Areas of Concentration in the Communication Discipline

There are many subject matters encompassed in the field of communication. While areas differ from program to program, some of the most common include:

• Applied Communication: The study of processes used to analyze communication needs of organizations and social interaction, including the design of training to improve communication between supervisors and employees.
• Communication Education: The study of speech communication in the classroom and other pedagogical contexts.
• Communication Sciences and Disorders: The study of the physiological and acoustical components of speech and hearing behavior, including audiology and phonetics.
• Communication Theory: The study of principles that account for the impact of communication in human social interaction.
• Family Communication: The study of communication unique to family systems.
• Gender Communication: The study of gender differences and similarities in communication and the unique characteristics of male-female communication.
• Health Communication: The study of communication as it relates to health professionals and health education; includes the study of provider-client interaction as well as the diffusion of health information through public health campaigns.
• International and intercultural Communication: The study of communication among individuals of different cultural backgrounds, including the study of similarities and differences across cultures.
• Interpersonal Communication: The study of communication behaviors in dyads and their impact on personal relationships.
• Language and Social Interaction: The study of the structure of verbal and nonverbal behaviors occuring in social interaction.
• Legal Communication: The study of the role of communication as it relates to the legal system.
• Mass Communication: The study of the uses, processes, and effects of mediated communication.
• Mediation and Dispute Resolution: The study for the understanding, management, and resolution of conflict in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup situations.
• Organizational Communication: The study of information flow within an organization and the impact of communication on individuals entering, working in, and exiting an organization.
• Performance Studies: The study of communication as performance, including its components of performer(s), text, audience, and context.
• Political Communication: The study of the role that communication plays in political systems.
• Public Address: The study of speakers and speeches, including the historical and social context of platforms, campaigns, and movements.
• Public Relations: The study of the management of communication between an organization and its audiences.
• Rhetorical Criticism: The study of principles that account for the impact of human communication between speaker and audience.
• Semiotics: The use of verbal and nonverbal symbols and signs in human communication.
• Small Group Communication: The study of communication systems among three or more individuals who interact around a common purpose and who influence one another.
• Speech Communication: The study of the nature, processes, and effects of human symbolic interaction. While speech is the most obvious mode of communication, human symbolic interaction includes a variety of verbal and nonverbal codes.
• Theatre and Drama: The study and production of dramatic literature.
• Visual Communication: The study of visual data, such as architecture, photography, visual art, advertising, film, and television as it relates to communication.

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