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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 580A: Communicating the Future with Scenario Planning

(

Rasmus

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Thursdays 1/9 – 3/13, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 12723

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.

I went into Scenario Planning as a marketer and left as a strategic storyteller. Dan taught us to look into the future and fashion a whole story out of it, in scenarios and contexts I otherwise wouldn’t have imagined. It also trains you to think of the future beyond just a linear eventuality to help prepare for it in the best way possible. Personally, the application of what I learned was beyond a business context, and I can say this – it helped all of us look at everything in a more multi-dimensional manner.—Matthew Joseph, MCDM cohort ‘22 alumni

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COMMLD 580B: Content Design for Conversational AI

(

Bradshaw

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Mondays 9/29 – 12/1, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 23478

Course Description

Conversational AI has significantly reshaped human interactions, impacting how we connect, purchase, work, learn, and live our lives in the 21st century. This course delves into Conversational AI, exploring its intricate relationship with communication and media theory. Students will delve into the intricate interplay between human interaction and AI, including the foundational groundwork required for constructing dialogues, and explore generative AI’s potential and limitations. By immersing ourselves in critical questions such as the necessity of bots and avatars, and their roles in mimicking human discourse, we embark on a journey to uncover the underlying motives.

We will focus on real-world case studies from business and education, enabling us to paint a holistic portrait of the vast Conversational AI landscape. In your final project, your team will present a prototype for a conversational AI solution for an existing company or new product.

Professor Bradshaw’s Content Design for Conversational AI class came at the perfect time in my career. The hands-on experience enabled me to transform our agency’s workflow with custom GPTs and other bleeding-edge AI tools, sparking rich discussions with my mentor about AI’s potential in our industry. When she later co-founded an AI-focused agency, the strategic understanding and technical confidence I gained in this class, combined with our years of trusted professional collaboration, made me the natural choice for Director of Content Strategy. The course’s practical approach continues to shape how we help clients create more personalized, engaging content experiences at scale.— Jakob Picciotto, MCDM Student

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COMMLD 580A: Communicating the Future with Scenario Planning

(

Rasmus

)

- 2025-2026 | Winter 2026

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Thursdays, 1/8 – 3/12, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12663

Course Description

This course exposes learners to the strategic storytelling techniques that businesses, governments and non not-for-profits use to explore possible futures. 

Scenarios provide organizations the tools they need to anticipate and navigate the future by developing multiple paths along which the future might unfold. Rather than looking at the world through the lens of what we know, scenario planning starts with uncertainties: Social, technological, economic, environmental and political forces that will evolve over the next several years in unknowable ways. This helps organizations prepare for many eventualities (some which they may not like) because they will be able to see opportunities, mitigate risks, and work toward enabling futures that align with their missions and values.

The course will teach learners how to develop scenarios, how to use them within organizations for strategy and storytelling. Each student will choose an area of interest as an overlay atop a generalized set of futures so they personally understand the power of starting a story with “I don’t know” and using that as a lever to co-create plausible futures that could be. Students will leave the course as scenario planning practitioners, a valuable skill for any leader in an uncertain world.

For more information: Scenario Planning and Communications: How Does Scenario Planning Apply to Communications Jobs?

I went into Scenario Planning as a marketer and left as a strategic storyteller. Dan taught us to look into the future and fashion a whole story out of it, in scenarios and contexts I otherwise wouldn’t have imagined. It also trains you to think of the future beyond just a linear eventuality to help prepare for it in the best way possible. Personally, the application of what I learned was beyond a business context, and I can say this – it helped all of us look at everything in a more multi-dimensional manner.—Matthew Joseph, MCDM cohort ‘22 alumni

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COMMLD 580 B: Content Design for Conversational AI

(

Bradshaw

)

- 2024-2025 | Spring 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 4/2 – 6/4, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | DEN 213
SLN: 21712

Course Description

Conversational AI has significantly reshaped human interactions, impacting how we connect, purchase, work, learn, and live our lives in the 21st century. This course delves into Conversational AI, exploring its intricate relationship with communication and media theory. Students will delve into the intricate interplay between human interaction and AI, including the foundational groundwork required for constructing dialogues, and explore generative AI’s potential and limitations. By immersing ourselves in critical questions such as the necessity of bots and avatars, and their roles in mimicking human discourse, we embark on a journey to uncover the underlying motives.

We will focus on real-world case studies from business and education, enabling us to paint a holistic portrait of the vast Conversational AI landscape. In your final project, your team will present a prototype for a conversational AI solution for an existing company or new product.

Professor Bradshaw’s Content Design for Conversational AI class came at the perfect time in my career. The hands-on experience enabled me to transform our agency’s workflow with custom GPTs and other bleeding-edge AI tools, sparking rich discussions with my mentor about AI’s potential in our industry. When she later co-founded an AI-focused agency, the strategic understanding and technical confidence I gained in this class, combined with our years of trusted professional collaboration, made me the natural choice for Director of Content Strategy. The course’s practical approach continues to shape how we help clients create more personalized, engaging content experiences at scale.— Jakob Picciotto, MCDM Student

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COMMLD 582: Communicating Trust and Credibility for Emerging Technologies

(

Lohmann

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

MCDM Elective | Meets Law & Ethics Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 9/30 – 12/2, 9:00am – 1:00pm | Online
SLN: 23417

Course Description:

This course introduces students to the art of honestly advocating for emerging technologies such as AI, Big Data Analytics, and the Internet of Things. It provides a foundation to ensure students understand how to effectively inform stakeholders that these solutions are both useful, safe and align with values that prioritize the good of the community as a whole. Yet, there is 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 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? 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.

Meets Law & Ethics Requirement.

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COMMLD 583: Communications for Emerging Web Technologies

(

Tang

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

Track Neutral | 5 Credits
Saturdays 9:00am – 5:00pm, 9/28, 10/12, 10/26, 11/9, 11/23 | Online
Registration SLN: 13081

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 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 570D: Online Community Data Research

(

)

- 2025-2026 | Current Quarter | Spring 2026

Open Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays 4/2 – 6/4, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12422

Course Description:

Navigating online communities constitutes a large portion of what we experience as “the internet,” and yet understanding these communities is not always a straightforward or easy task. This course will explore the nature of online communities, different ways we can come to learn about them, and how we should think about handling the data we collect (and indeed, whether to collect it at all). Students will gain a basic social scientific foundation for thinking about communities and the affordances of computer mediated communication before surveying several established approaches to collecting and analyzing data produced by and about specific communities, including surveys, web scraping, and social listening/monitoring. 

Throughout, we will consider the ethical implications and demands of our work as researchers and professionals, emphasizing such values as respect for persons, prevention of harm, and beneficence. Students will conclude the course by developing group research projects using one or more of the methods we’ve learned together to answer a clearly defined research question and presenting their findings within a professional context.

Meets Research Methods 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 581A: Communications in the Age of AI

(

Schiller

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Sundays 1/12, 1/26, 2/9, 9:00am – 5:00pm | CMU 302
Registration SLN: 22146

Course Description

This class will teach frameworks for thinking about AI’s impact on communications work across enterprise organizations, and practical applications for integrating it into daily work. Students will learn how to use AI strategically – to increase agility and accelerate work – while protecting key objectives of clarity, authenticity, security, and employee engagement.

Note: This class assumes you have a basic understanding of the kinds of communications that typically occur in a professional organization. If you are totally new to corporate communications and have never worked in a communications environment, you can expect a steep learning curve.

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COMMLD 581: Leadership in Emerging Technologies & Trends: Communications in the Age of AI

(

Schiller

)

- 2025-2026 | Winter 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Sundays 1/11 (online), 1/18, 1/25, 2/1, 2/15, 9:00am – 5:00pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12664

Course Description:

AI is transforming how organizations communicate, and the skill gap is real. The 2025 World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report states that “On average, workers can expect that two-fifths (39%) of their existing skill sets will be transformed or become outdated over the 2025-2030 period.” AI and information processing technologies tops the list as the core drivers of this change.

This intensive class is about getting out in front. We’ll dive into the questions communication leaders are wrestling with right now: When should you use AI for comms and who should be empowered to use it? What are the risks if your team is unprepared, if you are too slow in adapting, or if you use it in inappropriate or ineffective ways? And how do you build policies and strategies that allow AI to accelerate work responsibly and ethically?

Students should come prepared for an intensive experience, with a full quarter’s work conducted over a 6-week time period. Class sessions will be fast-paced, hands-on, and grounded in real-world challenges. You’ll use multiple AI tools in class and for homework, debate outputs and scenarios, discuss best practices for decision-making, and hear from industry experts already implementing AI inside their organizations. The goal is to give you the tools and judgment to help you and your future employer navigate fast-evolving AI with confidence. 

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COMMLD 570E: Community & Engagement

(

)

- 2025-2026 | Current Quarter | Spring 2026

MCCN Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 4/1 – 6/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12423

Course Description

Our lives are defined by the communities we keep. So are organizations. To understand a company, audit the communities that faithfully buy their products. To understand a nonprofit organization, see who comes to their fundraisers or who relies on their services. To understand a public institution, observe their consistent user base. This can more broadly be understood as the culture of an institution: what it communicates by how it communicates.. Leadership—at all levels, across all sectors—involves informed and open engagement informed by that culture with the broader publics you serve. So designing meaningful community engagement that highlights organization culture is a crucial leadership skill.

This course will challenge you to reimagine community engagement practices and develop inventive strategies for bringing together stakeholders, constituents and audiences. You’ll learn time-tested frameworks that strive to build a sense of belonging and purpose, thus deepening alignment between leadership, organizational culture, and the communities they serve.

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COMMLD 570F: Collaboration Strategies for Social Change

(

)

- 2025-2026 | Current Quarter | Spring 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Mondays 3/30 – 6/1, 6:00pm – 8:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12424

Course Description

Social change requires organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to collaborate well. However, organizational leaders face many challenges in doing so. Cross-sector collaboration is a complex communicative process that underlies every aspect of societal change, at multiple levels and across many kinds of difference.  In this course, students will employ concepts from several fields to analyze and practice real-world instances of cross-sector collaboration, and develop the communication skills essential for interorganizational interactions that foster social change.

The centerpiece of the course is a 5-week simulation of collaborative decision-making conducted during class sessions. In the simulation, each student has a role in a (mock) multi-sector task force– situated in a fictional mountain town– that negotiates the creation of a wildfire mitigation safety plan. Through the simulation, students will apply knowledge gained from course readings, and develop skills in assessing other stakeholders’ needs and motives, building alliances, communicating constructively through disagreements, and negotiating multilateral agreements for the collective good.

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COMMLD 581: Communications in the Age of AI

(

)

- 2025-2026 | Current Quarter | Spring 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Sundays, 4/12, 4/19, 4/26, 5/3, 5/17, 9:00am – 5:00pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 21461

Course Description:

AI is transforming how organizations communicate, and the skill gap is real. The 2025 World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report states that “On average, workers can expect that two-fifths (39%) of their existing skill sets will be transformed or become outdated over the 2025-2030 period.” AI and information processing technologies tops the list as the core drivers of this change.

This intensive class is about getting out in front. We’ll dive into the questions communication leaders are wrestling with right now: When should you use AI for comms and who should be empowered to use it? What are the risks if your team is unprepared, if you are too slow in adapting, or if you use it in inappropriate or ineffective ways? And how do you build policies and strategies that allow AI to accelerate work responsibly and ethically?

Students should come prepared for an intensive experience, with a full quarter’s work conducted over a 6-week time period. Class sessions will be fast-paced, hands-on, and grounded in real-world challenges. You’ll use multiple AI tools in class and for homework, debate outputs and scenarios, discuss best practices for decision-making, and hear from industry experts already implementing AI inside their organizations. The goal is to give you the tools and judgment to help you and your future employer navigate fast-evolving AI with confidence. 

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COMMLD 520B: Qualitative Research for Social Media Marketing

(

S.Kim

)

- 2023-2024 | Winter 2024

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays 1/4 – 3/7, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 104
Registration SLN: 12626

Course Description

From selling the newest runway fashions to promoting donations to Greenpeace, successful online marketing campaigns and product launches often start with well planned qualitative research. This course offers a qualitative methodological perspective on how to conduct interviews and focus groups. This course explains the who, what, why and how of qualitative research with practical applications for those professionally interested in marketing, branding, and even user experience as well. Students will work throughout the quarter to design and implement their own qualitative research project.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 590A: Capstone Preparation: Research and Development

(

Porto Stockwell

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

Open Elective | 3 Credits
Thursdays 9/25 – 12/4, 6:00pm – 8:20pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 23416

Course Description:

This course builds a foundation in research design and practice to support the development of an impactful, and well-scoped research project. A range of research approaches will be introduced, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and emerging modes such as futures thinking. Students will begin by exploring existing academic and professional conversations to identify gaps, opportunities, and areas of relevance. From this foundation, they will learn to frame meaningful research questions, select appropriate methodologies, and design ethical, context-aware studies. The course also includes strategies for identifying relevant participants, stakeholders, audiences  and data sources aligned with research goals.
The primary outcome of the course is a complete research plan, which will serve as the foundation for students to continue the work through the academic year, culminating in the Spring Quarter Capstone class.

Credit/No Credit only.

A note on the Capstone: If you are an MCCL student, you will complete a Capstone project as part of the requirements for graduation. Capstone projects are a chance for you to develop a rigorous, in-depth portfolio project that demonstrates impact, whether social, organizational, community, or professional.

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© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington

© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington