In today’s social media-centric world, information is available instantaneously and changes quickly. The Communication Studies program at Huntington will train you to harness modern communications strategies in order to understand the complex world of communication and the impact it has on contemporary societies and cultures.
Gain the tools you need to explore, evaluate, and critically analyze various aspects and intersections of communication systems. Build essential skills in communication analysis, and clear and effective idea communication.
Graduates of Communication Studies have had careers in:
Communication Studies is a four-year program leading to a Bachelor of Arts. Students have the option to pursue a specialization, a joint specialization, a major or a minor in Communication Studies. Our students also have the option of pursuing a Minor in Sports Communication.
Additional information for applicants who have completed Advanced Placement courses.
Additional information for applicants who have completed the International Baccalaureate.
Students may be admitted with advanced standing from college programs in journalism, public relations, advertising or graphic design. In such cases, they must consult with the Chair of the department of Communication Studies once admitted to determine the required credits and courses to take.
Additional information for applicants, including international students, mature students and out-of-province students can be found here.
Students must follow these regulations in order to meet graduation requirements for the BA or B.Sc.
All students entering a BA program as of September 2017 are required to take 6 credits each of linguistic awareness, scientific literacy and indigenous content as per the regulations.
Although the requirements have been slotted in first year in the description below, students may fulfill them at any time during their studies.
Eligible courses are available at the 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 levels and students should take them at the appropriate time in their studies.
Courses fulfilling these requirements may be taken as electives or as part of a minor, concentration, major or specialization.
First Year
COST 1116E – Introduction to Mass Media
COST 1117E – Introduction to Communication Theory and Semiotics
Second Year
COST 2446E – The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication I
COST 2447E – The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication II
COST 2506E – Digital Media and Culture
Third Year *
COST 3006E – Technology and the Individual Experience
COST 3007E – Technology and the Social Experience
COST 3127E – Communication Research
Fourth Year
COST 1116E – Introduction to Mass Media
COST 1117E – Introduction to Communication Theory and Semiotics
COST 2446E – The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication I
COST 2447E – The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication II
COST 2506E – Digital Media and Culture
COST 2507E – Representations of Technology
COST 2526E – News Culture
COST 2606E – The Decorated Body as Communication
COST 3006E – Technology and the Individual Experience
COST 3007E – Technology and the Social Experience
COST 3127E – Communication Research
COST 4506E – New Media Policy
COST 4507E – Mass Media and Democracy
COST 1116E – Introduction to Mass Media
COST 1117E – Introduction to Communication Theory and Semiotics
Please note that courses listed are subject to change and may not be offered every term.
COST 1116: Introduction to Mass Media
This course serves as an introduction to the various sectors within the Canadian mass media, including film, television, radio, telecommunications, the Internet, print media, advertising and music. Issues explored will include those of ownership, regulation and policy, and the relationship that exists between Canadian mass media and their powerful American counterparts.
COST 1117: Introduction to Communication Theory and Semiotics
This course serves as an introduction to communication theory. Subjects introduced will include the transition from oral to electronic communication, mythology, ideology, semiotics, hegemony and resistance. Students will learn to be active readers of text and be introduced to many of the principal theories and thinkers within the field.
COST 2006: Semiotics and Senses
This course provides a theoretical and practical basis for understanding and analyzing how meanings are communicated in and through a wide array of artifacts and environments. By engaging with principles from social semiotics, the course examines how different sensory modes interact within a range of communication sites as well as their effect(s).
COST 2106: Organizational Communication
This course provides an overview of major concepts, theories, and perspectives of organizational communication with a focus on the function and structure of communication experienced by both internal and external members of an organization. Through applied practice, the course examines communication networks and styles, organizational cultures and norms, decision-making models, as well as topics related to power and conflict within different organizational contexts: public, non-profit, small-business, and major multi-national corporations.
COST 2446: The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication I
This course examines those communication skills and theories that help improve interpersonal relationships such as friendship, marriage, family life, and in the workplace. The course will also examine current issues such as communicating in a multi-cultural society, communicating in cyberspace, resolving conflict, and dealing with loss. The course will focus on the meaning and reality “of conversation” as the basis for all human relationships.
COST 2447: The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication II
This course examines those communication skills and theories that help improve interpersonal relationships such as friendship, marriage, family life, and in the workplace. The course will also examine current issues such as communicating in a multi-cultural society, communicating in cyberspace, resolving conflict, and dealing with loss. The course will focus on the meaning and reality “of conversation” as the basis for all human relationships.
COST 2506: Digital Media and Culture
This course focuses on the complex relationship between digital media and society. The course examines the historical origins and contemporary developments of digital media and its implications for political, social, and economic organization. Issues affecting communication are critically explored using theories of digital media, including the legal, ethical, and social implications of digital media on personal identity, community, privacy, and regulations.
COST 2507: Representations of Technology
This course examines the cultural representations of technology provided in the media and in various popular cultural artifacts. Informed by cultural studies and semiotics theory, representations examined will be fictional and non-fictional and will be located in a variety of media, including news accounts as well as technological visions of society within film, television and computer media simulations to list a few.
COST 2526: News Culture
This course offers an introduction to the topics in contemporary journalism studies, including a critical exploration of the history, structure and operation of the news media in Canada with an emphasis on the social, political and technological developments in print, broadcast and electronic news.
COST 2606: The Decorated Body as Communication
This course explores the ways in which human beings around the word, past and present, decorate their bodies. There is no known culture in which people do not paint, pierce, tattoo, reshape, or simply adorn their bodies. Whether with permanent marks like tattoos or scars, or temporary decorations like makeup, clothing, and hairstyles, body art is a way of signaling an individual’s place in society, marking a special moment, celebrating a transition in life or simply following a fashion. It can also be considered as a language or form of communication. What messages do these practices carry? How have they been used to identify us as individuals or as members of a group? How have ideas about people considered beautiful changed over time?
COST 3006: Technology and the Individual Experience
This course offers an introduction to and a critique of issues from and within the relationship between individuals and modern technology. This examination will be made from the perspective of Western culture, assessing an individual’s identity in relation to mass communication, bio-technologies, human rights, and the future.
COST 3007: Technology and the Social Experience
This course offers and introduction to and a critique of the social milieu of modern Western culture from both an historical and contemporary perspective. Issues such as the growth of cities and work places, the significance of money and markets, violence, and the exploration of inner and outer space will be examined.
COST 3016: Culture, Media and Childhood
This course examines ways in which culture, media, and childhood intersect. From toys to social media, fairy tales to videogames, the course uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine how media representations and cultural artifacts reflect and reproduce dominant (and sometimes conflicting) ideologies, traditions, and social values to children.
COST 3127: Communication Research
This course introduces students to research in Communication Studies. A focus on qualitative research methodology informs the course and the specific tools and methods available to the researcher are discussed in this context.
COST 3206: Media and Popular Culture
This course examines from various perspectives the mediated practices of everyday life in popular cultural texts. The course evaluates popular texts in a Western context through an exploration of genres including film, television, music, gaming, merchandise, and advertising, in addition to social networking.
COST 3505: Applied Communications
This course covers communication fields such as public relations, advertising, social media strategy, design, and journalism. It emphasizes preparation for professional opportunities via theory and practice and focuses on the development of skills to effectively communicate in a media or communications environment.
COST 3606: Sports, Communication and Culture
This course examines sports and communication, including the production, coverage, and spectatorship of the professional sports industry. The sports-communication relationship is analyzed from various theoretical perspectives. Issues such as the use of social media, reporting of race and gender, and the spectacle of sport-related scandals are also addressed.
COST 4006: Food, Communication and Culture
This course considers the different relationships between communication and food and how these relationships negotiate identities, cultures, and realities. The course examines the way that personal and cultural identities are constituted through food. It also explores how the mass media discursively frames and shapes our food understandings and practices in various ways.
COST 4506: New Media Policy
This course will provide students with a critical look at the evolving debates and issues surrounding media and communication policy, in the Canadian, North American and international arenas. The specific focus of the course will be on new media policy, and as such, will cover issues of copyright and intellectual property, privacy, digital divide, and internet governance. These issues will be discussed in the context of media policy from a historical and cultural perspective.
COST 4507: Mass Media and Democracy
This course will examine mass media and democracy through a political communication lens. Beyond the basic issues and theories in political communication that will be covered in this course, topics such as the decline of social capital, the rise of the permanent campaign, values and trends within journalism and popular culture, the political strategies employed by political leaders and the effects of media coverage on political and electoral processes will be discussed in this class.
COST 4526: Current Issues in Communication Studies
This course explores current issues in Communication Studies. Issues such as the role of the media for democracy, foreign ownership, censorship, freedom of the press, and media bias are explored. PREREQ: 18 credits in COST or permission of the department.
COST 4527: Media Spectacle
This course examines media spectacle from a postmodern and poststructuralist theoretical perspective with an emphasis on the North American and European context. Beyond interrogating the origin, role, and purpose of media spectacle, the course also considers the way that spectacle intersects with phenomena such as war, religion, politics, and sports. Students will be asked to critically analyze the ethical and political implications of media spectacles.
COST 4595: Thesis in Communication Studies*
This course provides students with the opportunity to engage in focused research in an area of communications studies for which appropriate faculty supervision is available. This course is intended to activate students’ critical thinking skills and the ability to design and complete a research project culminating in a thesis outlining their findings. Students will learn how to develop a research question, to look for critical and relevant academic sources, to design a research project, collect and analyze data, and to present the results in a professional written manner. *PREREQ: COST 3127: Communication Research plus 18 COST credits.
COST 4596: Directed Studies
This course provides an opportunity to undertake directed readings of a selected topic in Communication Studies under faculty supervision.
COST 4906: Internship
This course provides an opportunity for practical experience in an organization related to the field of Communication Studies. The student works under the supervision of a professional in the field and with the direction of a faculty advisor to complete a 40 hour internship placement.
Communication Studies’ Pool of Electives
(January 2016)
The Communication Studies' Pool of Electives is a selected and condensed group of courses that cover media and culture issues more broadly within the Communication Studies program as well as across the disciplines.
Please note that courses listed are subject to change and may not be offered every term.
| COST 2507 | Representations of Technology (3cr) |
| COST 2526 | News Culture (3cr) |
| COST 2606 | The Decorated Body as Communication (3cr) |
| COST 3206 | Media and Popular Culture (3cr) |
| COST 3606 | Sports, Communication and Culture (3cr) |
| ANTR 2906 | Introduction to Linguistics (3cr)* |
| CINE 2205 | Motion Picture Arts: Production I (6cr)* |
| CINE 3205 | Screenwriting (6cr) |
CLAS 2005 OR CLAS 2016 |
Greek Mythology (6cr) OR Classical Mythology (3cr)
|
| CLAS 2036 | The Ancient World in Film (3cr) |
| CLAS 3026 | Theories of Myth (3cr) |
| ENGL 2515 | Composition and Rhetorical Theory (6cr) |
| ENGL 2546 | Rhetorical Principles (3cr) |
| ENGL 2676 | Popular Literature and Culture I (3cr) |
| ENGL 3516 | Creative Writing (3cr)* |
| ENGL 3536 | Environmental Communication (3cr) |
| ENGL 3556 | Professional Communication (3cr) |
| ENGL 3526 | Rhetorical Traditions (3cr) |
| ENGL 3527 | Rhetorical Criticism (3cr) |
| ESPA 3226 | Film in Spain and Latin America (3cr) |
| FILM 2805 | Film Foundations (6cr) |
| FILM 2815 | World Cinema (6 cr) |
| FILM 2826 | Rhetoric of Documentary Films (3cr) |
| FILM 2846 | Rhetoric of Film and Image (3cr) |
| FILM 2835 | American Film Directors (6cr)* |
| FILM 3846 | Women and Film (3cr)* |
| FILM 3847 | Film Theory (3cr) |
| GERO 2246 | Art Therapy andAging (3cr) |
| INDG 2105 | Culture, Behavior and the Identity of the Native Person (6cr) |
| INDG 2136 | Aboriginal Political Resistance in Canada: An Integrated Media Analysis (3cr) |
| INDG 2285 | North American Native People: Tradition and Culture (6cr) |
| ITAL 2516 | The Italian Presence in Canada (3cr) |
| ITAL 2526 | Italian Images in North American Film and Television (3cr) |
| ITAL 2646 | 'Eating' Italian Culture (3cr) |
| JURI 2136 | Introduction to Interpersonal Dispute Resolution (3cr)* |
| JURI 3416 | Law and Popular Culture (3cr)* |
| MUSC 2046 | Soundtracks: Music in Movies |
| MUSC 2056 | Music in Popular Culture I (3cr) |
| PHIL 2505 | Critical Thinking and Argumentation (6cr) |
| PHIL 2726 | Media Ethics (3cr) |
| PHIL 2746 | Communications, Media and Values (3cr) |
| PHIL 2747 | Technology, Freedom and Value (3cr) |
| RLST 2205 | The World's Living Religions (6cr) |
| RLST 2355 | God, Play and Games (6cr) |
| RLST 2326 | Dimensions of the Paranormal (3cr) |
| RLST 2365 | Religion in Film (6cr) |
| RLST 2625 | Childhood: A Religious Perspective (6cr) |
| RLST 3215 | Religions and the Arts (6cr) |
| RLST 3315 | Life Journeys: Transition, Rites of Passage and Spirituality (6cr) |
| RLST 3336 | Food, Ritual and Religion (3cr) |
| RLST 3696 | Religious and Ethical Perpectives on Mass Communication (3cr) |
| SOCI 3056 | News, Popular Culture and Power: Critical Perspectives (3cr) |
| THEA 2127 | Voice Production and Speech (3cr) |
| THEA 3187 | Directing in the Theatre (3cr) |
| THEA 3357 | Canadian Theatre (3cr) |
| WOMN 200 | Women as Visual Artists I: A Women's Art History (3cr) |
| WOMN 2007 | Women as Visual Artists II: Contemporary Art and Contemporary Issues (3cr) |
| WOMN 2506 | Rethinking Masculinities (3cr) |
| WOMN 2106 | Representation of Gender in the News (3cr) |
| WOMN 2107 | Women and Popular Culture (3cr) |
| WOMN 3206 | Sexing the Nation (3cr) |
| WOMN 3326 | Girl Cultures (3cr) |
*Denotes a course with a pre-requisite within the offering department.
Mark Gentili has been the managing editor of Northern Life since 2011. He cut his teeth in community news in Kapuskasing, starting as a reporter for The Northern Times in 1999. By the mid-2000s, he was the managing editor of Kapuskasing’s three newspapers: The Times, The Weekender and a French-language publication, L’Horizon. Over the next few years, the Kapuskasing newsroom became responsible for the community newspapers in Cochrane, as well, and Gentili became the managing editor for the Cochrane Times-Post and its French-language sister publication, L’ours noir. During that period, he also produced a semi-monthly small publication for Moosonee on the James Bay Coast, Northern Voice, and headed up a short-lived business publication, Our Business.
Upon joining Northern Life, Gentili set out to harden the soft edge its reporting had taken on. He made changes to the newspaper’s beat structure and hired strong new reporters, changes that saw the newspaper claim multiple Ontario Community Newspaper Awards for general excellence, editorial writing, front page design and photography, among others.
Northern Life’s award-winning website was his next target. In conjunction with a planned redesign of NorthernLife.ca, Gentili put in place a plan to change the paper’s workflow and news cycle, aiming to capitalize on readers’ traffic habits and interests, broadening the type of material that was covered, changing how Northern Life produced video and increasing dramatically the amount of material that was published daily. Today, NorthernLife.ca is fast becoming the first choice for news and community information in Greater Sudbury.
