As a Communications student, you’ll focus on understanding communication through the relationships between media, culture, language and technology. Our courses are organized into three areas of concentration:
1. Communication, Culture & Society
Uncover the cross-cultural and sociological dimensions of communication. For example, Introduction to Communication Studies explores the ways communication is intertwined with our lives, from technology and culture through politics, media and the environment.
2. Organizations & Communication
Learn how media and communications organizations operate, and how communication is used as a tool for organizing communities, societies and economies. Courses such as Social Media, Marketing & Advertising explore the hidden lives of data, the human right to privacy, and the mechanics of online marketing and advertising.
3. Technology & Communication
Get into the mechanics of communication. Courses such as Information & Technology study the use and development of communication technologies, their influence on societies, and how policy and regulatory mechanisms can affect them.
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Courses
Communications courses deal with the study of communication and how it manifests throughout ideas of media, culture, language and technology. The program is offered in English and French, and includes courses such as Digital Games as Communications, Methods in Communication Research, Social Media, Marketing & Advertising, Mediations & Conflicts, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Technoculture.
View course timetables on York University's site
View course timetable - Glendon Campus - Communications 2024-2025
Course Catalogue
COMS 1100 3.0 – METHODS IN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH
Course Description: This course introduces students to the major research paradigms and research methodologies in the field of communication studies.
Expanded Description: The foundation of all scholarly work is research. It’s how we generate the information that is turned into knowledge through thoughtful reasoning and analysis. Therefore, the question of HOW we generate this information is of paramount importance, as its quality and veracity is crucial to the arguments and conclusions we develop from it. The basic learning goals of this course are to develop an understanding of research methodologies commonly used in Communication Studies research. Students will develop a critical awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of these methodologies, and an understanding of how research methodologies are used properly and improperly. Students will also develop an expertise in the research processes and techniques you will be using in your own research projects as an undergraduate student, including effective library research skills, bibliographic preparation, web research, and so on.
COMS 1910 6.0 – INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Course Description: This course introduces the main sub-fields in communication studies and the approaches to studying them from the perspective of the individual, organizations, and society.
Expanded Description: Communication is core to our everyday lives. In this course, we explore key concepts and approaches to understanding communication practices, systems, and technologies from a critical perspective. Communication has been a key topic of study for several decades, and has been considered from the perspective of the individual, organizations, and at the societal level. We will examine the breadth of these diverse ways of thinking about communication and explore their significance in a range of contexts, from our everyday experiences through to our most powerful institutions. We will also consider the value of these theories for understanding cutting-edge, contemporary debates about communication media and technology. Overall, this introductory course aims to support students to build on their experiences as communicators to become critical thinkers about the role of communications in our world.
COMS 2000 3.0 – SOCIAL MEDIA, MARKETING AND ADVERTISING
Course Description: This course introduces students to the study of interactive, mobile and immediate communication forms (Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc.) in the service of marketing and the production of promotional material.
Expanded Description: This course examines the relationships between society and the computer–mediated communication technologies known as “social media”. By presenting the way that social media may take different forms, histories and uses this course will demonstrate how they can be both used to communicate and to disrupt communication; to inform and to misinform; to tell compelling stories and to promote goods and identities.
COMS 2002 3.0 – TECHNOLOGIES, INFORMATION AND SOCIETIES: QUESTIONING THE IMPACT OF COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
Course Description: This course examines the relationships between communication technologies, information and societies from different theoretical and analytical perspectives. Topics include theories of technological determinism and constructivism, political economy of communication technologies, gender and technology and the relationships between values and technology.
COMS 2003 3.0 – SOCIOPOLITICS OF MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGIES: LOOKING AT POWER CONTROL IN A TECHNOLOGICAL AGE
Course Description: This course addresses sociopolitical issues around media and technologies such as the increasing power of digital enterprises, politics of digital infrastructures, regulation and governance of the internet, intellectual property and commodification of knowledge, social inequalities and globalization of communication technologies.
COMS 2010 3.0 – PIXEL POWER: DIGITAL GAMES AS COMMUNICATIONS
Course Description: This course introduces students to key theories for and approaches to the study of digital games. We will consider the role and impact of games in communications by exploring their play, communities, production, and growing industries of streaming and eSports.
Expanded Description: Students in this course will be introduced to a range of theories for understanding digital games and their significance for communication studies. They will have multiple opportunities to apply these new concepts through participation activities that ask them to address key challenges in the field such as ongoing exclusion and designing for non-entertainment ends. They will also have the opportunity to examine emerging concepts in game studies through individual and team written assignments and presentations.
COMS 2100 3.0 – BEYOND WORDS: COMMUNICATIONS, LANGUAGES AND MEDIA
Course Description: This course explores how languages and media interact in the making of our cultural realities and institutional discourses. We will make use of multiple theoretical frameworks to illuminate different aspects of this issue.
Expanded Description: What is the relation between languages, media and communication? How do changes in media affect changes in the construction of meaning and in the way stories and identities circulate? How do different processes of meaning-making (visual, verbal, sensory) contribute to the production of our sense of self and our social realities? How are such realities contested and/or accepted? And what are the institutional, economic and political interests that underpin them? What happens when media move across linguistic and cultural boundaries?
These are some of the questions that emerge when we examine the intersections between communication, language(s) and media. Specifically, in this course we will explore how such intersections take place constantly in our daily lives. Through lectures, workshops, presentations and group discussions we will cultivate our critical awareness of how languages come to signify in their ongoing entanglement with the technologies and the places that shape them.
COMS 2200 3.0 – COMPUTER TOOLS AND APPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNICATION
Course Description: This course teaches computer applications used in communication for an understanding of computer and Internet architecture, use of databases for communication, advanced tools in office and collaborative work, with a critical eye to issues like security, accessibility and multi-platform communication.
Expanded Description: Communicating effectively today requires an understanding of the specific role computers play in mediating our messages, from the use of simple applications to social media and emerging communication platforms. In this course, we examine the effects of computerized media to focus on both the technical and culturally symbolic aspects of emerging electronic forms of communication.The course will begin by outlining notions of media, and then examine, practically, new infrastructures for communication. Since technology always implies the skillful use of tools, we will ultimately focus on building the analytic and practical heuristics you need to become better, more aware, communicators.
COMS 2205 3.0 – CREATING AND PROMOTING WEB CONTENT
Course Description: This course teaches tools and knowledge necessary to create, host and promote a website and its content, with the aim to develop skills to better bridge human needs and technological solutions.
Expanded Description: The World Wide Web is a an application that runs on network foundation, development and media platform, and, of course, a ubiquitous source of information. At its heart, the Web is about content and how it affects people, and this means content in various media forms including social connections. Increasingly, too, the Web creates both the repository and reflection of larger cultural concerns.The course builds on the concepts and techniques explored in COMS2200, and focuses on understanding how the web really works. Like COMS 2200, we will investigate content technologies in both a practical and theoretical fashion. We will start with HTML and its associated technologies, and end with site promotion. Along the way, students will create their own web site on a topic they choose.
GL/COMS 2300 3.0 – ATTENTION! INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL CONTENT CREATION
Course Description: This course explores contemporary practices in content creation in communications, introducing students to image and video production tools and techniques used to convey information to targeted audiences. Students develop skills in persuasion using professional and everyday social content creation tools.
Expanded Description: Students in this course will be introduced to a range of tools used to develop images, graphics, and videos in the contemporary communications. They will learn about the relationship between content creation and targeting messages to specific audiences in social media contexts. Students will gain hands-on experience using a range of software tools for social content creation in communications, from professional tools like Photoshop to everyday creation platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Through experiential education activities students will develop their persuasive skills in content creation based on the most contemporary aesthetics and techniques on social communication platforms today.
GL/COMS 2400 3.0 – BEYOND BINARIES; GENDER, MEDIA, AND COMMUNICATIONS
Cross-listed as GL/GWST 2400 3.0
Course Description: This course introduces students to core concepts for analyzing the relationship between gender and communications media and technologies. We explore gendered power dynamics in diverse communicative texts and communities as well as forms of resistance from an intersectional perspective.
Expanded Description: Students in this course will be introduced to core concepts for analyzing the relationship between gender and communications media and technologies. The course will take an intersectional approach to gender (considering gender alongside race, indigeneity, class, sexuality, age, religion and other key factors). It will also take a broad view of media and communication, considering gender at the levels of reception, representation and production as well as across contexts, media forms, and technological contexts. Students will have the opportunity to explore dominant norms in gender, media, and communication as well as resistant strategies through individual and group work.
COMS 2902 3.0 – IDEA, OPINION, ARGUMENT: RHETORIC FOR ACADEMIC SETTINGS
Cross-listed as EN 2902 3.0 and MODR 2902 3.0.
Course Description: This course introduces students to the theory and practice of effective persuasion in academic discourse. Focusing on written forms of persuasion from various fields, students will gain argumentative expertise by understanding the history and written techniques of rhetorical communication.
Expanded Description: This course addresses questions by examining the long history of the art of persuasion—rhetoric—as the foundation for a satisfactory answer. The course will show how rhetorical writing heuristics are an important foundation for academic discourse, and how these tools help shape compelling academic writing. Investigating attitudes about persuasion through the ages, students will also gain perspective on why argument itself is so important in the creation and expression of academic knowledge.
Further, this course will also emphasize the practical construction of written ideas and forms to hone students’ academic understanding. Students will gain the expertise they need to express themselves more appropriately, effectively and successfully. The course will follow a traditional learning format, with the course being equally split into lectures and in-class group or individual analysis, along with discussion of various persuasive texts. Because effective persuasive writing is closely tied with close reading and analytic practices, the course may incorporate documents from many fields. A special focus, however, will be on key argumentative structures from various disciplines in the Arts and Social Sciences.
COMS 3201 3.0 – BEYOND BORDERS AND BRIDGES: TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
Course Description: This course addresses implications related to communications, media and language in the context of globalization and increased international interactions. Issues of power relationships as well as theoretical perspectives will be in the focus of this course.
Expanded Description: All communication is globalized, circulating across borders and boundaries while also subject to local norms, laws, and practices. Coming to grips with these dynamics requires an engagement with case studies enabling critical reflection on relevant stakeholders, initiatives, and communities. To do so, in this class we engage with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and their entanglements with communications in specific contexts across the globe. As part of their final assignments, students will develop a critical response to the application of the SDG in their particular context, making policy recommendations informed by their case study.
COMS 3202 3.0 – THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO TECHNOCULTURE: DIGITAL DISCOURSE AND DESIGN
Course Description: This course looks at the delivery and reception of digital communication, focusing on effective visual and interaction design. A particular interest will be given to the ethical and cultural dimensions of design practices.
Expanded Description: This seminar-format course focuses on the ethical, political and socio-cultural dimensions of digital communications technologies. Course readings will explore the implications of digital design practices, and creative workshops will provide a means to work through digital design issues on a hands-on basis. Through a combination of seminar discussions, analytical writing exercises and creative design projects, students will critically examine and creatively remediate digital communication systems.
COMS 3203 3.0 – PRACTICES IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS
Course Description: This course focuses on the importance of culture in our everyday lives, and the ways in which culture interrelates with and affects communication processes. The course provides theoretical, methodological and practical insights into intercultural communication.
Expanded Description: From its inception in the American Foreign Service in the aftermath of the Second World War, right up into the present, intercultural communication has proven somewhat enigmatic as a field of study. While the initial practitioners of this field were convinced that there were a few common traits shared by all cultures that could be learned to successfully communicate between cultures in an interdependent world of nations, this initial confidence would prove short-lived; it turns out that both “culture” and what it might mean to “communicate” between cultures has been thrown into doubt. Adding to this uncertainty, it is less than clear that in our era of extensive global flows of people, capital, goods, and information (and viruses!), that national cultures can be said to exist as stable entities. Despite extensive intercultural contact, significant disparities of wealth, power, and status remain factors that serve to make the assumptions of a seamless transmission of information across cultural divides less certain than ever.
This course provides an overview of the field of intercultural communication. Since what falls under this topic is quite broad, the course will present a thematic overview of different approaches to intercultural communications rather than take a single perspective.
COMS 3208 3.0 – CAN THEORY SAVE THE PLANET? EMERGENT IDEAS/IDÉES ÉMERGENTES 1
This course is bilingual (French/English).
Course Description: This bilingual course is the first of two courses offering an overview of new ideas in communications and media studies. Il examine la pertinence des théories aujourd'hui et explore les problèmes de communication dans un contexte de transformations politiques et d'activisme. Prerequisite: GL/COMS 1910 6.00 or GL/COMS 1000 6.00. Course credit exclusion: GL/COMS 3207 6.00.
Expanded Description: Why should anyone care about theory? Instead of abstract ideas about media and communication, would it not be more relevant to acquire specific competencies and transferable skills? This course makes the argument that our current situation requires a renewed understanding of theory as action and of thinking as embodied orientation. Specifically, theory will be examined as a form of storytelling. This course will further call for the production of contemporary stories about and with the means of digital media. In this way, Emergent Ideas in Communications will also be about making ideas and taking creative action.
COMS 3209 3.0 – THE PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD IS THE MESSAGE: EMERGENT IDEAS/IDÉES ÉMERGENTES 2
This course is bilingual (French/English).
Course Description: This is the second of two courses offering an overview of new ideas in communications and media studies. Il examine comment les communications et médias façonnent notre monde à partir d'une variété de perspectives novatrices. Prerequisite: GL/COMS 3208 3.00. Course credit exclusion: GL/COMS 3207 6.00.
Expanded Description: Through an examination of a series of contemporary issues, technologies, and their social ramifications, this course advances a theoretical appreciation of our changing present. This course continues the investigation of theories of Communication Studies begun in 3208. It builds on the theoretical investigation of communication by examining a series of topics of concern to Communication Studies scholars in our present. Where 3208 was devoted to the topic of theory itself, 3209 turns its attention to the issues of the present moment. While this might suggest a more “real world” or more practical approach, this course also examines these issues through the lens of communication theory; in this sense the course should be regarded as cumulative, presupposing the theoretical framework of the first term.
COMS 3310 3.0 – PROBLEMS IN PROFESSIONAL WRITING
Cross-listed as TRAN 3310 3.0
Course Description: Students learn to problem-solve through writing, the essence of good professional communication. They learn to select information for a given audience and choose effective language for the needs of government, business, and industry.
COMS 3605 3.0 – VIDEO GAME LOCALIZATION
Cross-listed as TRAN 3605 3.0
Course Description: This course examines the localization of video games, introducing students to the localization industry, multimedia platforms and entertainment software. It investigates the localization and cultural adaptation of video games and related materials, including manuals, advertisements, and product packaging.
COMS 3806 6.0 – DIGITAL MEDIA AND PUBLISHING
Cross-listed as EN 3806 6.0
Course Description: This experiential course gives students the opportunity to develop skills in writing, editing and digital production that will allow them to design and produce a digital arts and culture magazine.
COMS 4200 3.0 – DISSÉMINATION DES CONNAISSANCES: TALKING TABOOS AND BREAKING NEWS
This course is bilingual (French/English).
Course Description: This course examines information, knowledge and epistemic formation and diffusion through contemporary case-studies. / Ce cours explore la création et la diffusion d'informations, de connaissances et de systèmes de savoir à travers des études de cas contemporains.
Expanded Description: This course examines the distinction between information and knowledge from the perspective of issues pertaining to processes of transfer and diffusion. The course analyses the variety of contexts and conditions of reception associated with a diversity of publics and audiences. We look at serious contemporary issues: femicide (Canadian, Mexican), the recent rise of white fascism in North America, the North American opioid epidemic and more as a means of examining real-life situations and knowledge dissemination contexts.
COMS 4201 3.0 – FAIL. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER. MEDIATIONS AND CONFLICTS
Course Description: This course examines communication dynamics in inter-individual and transnational conflicts. It exposes the ambiguity of communication processes that can feed conflicts and resolve them. It introduces students to theories and practices regarding conflict management, especially in regard to mediation tactics and strategies.
Expanded Description: Apparent failure to communicate, it could be argued, is not always to be overcome, corrected, avoided or fixed. Just like the way an obstacle can expose the path it is blocking in a new light, incommunicability may be just the occasion to think about something that remained unthought. Furthermore, this heuristic nature of failures may have more to do with Samuel Beckett’s “Fail. Fail again. Fail better.” than about Paul Watzlawick’s first axiom “one cannot not communicate”.
COMS 4202 3.0 – BOÎTES À OUTILS POUR LES COMMUNICATIONS D’AUJOURD’HUI : ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH METHODS
This course is bilingual (French/English).
Course Description: This bilingual course introduces students to advanced research methodologies and research tools in the field of communication studies. Students design and conduct their own research projects. Ce cours bilingue initie les étudiants aux méthodologies et aux outils de recherche avancée en communications. Ils conçoivent et réalisent leurs propres projets de recherche. Prerequisite/Condition préalable : GL/COMS 1100 3.00.
Expanded Description: This course builds on the foundations of COMS1100, Methods in Communication Research. We explore a large variety of qualitative methods and tools for conducting research in different online, archival and interpersonal contexts. The course also involves the development of data collection instruments and techniques for their respective data processing as guided by research ethics. Single method, triangulation or mixed method approaches are discussed with emphasis on approaches to gathering, analysis and presentation of data. Students have the option to build on work developed in previous classes such as Knowledge Dissemination and Contemporary Theory, learning how to apply methodological tools to theoretical frameworks to design and conduct a cohesive advanced research project. The class is highly participatory and will consist largely of hands-on seminars and workshops.
COMS 4208 3.0 – DREAMING OF ELECTRIC SHEEP: EMERGENT PRACTICES IN COMMUNICATIONS 1
Course Description: This is the first of two courses offering an overview of emerging practices in communication & media technologies. This course focuses on trends in web-based innovations as well as on new forms of interpersonal and mobile communication.
Expanded Description: This course explores a range of emergent practices in the communication and media landscape. While ‘emergence’ would suggest newness, novelty, or wholly unprecedented activities, in this class we focus on contextualizing the complexity of the technologies, platforms, and practices that constitute contemporary trends in communication, linking the online to the offline, the digital to the analog, and the virtual to the material. Working from the starting point that nothing is actually entirely new when it comes to ‘new media’ or digital technologies, we examine the social, political, cultural, and economic contexts in which these emergent practices are embedded and what they maintain as much as what they disrupt. In addition to critical reading, thinking, and writing, we will engage in this class in critical making that allows students to tell creative stories about emergent practices in communications.
COMS 4209 3.0 – ANOTHER END OF THE WORLD IS POSSIBLE: EMERGENT PRACTICES IN COMMUNICATIONS 2
Course Description: This is the second of two courses offering an overview of emerging practices in communication & media technologies. This course examines how emerging trends in communications and media impact our personal, social, and political lives.
Expanded Description: This is the second of two courses offering an overview of emerging practices in communication & media technologies. This course examines how emerging trends in communications and media impact our personal, social, and political lives. This first ever version of the class will dive into the field of environmental sensing – the use of digital sensors to interpret the world around us. We’ll be doing this through building and using a network of air quality monitors, learning about work/health/safety policy and working collaboratively on a project or projects to be determined.
COMS 4310 3.0 – TECHNIQUES IN BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL WRITING
Cross-listed as TRAN 4310 3.0
Course Description: Builds on the skills learned in GL/TRAN 3310 3.00. Students learn to direct their writing to a given audience, to begin to work with layout and design of documents, and develop the skills required by team and project writing.
COMS 4605 3.0 – TEXTS AND BEYOND: ADAPTING BOOKS, ADS, FILMS, AND VIDEO GAMES
Cross-listed as TRAN 4605 3.0
Course Description: This course offers a wide perspective on adaptation, focusing not just on how it pertains to translation, but also on how content is rewritten for different cultural and generational audiences and for different media: video games, film, songs, social media, etc.
Note: students should have the ability to read and understand texts written in English and at least one other language.
COMS 3800, COMS 4800 & COMS 4805 – INTERNSHIP IN COMMUNICATIONS
COMS Internships are off-campus experiential learning activities designed to provide students with opportunities to make connections between the theory and practice of academic study and the practical application of that study in a professional work environment. Internships offer the opportunity to “try out” a career while gaining relevant experience and professional connections. Internships are available in both French and English, and are completed under the guidance of an on-site supervisor (i.e. a representative for the workplace where the internship takes place), who in combination with the student will create a framework for learning and reflection.
Learning Objectives:
The main objective of the Communications Internship is career education and personal development through a combination of work in a professional setting and reflective analysis. The student will spend a limited time in a workplace, working under the supervision of media and digital professionals. The minimum number of hours needed for the work experience to qualify as an internship is 120 hours, working either full-time or part-time. They will have an opportunity to learn skills unique to their field; they will gain valuable insider knowledge about their industry and meet the people who may someday be their co-workers and/or supervisors, gaining advantage in the job market. Simultaneously, the student will engage in reflection-analysis, thus testing and enhancing their personal development.
- An understanding of how liberal arts coursework ties to professional careers of interest;
- Gain insight into a possible career path of interest while learning about the industry in which the organization resides, organizational structure, and roles and responsibilities within that structure;
- Develop professional connections and identify a strategy for maintaining those connections.
COMS 2000 3.00 – SOCIAL MEDIA, MARKETING AND ADVERTISING (S2 | ONLN)
Course Description: This course introduces students to the study of interactive, mobile and immediate communication forms (Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc.) in the service of marketing and the production of promotional material.
COMS 2000 3.00 – LES MÉDIAS SOCIAUX, LA PUBLICITÉ ET LE MARKETING (S2 | ONLN)
Description du cours : Ce cours initie les étudiants à l'étude des modes de communication interactifs, mobiles et intermédiaires (Twitter, Youtube, blogs, etc.) au service du marketing et de la production de matériel de promotion.
COMS 3203 3.0 – PRACTICES IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS (S1 | ONLN)
Course Description: This course focuses on the importance of culture in our everyday lives, and the ways in which culture interrelates with and affects communication processes. The course provides theoretical, methodological and practical insights into intercultural communication.
COMS 3800 3.0 – APPRENDRE EN FAISANT/LESS READING, MORE DOING: WORK PLACEMENT/PLACEMENT EN MILIEU DE TRAVAIL I (SU)
Course Description: This internship gives students the opportunity to gain work or research experience outside the University, in Canada or abroad, during one semester. Students must work a minimum of 80 hours. A faculty member supervises and grades the internship.
COMS 4201 3.0 – FAIL. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER. MEDIATIONS AND CONFLICTS (S1 | ONLN)
Course Description: This course examines communication dynamics in interindividual and transnational conflicts. It exposes the ambiguity of communication processes that can feed conflicts and resolve them. It introduces students to theories and practices regarding mediation tactics and strategies.
COMS 4208 3.0 – DREAMING OF ELECTRIC SHEEP: EMERGENT PRACTICES IN COMMUNICATIONS 1 (S2 | ONLN)
Course Description: This is the first of two courses offering an overview of emerging practices in communication & media technologies. This course focuses on trends in web-based innovations as well as on new forms of interpersonal and mobile communication.
COMS 4800 3.0 – DE LA CARTE AU TERRITOIRE - FROM MAP TO TERRITORY: WORK PLACEMENT/PLACEMENT EN MILIEU DE TRAVAIL II (SU)
Course Description: This internship gives students the opportunity to gain work or research experience outside the University, in Canada or abroad, during one semester. Students must work a minimum of 120 hours. A faculty member supervises and grades the internship.
Degree Types
Communications offers the following degree types and certificates:
- Specialized Honours BA/iBA
- Honours BA/iBA
- Bachelor of Arts
- Minor
The Communications program is available as a bilingual or trilingual International Bachelor of Arts.
Certificate in Technical & Professional Communication
Make the world more accessible. As a technical and professional writer, you’ll put scientific and technical information into easily understandable language.
Other Program Details
Join GLCSA — Our Student Association
For students majoring or minoring in Communications (or taking three credits in the program), the Glendon Communications Student Association, or GLCSA, offers opportunities to meet your classmates, learn new skills and get peer support.
Discover the careers some of our alumni have excelled in, and find out how their experience at Glendon gave them an advantage in the job market.