Specializations

Specializations: Focus Your Degree

The Communication Leadership program offers eight areas of specialization to help you focus your studies towards a specific career goal.

Content Strategy & UX

The skills you’ll need for a career in user research, user experience, and content strategy.

Electives relate to content and product strategy for organizations and brands, user research, data science, and user experience and brand development.

Job Titles: Content Strategist, User Experience Designer, UX Researcher

Sample Courses: Introduction to User Centered Design; User Research and UX Strategies; Decision Science and Content Strategy

Storytelling

Learn to produce stories and campaigns that promote organizations, products and causes.

Electives include video and audio production classes, as well as courses on strategic storytelling for organizations and businesses.

Job Titles: Chief Storyteller, Videographer, Podcast Producer

Sample Courses: Foundations of Video Storytelling; Storytelling and Communication for Mission-Driven Organizations; Foundations of Audio Storytelling

Organizational & Professional Communication

Create change in an organization, manage internal communications and improve institutional protocols.

Elective courses include best practices for internal and external communication, diversity and inclusion communication strategies, and change management.

Job Titles: Chief Operations Officer, Employee Engagement Coordinator, Inclusion Strategist

Sample Courses: Leadership Approaches to Equity Initiatives in Organizations; Crisis Communication; Distributed and Diverse Teams

Ethics & Law

Explore the connections between ethical behavior, communications and legal frameworks.

Electives in this specialization relate to digital media law, crisis communications, and the law and ethics of community building.

Job Titles: Crisis Communication Manager, Risk Analyst

Sample Courses: Law, Data, and Privacy; Ethical Questions of Big Data; The Law and Ethics of Community Building

Communication & Culture

Understanding community dynamics and build sustained change through advocacy, community-building, and leadership.

Courses touch on civic advocacy movement-building, ethnography, and individualized research.

Job Titles: Community Organizer, Campaign Strategist, Brand Ethnographer, Researcher

Sample Courses: Qualitative Research in Communities and Organizations; Communication for Advocacy; Communication for Change Management

Community & Leadership

Understand leadership development, management dynamics and how to inspire teams through communication.

Electives explore leadership techniques like listening, understanding stakeholders and successfully conveying ideas to an audience.

Job Titles: CEO, Executive Director

Sample Courses: Listening and Leadership; Digital Cross-Cultural Storytelling for Leadership and Global Networking; Stakeholder Mindset and Communication

Emergent Technologies & Trends

For early adopters, explorers, and futurists who want to enable ethical, effective implementation of new tech.

Classes explore the near horizon, keeping you ahead of emerging challenges like Artificial Intelligence and Big Data

Job Titles: Futurist, Market Researcher, Tester

Sample Courses: Communicating Trust and Credibility for Emerging Technologies; Storytelling for Emergent Platforms; Techwashed: Technology, Hype, Truth, and Ethics in the Age of AI

Listing Your Specialization

A specialization(s) is not a formal concentration, and does not appear on a final transcript. Completing a minimum of 15 credits in a specialization warrants claiming that specialization on your resume.

For one specialization:

Master of Communication in Digital Media, University of Washington, March 2024

Specialization in Marketing & Branding

For more than one specialization:

Master of Communication in Communities and Networks, University of Washington, March 2024

Specializations in Storytelling and Organizational & Professional Communication