Master in Communication, 120 higher education credits (Master in Communication, 120 högskolepoäng) N2CMN 1. Decision of Approval The syllabus was confirmed by the Faculty Board of Arts on 2007-10-18, and approved by the Department of Business Administration on 2007-09-26 to be valid from autumn term 2008. The syllabus was confirmed by the IT Faculty Board 2010-01-11, revised 2010-02-10 and 2010-09-15 and 2011-08-17 to be valid from autumn term 2011. Responsible department is Department of Applied Information Technology in cooperation with Department of Business Administration. The programme is given within the main field of Communication. 2. Specific Requirements Qualified applicant to the program should have: Fundamental qualifications for higher education in Sweden, with the exception from Swedish language requirements. Bachelor degree of 180 hec. Students with foreign education should have graduated an examination corresponding to the bachelor degree. Knowledge of English corresponding to English A. 1
3. Degree The programme Master in Communication leads to a Degree of Master with a major in Communication, 120 hec, including a Degree project of 30 hec. 4. Main contents of the programme The purpose of the educational programme is to provide advanced understanding of communication issues in various contexts and advanced knowledge about theories and methods useful in studies of communication in its context. First year Term 1: Three compulsory courses: Interpersonal communication, 7.5 hec Communication, activity and organization, 15 hec Intercultural communication I, 7.5 hec Term 2: One compulsory course Communication: Communication among professionals, 7.5 hec and the following elective courses: Intercultural communication II, 7,5 hec Multimodal Communication, 7.5 hec Communication technology, 7.5 hec or elective courses (22.5 hec) in other areas. Second year: Term 1: 2
One compulsory course Communicative leadership, 7.5 hec and the following elective courses: Communication: Intercultural communication III, 7.5 hec Practical training, 7.5 hec Communication: Communication and professional identity, 7.5 hec or elective courses (22.5 hec) in other areas. Term 2: One compulsory course Degree project, 30 hec Course descriptions Interpersonal communication, 7.5 hec offers insights into important areas of interpersonal communication, such as bodily communication and prosody and the interplay between feelings, attitudes and objective content in communication. In addition, communication dependent on basic social relations such as family and friendship relations as well as gender related aspects in communication are treated. Communication, activity and organization, 15 hec adresses communication in classical and modern organization theories. The course aims at increased understanding of how different activities influence communication within an organization. The course also includes analysis of communication within different fields of activity within an organization and illustrates how factors such as purpose, roles, medium, instrument and environment affect communication. Intercultural communication I, 7.5 hec studies different perspectives of the notion of culture and cultural differences and addresses culturally conditioned differences in communication patterns, processes of misunderstanding and understanding in intercultural communication, differences in values and views. Special attention is paid to 3
patterns of communication conditioned by Swedish culture. In addition, the course also addresses other ethical issues as well as power relations in intercultural communication. Intercultural communication II, 7.5 hec provides examples and applications of concepts and theories related to intercultural communication in the fields of intimate relations, language teaching, health care, intercultural information technologies, business life, immigration/emigration, elderly care, film and media. Communication: Communication among professionals, 7.5 hec The primary purpose of this advanced course in organisational communication is to address the role of communication within different professional fields, such as law, accounting/auditing, medicine, social work, counselling, and education. The course also addresses various professional demands on written and oral communication as well as the use of pictures in communication in business life, mass media, education etc. Attention is given to cross-cultural comparisons and to comparison between professional and non-professional communication. The course consists of two sections: (1) The nature of professional work-bound communication, and (2) Development of communication in professions. Organizational case studies are highlighted throughout the course. Degree project, 30 hec The degree project should show the students advanced ability to formulate relevant research questions, to find and evaluate information and data in an independent and critical way, and to write a scientific thesis within a given period of time. Content: Seminars and individual supervision. The seminars contain theoretical and methodological preparation for the degree project work, such as practical advice, how to formulate a relevant research question, PM-writing, formal matters, etc. Communicative leadership, 7.5 hec This advanced course in communicative leadership is based on empirical research on the communicative practice of leaders and the characteristics of successful organizing. The course aims at an enhanced comprehension of the relationship between leadership and communication with a special emphasis on 4
the politics of everyday life in organizations. Special attention is given to contrasts between communication in leadership roles and in other roles. The concepts of organization, communication and leadership are discussed and analyzed in order to understand why organizations work the way they do. It combines problem solving and theoretically based analysis. It will give the student opportunity to integrate knowledge acquired during previous academic studies. The course is also a preparation for the Degree project with a focus on analyzing skills. Communication: Intercultural communication III, 7.5 hec contains an in-depth analysis and understanding of/insights into how and when cultural differences are relevant and when they are not. Intercultural power differences. Intercultural conflict and cooperation. How are intercultural conflicts solved? Practical training, 7.5 hec The course contains strategies for finding a workplace which might provide an internship and how a contract between mentor can be established, a contract that describes the responsibility and tasks, to find a training workplace with mentor, to write a short paper/report on learning experiences from the workplace. Communication: Communication and professional identity, 7.5 hec The primary purpose of this advanced course is to address the role of communication in professional development. Special attention is given to issues of standardization. The course consists of three sections: (1) Encounters between professionals from different fields, (2) Communities of practice, and (3) Categorization, classification, and ways of working. Organizational case studies are highlighted throughout the course. Communication technology, 7.5 hec The course studies different types of communication technologies, relations between technology and communication and relations between technology, communication and social organization. Multi-modal communication, 7.5 hec studies communication that uses more than one sense modality. Particular focus 5
is directed on the use of speech, gestures and facial expressions in face-to-face communication, cultural variations in how different sense modality are used, how to best combine different sense modalities for different purposes, how to use multimodal communication for communicative disorders and how to develop multimodal agents for communication between human and computer. 5. Forms of education The education is provided through lectures, seminars, workshops, case studies, exercises, practical training and a degree project. 6. Evaluation The director of studies is responsible for ensuring that the students views of the course are collected and that the evaluation results are considered in further course design. 6