Areas of Emphasis

The School of Media & Communication at Bowling Green State University has a long and respected history of research and coursework that focus on scholarship related to intercultural communication, development communication, rhetoric, social movements, mass-mediated communication, emerging media, cyber culture, and more. The graduate programs in the School are organized around three areas of emphasis that are based in the research and academic interests of the graduate faculty. These areas inform the coursework offered in the School, and they serve as important components to the programs of study for graduate students.

Critical Media Studies and Rhetoric

This area of emphasis draws together several key and complementary dimensions of humanistic areas of inquiry, research methods, and theory. Among faculty expertise are Intercultural and International Communication, Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, Social Movements and Activism, Urban Geography, Media Ecology, Political Economy, and Rhetorics of Peace-Building. Work in these areas encompasses a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, concerning issues of media/mediated communication in cultural, economic, political or social contexts, including strategic mediated communication for development, digital environments, social change and social justice. We adopt this approach to an integrated critical engagement with social problems that include, but often extend beyond localities to international and global environments.

Graduate faculty: John Dowd, Radhika Gajjala, Alberto Gonzalez, Ellen Gorsevski, Lisa Hanasono, Lara Lengel, Srinivas Melkote, Clayton Rosati

Interpersonal Communication

This area of emphasis examines interaction processes in a variety of social and personal relationships such as romantic relationships, family relationships and friendships in face-to-face and mediated settings.  Research and coursework within the area focuses on relationship processes in contexts such as health, sexuality, identity negotiation, relationship maintenance, information management and technology.  Varying theoretical (e.g., narrative, dialectical, social exchange, disclosure theories) and epistemological perspectives (post-positivist, social scientific, interpretivist, feminist, queer, critical) are explored.

Graduate faculty: Emily Anzicek, Sandra Faulkner, Lisa Hanasono, Laura Stafford

Media Audiences & Processes

This area of emphasis relies on empirical observation to study audiences and the process of how media content and technology influence the public agenda and individuals’ attitude, emotion, knowledge and interpretation of society. The research orientation utilizes quantitative methods (e.g., experiments, survey) and qualitative methods (e.g., interviews, focus group) to answer pertinent issues in media audiences and processes. These include Media Technology Adoption, Emotional and Cognitive Response to Advertising, Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM), Narrative Persuasion and Comprehension, Media Effects, Cultivation and Perceived Media Realism, Effects and Effectiveness of Advertising, Audience Research Methods,  Media Industry Analysis, Social Network Analysis, Political Communication, Alternative Journalism, Activism, and Public Opinion.  This emphasis includes both administrative applied research and theoretical research on these topics. 

Graduate faculty: Joshua Atkinson, Rick Busselle, Louisa Ha, Lisa Hanosono, Ilyoung Ju, Yanqin Lu,  Srinivas Melkote, Terry Rentner