Welcome

Letter from the Program Director

Welcome to the web site for the Communication and Culture Program, a unique interdisciplinary major at Clark University.

As a major, you will study the role of communication in culture. You will learn new ways of thinking about communication, and explore topics as diverse as the effects of mass media, the creation of nationalism and nationalist symbols, gender and language development, and new media technologies. As a COMM student, you will develop critical and analytical skills for understanding the role of communication in your own life and in larger society.

Unlike the Communications program at most colleges, our curriculum is not primarily technical or skills-based. Though we offer credit for production classes, our goals are analytical: to understand how communications processes work, whether in an argument between friends or in a political speech. At Clark, you might study how the dress of Asian women in London has become culturally charged and powerfully coded, or how images of "tough girls" are used in American movies.

Our program studies communication at the intersection of many disciplines – including history, linguistics, urban education, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and the fine arts – drawing from both humanistic and social-scientific modes of inquiry to examine fundamental communication processes and effects. Clark’s global, international character offers many opportunities for our students to think about, and to shape the impact of communication throughout the world.

For more information about the program, please contact me at mmalsky@clarku.edu or Lisa Coakley, program assistant, at 508-793-7180 or through e-mail at lcoakley@clarku.edu.

Thank you for visiting,

Matt Malsky