Program Overview

The M.A. program in Communication and Social Justice offers students a unique opportunity to pursue their scholarly interests in an environment conducive to addressing issues of social justice. The University of Windsor, as a whole, adopted social justice as a major focus for teaching and research and the graduate faculty in the Department of Communication, Media and Film  is committed to facilitating and nurturing that focus. Communication and Social Justice entails historical, institutional, political-economic and socio-cultural analyses as to how rights and communicative practices have been defined and transformed, how they have evolved, and how they have been contested and reapportioned, whether through policy/law or culture and custom, in conjunction with patterns of control over evolving technologies and media systems.

In particular, the M.A. in Communication and Social Justice bridges two main approaches to the study of communications, media and culture—namely, Political Economy and Critical Cultural Studies. The political economy of communication, as it has developed within the broader field of Communication Studies, has typically concerned itself with how policies, regulations, technologies, media institutions, laws, and concentrations of wealth and power affect communicatory activities, and conversely the ways in which communicatory practices affect political and economic power and the structuring of society. Critical Cultural Studies has emerged as an area that focuses on cultural practices, media texts/ narratives and issues of representation, and cultural production/consumption. Taken together, these two approaches complement and inform one another since both impact the ways in which people interpret their everyday communicative and symbolic environments.

Topic areas pertaining to Communication and Social Justice include:

• Media representations—i.e. class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.
• Media ownership and control
• Communication technology and the rise of the global economy
• Global media systems and geopolitical power/wealth
• Cultural production/consumption and identity
• Communication networks, alternative media and social movements
• Social and cultural influence of advertising and consumer culture
• Commodification of information, communication, and culture
• Propaganda, persuasion, censorship
• Communication policy, law and regulation
• Communicative dimensions of democracy and justice

Through advanced course work and research, the M.A. program will:

• Prepare students for careers in such information/communication sectors as: community-based public advocacy organizations, governmental and non-governmental organizations, communication policy analysis, media research, journalism and multimedia
• Prepare students to better understand and critically appraise the evolving social, cultural, political and technological environment
• Prepare students for entry into PhD programs in Communication and cognate fields

For additional detailed information regarding the Graduate Program, please contact the 2012 - 2013 our Graduate Chair, Dr. Jyotika Virdi virdi@uwindsor or the Graduate Secretary.