies designed to elicit, maintain or modify the behavior of a targeted group consistent with the objectives of an organization. Students also learn techniques to benchmark and evaluate the effectiveness of strategic communications programs and understand how they apply to internal and external constituencies. An important aspect of strategic communications is the examination of the ethical implications of strategic communication practices used in the marketing, advertising and public relations arena. Students will develop a framework that will help them to understand and evaluate supporters and critics of strategic communications practices.