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Classes

Classes are designed to challenge your thinking and develop your professional skills. You’ll leave each class with a unique set of tools to approach new communications challenges.

Tailor your experience to your career goals by focusing on one of eight areas of specialization. Use the search widget below to sort classes by quarter, specialization, instructor and degree track for each quarter. Get a comprehensive view of the full academic year in our Course Guide.

View the University of Washington Academic Calendar for important dates, including quarter start and end dates, registration dates and deadlines, and campus holidays.

Registration numbers (SLNs) are located on the Time Schedule. Please read the Department’s statement on internet resource requirements for access to courses.

COMMLD 530C: Building a Visual Campaign

(

Faris

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Sundays, 10/15, 10/29, 11/12, 9:00AM-5:00PM | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 23651

Course Description:

Images have a profound impact on our lives and have shaped our communities. Visuals reach people at an emotional level motivating us to act on a cause, influencing our decisions, or convincing us to buy one product over another. How do you bring visual content designed for a variety of channels together into a cohesive and compelling campaign? Through interactive coursework, thoughtful discussion, and real-world examples, students will walk away with the tools and knowledge to create campaigns that deliver results. Students will work in groups during three workshop-style days to develop and present a multi-channel visual campaign.

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COMMLD 510: Leveraging Diverse Perspectives in Product Content Design

(

Joslyn

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Mondays 10/2-12/4, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 23615

Course Description:

This course will guide students through a variety of techniques and processes to building experiences that are inclusive, and designed to directly serve their intended audience. This includes a lightweight look at understanding and defining your audience, testing for a variety of accessibility challenges, designing for inclusion, and an overview of ways to get feedback from your audience.Students will then be able to leverage these techniques to evaluate experiences to identify opportunities to improve.

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COMMLD 541A: Crisis Communication

(

Visneski

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/3-12/5, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | Online
Registration SLN: 13015

Course Description:

Nothing is more dramatic than a crisis. When an organization, company, industry, or individual in the public eye is in a crisis, communication is one of the crucial routes back to normalcy. Oftentimes, organizations find themselves unprepared when a crisis hits and only then think “Oh goodness, we should get a crisis communications plan in place!” Trying to “spin” a bad situation can both be unethical, and ineffective, damaging reputation, and subsequently business.

This course will teach you how to be rapidly responsive, responsible, and to avoid common pitfalls in crisis comms. We will examine how organizations attempt to anticipate and recover from crises, how the broadcast and print media cover different types of crises, how crisis communications fails, and how it succeeds.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 512: User Research and UX Strategies

(

Levine

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 10/2-12/4, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | DEN 213
Registration SLN: 13001

Course Description

This course focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of user interfaces from a usability perspective. The aim of the class is to study the concepts, methods, and techniques of usability engineering, with a focus on the artifacts where user experience is essential. Historically, usability has covered aspects of efficiency, learnability, and ease of use. Today, a large number of other measures for success rely on elements such as playability, engagement, entertainment, immersion, and aesthetics.

The above concepts will be detailed with the expectation that by the end of the quarter, students will recognize the aspects of each of the following deliverables within Interface Design and User Research. At the completion of this course, students will have portfolio-ready, end-to-end work examples. The work examples are designed for students to demonstrate they can: understand basic principles of user interface design, implementation, and evaluation, design and conduct usability studies, select an appropriate evaluation method and articulate its advantages and disadvantages, establish useful test objectives, and prepare reports and presenting results.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 582: Communicating Trust and Credibility for Emerging Technologies

(

Lohmann

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

MCDM Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Sundays, 10/8 9am-5pm In-Person, 10/22, 11/5, 11/19 9am-1pm Online, 12/3 9am-5pm In-Person | CMU 302
Registration SLN: 23545

This course introduces students to the art of honestly advocating for emerging technologies that an organization has decided to adopt and deploy. It provides a foundation to ensure students understand how to effectively inform stakeholders that these new solutions are both useful, safe and align with values that prioritize the good of the community as a whole. Yet, there’s a fine line between storytelling and propaganda, especially when it comes to making the case around these powerful innovations. What are the ethics of effective advocacy?
How can propaganda be differentiated from honest storytelling? How do we most effectively champion appropriate technologies to our employees, customers, clients or constituents?

We will also examine questions about the platforms and technology themselves: What reference should we use to recognize that emerging technologies are serving as trustful conduits and not propagating misinformation or disinformation? What communications methods, platforms and amplifiers are being used to spread propaganda and fake news, and how does this impact democracy? By learning how to critically think about such questions, students will learn how to communicate clearly and ethically in favor of the use of nascent technology solutions that might impact an organization or community.

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COMMLD 541B: Crisis Communication

(

Hennessey

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/27-12/6, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | DEN 112
Registration SLN: 13016

Crisis communications is about much more than “spin.”  Crises will happen – in government, in the corporate sector, in nonprofits and political campaigns.  What will differentiate you as a communicator is your ability to plan for it, navigate it in real time, and learn something from it.  There is opportunity in crisis.  A crisis forces us to look inside ourselves, at our policies, at our practices, and at how we do our business.

Of course, crisis communications has always been tough; social media and the advent of generative AI have just made it tougher.  We will navigate the latest cultural challenges, from “cancel culture” to messaging in our polarized society.  In this course, we will look at before the crisis (including planning), how we respond during the crisis (this includes the critical crisis communications plan) and after (this is where we cover actions one must take afterwards, including how to repair the damage done).  The class is designed to look at crises in various sectors and will include participation from professionals in the field.

Meets Law and Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 540A: The Power of Revision

(

Baltus

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Mondays 10/2-12/4, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13013

Course Description

No matter what kind of writing you do, editing skills are essential to producing your best work. In this course, experienced writers will learn a rigorous, methodical approach to revision that transforms a rough draft into a compelling finished piece. You’ll gain the awareness and control you need to diagnose and address problems, develop ideas and themes, create structure, and craft a story. You’ll also hone your ability at the line level, learning ways to make your writing clearer and more precise by eliminating clichés, clunky phrases, and extraneous words. As an editing workshop, this course emphasizes the importance of giving and receiving kind, productive feedback. It focuses on longer-form texts for public audiences, such as blog posts, executive op-eds, and news releases, though its principles are applicable to all forms of writing and creative iteration.

Meets Professional Writing Requirement.

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COMMLD 583: Communications for Emerging Web Technologies

(

Tang

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Saturdays 09/30, 10/14, 10/28, 11/18, 12/02, 9:00AM – 5:00PM | Online
Registration SLN: 23349

Course Description

This course examines emerging forms of communication arising from the development of artificial intelligence tools, deep neural networks, web 3 technologies, interactive digital spaces, and online communities connected via social media platforms. We’ll lay out a framework to understand the emerging use cases of web 3 technologies such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies, decentralized autonomous organizations, decentralized apps, trustless/permissionless environments, and smart contracts. The course also investigates the use of interactive digital spaces such as massively multiplayer online games by users and the concept of the metaverse to create new standards of communication. We’ll use the evolution of online communities and social media platforms to examine the fundamental ways people communicate online. Last, the course explores the use of AI tools to generate content and its impact on communication standards. We’ll discuss how businesses, organizations, governments and individuals would leverage these emerging technologies to achieve communications goals.

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COMMLD 580: Communicating the Future with Scenario Planning

(

Rasmus

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 9/27-12/6, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 13025

Course Description

This course explores techniques for exploring possible futures and how to apply those futures to create business narratives. The class will work through a complete cycle of scenario planning. Learners will gather and document uncertainties related to the future of work with an emphasis on communications. The class will then build rich narratives that explore how the future may unfold under different social, technological, economic, environmental, and political circumstances. The course will also explore how to use scenarios to inform strategic choices and drive content development. Students will be expected to demonstrate their mastery of scenario planning through individual work and team presentations. Team presentations will focus on the future of work and its implications for communications. Individual stories will feature multimedia presentations that describe the learner living in one of the futures.

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COMMLD 570D: Media Entrepreneurship

(

Anand, Briggs

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Tuesdays 10/3-12/5, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | DEN 213
Registration SLN: 23354

Course Description

This course is for anyone who wants to learn what it takes to build something from scratch, from user research, to creating buy-in to launching your idea. We’ll cover product development frameworks, operational thinking and crucial leadership skills to develop a new product, service or program as a standalone business or within an existing organization. We’ll practice how to define and verify a problem to solve for your users, test your assumptions, create buy-in and collaborative structures among leadership and design a strategic and operating plan to ensure sustainability. By the end of the class, you’ll have developed, at minimum, a user-facing signup page, a 30-second and five-minute elevator pitch and basic strategic and operating plans.

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COMMLD 570B: Leadership at All Levels

(

Myers

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 9/27-12/6, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | DEN 212
Registration SLN: 13023

Course Description

Leadership shows up everywhere, every day–and it is open to us all. Building on the Comm Lead leadership coursework, this course will take the theoretical development of one’s leadership style and bring it into practice with one’s work style. Classes will focus on mini-workshops around the following topics: decision-making processes, presentation skills, practical communications, how-to be a team player (including how-to run a meeting, how-to write an email), and drafting your optimum work experience. Students will complete the class knowing how to address bias and success inhibitors within any organization; develop skills for collaborative and successful leadership at any level; and understand how to empower their workplace for everyone. Guest speakers will share stories from leadership perspectives at different companies and how they approach their own development and empowerment.

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COMMLD 560C: Wellness Narratives

(

Bradshaw

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 10/2-12/4, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | DEN 212
Registration SLN: 13020

Course Description

“Wellness” is one of those buzzwords that hovers over the top of various pop culture and advertising we consume. It’s a concept that permeates much of how we live and work in the world, and can often feel like a given. But what does “Wellness” actually mean? This course will dive deep into wellness and well-being as central concepts to mental, physical, and emotional modes of health in the 21st century. The goal is for communication professionals to better understand how modern “Wellness” campaigns connect all the way back to early 20th century American advertising campaigns, and why this history matters.

Yes, we will talk about GOOP, reflect upon Soul Cycle, and different popular diets like Paleo and Keto. But we will also explore them through a historical, cultural, economic and technological framework that connects the current moment to 20th century cultural anxieties of the physical and mental body, including the focus on losing unwanted weight and detoxifying the body from various ailments. Other wellness topics for the course will include productivity, health, corporate and social responsibility, clutter, burnout, and more.  

The final assignment helps showcase the student’s ability to do preliminary research while taking complex ideas and distilling them into an understandable presentation for an executive audience. We will do weekly reflective journal exercises throughout the quarter that engage with the readings and screenings from the course. Come prepared to engage in discussion, deep dive into wellness research, and hone your writing skills!

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 558: Law and Policy

(

Baker

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

MCDM Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/3-12/5, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | DEN 113
Registration SLN: 13019

Course Description

This course looks at how the law of digital media, interactive media and social media has facilitated the growth of multimedia storytelling, interactivity, and the explosion of collaborative consumption. Understanding when and how one can remix, reuse, republish, and remake content is critical to any organization’s successful advertising, content creation, distribution, and publication. This course will explore the legal issues surrounding free expression, content production and publication, intellectual property (with a special emphasis on copyright and fair use), and advertising. This course is designed both as a stand-alone course to satisfy the law and policy requirement of the program and as a companion to the data security and privacy law course offered in the Fall, which focuses more on data usage, privacy and security, FTC regulatory issues and intellectual property issues around data and analytics.

Meets Law & Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 544: Professional Short-Form Writing

(

Tomasic

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 9/27-12/6, 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 302
Registration SLN: 13017

Course Description

This collaborative hands-on course explores the kind of short-form writing that dominates today’s rapidly evolving professional communications space — the digital space where lines between content and form increasingly blur and where always-on media feeds deliver a mix of advertising, marketing, public relations, human resources, personal brand-building and journalistic reporting and research. It’s a space that presents new writing challenges every day: professional emails, office memos, newsletters, website copy, funding proposals, executive summaries, op-eds, tweets, blurbs, blogs. Much of this material is badly done. Most of it is mediocre. The best of it, though, sings out and demands our attention, demonstrating mastery in the kind of critical thinking and dedicated practice that delivers copy sharply focused and sure in matching voice and material with form and audience. This course is part professional-communications criticism class and part writing workshop. It’s about learning how to identify good writing; it’s about understanding the process that produces good writing; and it’s about practicing that process yourself.

Meets Professional Writing Requirement.

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COMMLD 535: Foundations of Audio Storytelling

(

Partnow

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/3-12/5, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 13011

Course Description

The podcasting industry has surged in recent years, with podcasts also becoming an increasingly important part of marketing and communication campaigns. Since it is the only medium that audiences can consume while engaged in a multitude of other activities, audio storytelling has a unique advantage to inform, entertain and call to action.

This course will teach you how to use audio to tell a powerful story. You will learn how to create your own short sound-rich, nonfiction audio story driven by characters and scenes. You will move through the process of research, reporting, interviewing, writing, editing, and mixing an audio story, as well as pitching a story for radio or podcast. By the end of the class you will have a working knowledge of the basics of audio storytelling and production. You will feel more confident about how to support visual storytelling with audio, as well as how to work with a larger production team on audio projects.

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COMMLD 533: Storytelling for Emergent Platforms

(

Cioffi

)

- 2023-2024 | Autumn 2023

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Saturdays 10/7, 10/21, 11/4, 11/18, 12/2, 9:00AM – 5:00PM |
First Class: Cloud Room Seattle: 1424 11th Ave Ste 400, Seattle, WA 98122
All remaining classes: Startup Hall (2nd Floor Condon Hall)
Registration SLN: 23355

Course Description

Emerging models of interactive and immersive storytelling are disrupting the ways we can reach and engage with audiences. In this course we will examine the unique ways that media and user-generated content can tell one cohesive story across platforms in a distributed way; and how this is a pivotal part of the current and future Web 3.0 ecosystem. We will focus our design thinking on audience engagement, UX, built worlds for virtual and interactive experiences, and the role of trust and truth in platforms – students will learn about best practice uses of VR/AR, branch narratives, game development and integration of traditional video in mobile UX.  We will be coupling a critical look at these emerging models while working through the technical aspects of story creation and the implementation of media production tools and platforms.

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Contact Us

commlead@uw.edu
206.543.6745
4101 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA
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© Copyright 2022 Department of Communication. University of Washington

University of Washington

Department of Communication

© Copyright 2022 Department of Communication. University of Washington