3 Communication Studies
Advanced Professional Communication
Description: This open textbook supports the learning outcomes of Fanshawe College’s Advanced Professional Communications curriculum (COMM 6019). This resource is designed to guide college students in advancing their existing skills in communication by using a principled approach to business communication for managerial and leadership success in the modern workplace.
Be Credible
Description: This textbook, therefore, is the result of a collaboration between journalism and library faculty. It is an illustration of what happens when concepts developed in library science and instruction get applied to a specific field, in this case, journalism education. Our overarching intent in writing this book was to help undergraduate journalists develop the skills and a skeptical stance for accessing, evaluating, and using information, and in the process, to build their own authority as credible communication practitioners.
We were grateful to receive an Open Educational Resources Grant from the University of Kansas Libraries, which partially funded the production and promotion of this textbook. Josh Bolick and Ada Emmet in the Schulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright helped to inspire this textbook’s possibility and supported its creation.
Business Communication for Success
Description: Business Communication for Success (BCS) provides a comprehensive, integrated approach to the study and application of written and oral business communication to serve both student and professor. For questions about this textbook please contact textbookuse@umn.edu
Communication @ Work
Description: Whereas most commercial textbooks on communications maintain a high level of formality, this open textbook relaxes that a little to include contractions, colourful expressions, liberal use of “they” (rather than “he or she”) as a singular pronoun, and other characteristics of semi-formal or casual business writing. The idea is to model the style of a common email between work colleagues, which imitates a conversational business style of writing while still being grammatically correct. Notice in the previous sentence and section, for instance, that “email” and “internet” appear instead of the more formal, old-fashioned “e-mail” and “Internet” often used in other textbooks. For this, we take our cue from style guides in leading tech publications and international news organizations that trend towards lowercasing and de-branding the terms (Martin, 2016). See unit 13 on the formality spectrum in professional writing for more on the editorial decision to model a casual style for accessibility reasons.
Communication in the Real World
Description: Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies overviews the time-tested conceptual foundations of the field, while incorporating the latest research and cutting-edge applications of these basics. Each chapter will include timely, concrete, and real-life examples of communication concepts in action. For questions about this textbook please contact textbookuse@umn.edu
Communication Studies
Description: Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2013 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative.
Communication Theory
Description: This communication studies text has been positively-reviewed and has been successfully adopted by other faculty. It covers introductory concepts in communication theory, from reduction to the network society.
Includes: instructor resources, student resources, applications, summaries, exercises, solutions, and group activities.
Effective Professional Communication: A Rhetorical Approach
Authors: Rebekah Bennetch; Corey Owen; and Zachary Keesey
Description: Welcome to Effective Professional Communication, your text book for the RCM 200 course at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
As you already know, this course focuses on communicating in professional environments. Even if you haven’t held a job before, you know–at least on a basic level–that how you communicate changes depending on the context of your situation; specifically, you talk differently when you speak to customers/clients versus your co-workers versus your supervisors.
Our goal in this text is to break down the communication process in professional environments so you can maximize your chance to get hired and retain your job once you graduate from university. We will do this by looking at communication through political, rhetorical, ethical, and interpersonal lenses and applying this knowledge to your future career.
Elements of Public Speaking
Description: Public speaking is the process of designing and delivering a message to an audience. Effective public speaking involves understanding your audience and speaking goals, choosing elements for the speech that will engage your audience with your topic, and delivering your message skillfully. Good public speakers understand that they must plan, organize, and revise their material in order to develop an effective speech. This book will help you understand the basics of effective public speaking and guide you through the process of creating your own presentations. We’ll begin by discussing the ways in which public speaking is relevant to you and can benefit you in your career, education, and personal life.
The Evolving World of Public Relations: Beyond the Press Release
Description: This text is provided to you as an Open Educational Resource (OER) which you access online. It is designed to give you a comprehensive introduction to public relations at no or very nominal cost. It contains both written and graphic text material, intra-text links to other internal material which may aid in understanding topics and concepts, intra-text links to the appendices and glossary for tables and definitions of words, and extra-text links to videos and web material that clarifies and augments topics and concepts.
360 Essentials: A Beginner’s Guide to Immersive Video Storytelling
Authors: Joshua Cameron; Gary Gould; and Adrian Ma
Description: We are multimedia instructors, researchers and content producers based at Ryerson University in Toronto. We couldn’t help but notice that interest in 360 video and virtual reality has really skyrocketed in recent years and some amazing content is being created. We have been exploring and experimenting with 360-degree video, photography and spatial audio recording, and figuring out how these elements can be used to create incredible, immersive experiences. From capturing special events that give you the best seat in the house to producing virtual reality documentaries that make you feel like you’re actually there, creating 360 video and virtual reality (VR) content can be an exciting and uniquely engaging form of storytelling.
There are so many potential applications for 360 video and VR, including for journalism and documentary content, exciting marketing content, engaging educational experiences or just to simply capture the world around you. And thanks to rapid innovations in technology, creating this stuff is easier and cheaper than you may think.
Our objective with this resource is to walk you through the essential steps in creating compelling and engaging 360 video experiences. While some prior experience with photography or videography can help, the technology available now gives anybody the ability to produce this type of amazing content.
Exploring Communication in the Real World
Description: This edition of Exploring Communication in the Real World (2020) was adapted by Christopher Miller and Mia Poston for use in Communication Studies courses at the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL. It is distributed with a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA.
Exploring Interpersonal Dynamics Through Role Play
Authors: Catherine Jenkins; Kevin Hobbs; and Joe Norris
Description: Exploring Interpersonal Dynamics Through Role Play provides educators with the foundational materials required to facilitate simulations for students and professionals. Simulations offer an intensive form of experiential learning and professional development, allowing participants to apply concepts to practical scenarios in real time. This ebook contains simulations in business, healthcare, crisis communication and de-escalation. Learning materials include information for preparation, the simulation scenarios and prompts, video examples of how a simulation might run, as well as information on debriefing, additional resources, and possible assignments.
Humans R Social Media – Open Textbook Edition
Description: Social media and humans exist in a world of mutual influence, and humans play central roles in how this influence is mediated and transferred. Originally created by University of Arizona Information scholar Diana Daly, this Third Edition of the book Humans are Social Media uses plain language and features contributions by students to help readers understand how we as humans shape social media, and how social media shapes our world in turn.
Information Strategies for Communicators
Description: The definitive text for the information search and evaluation process as practiced by news and strategic communication message producers. Currently used at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication; JOUR 3004W/V, Information for Mass Communication.
Introduction to Communication
Description: Many colleges and universities around the country require students to take some type of communication course in order to graduate. Introductory Communication classes include courses on public speaking, interpersonal communication, or a class that combines both. While these are some of the most common introductory Communication courses, many Communication departments are now offering an introductory course that explains what Communication is, how it is studied as an academic field, and what areas of specialization make up the field of Communication. In other words, these are survey courses similar to courses such as Introduction to Sociology or Introduction to Psychology. Our goal in this text is to introduce you to the field of Communication as an academic discipline of study.
Introduction to Professional Communications
Description: No matter your field, having professional communication skills is essential to success in today’s workplace. This book covers key business communications topics that will help you in your career, including intercultural communication, team work, professional writing, audience analysis and adapting messages, document formatting, oral communication, and more.
Introduction to Professional Communications was adapted and remixed by Melissa Ashman from several open textbooks as indicated at the end of each chapter. Unless otherwise noted, Introduction to Professional Communications is (c) 2018 by Melissa Ashman and is licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. In 2019, the textbook was updated. In 2020, minor updates were done to chapter 5.2 The adaptation statement below and all chapter attribution statements have been updated accordingly.
In Introduction to Professional Communications, examples have been changed to Canadian references, and information throughout the book, as applicable, has been revised to reflect Canadian content and language. Gender neutral language (they/their) has been used intentionally. In addition, while general ideas and content may remain unchanged from the sources from which this adapted version is based, word choice, phrasing, and organization of content within each chapter may have changed to reflect this author’s stylistic preferences.
Media, Society, Culture and You
Description: This communications studies text has been positively-reviewed and has been successfully adopted by other faculty. It covers introductory concepts in communications & multimedia, from social media to the fall of gaming.
Includes: instructor resources, student resources, applications, summaries, exercises, solutions, and group activities.
Organizational Communication
Author: Julie Zink, Ph.D and Zink, Julie
Description: This course provides an overview of the principles and practices of organizational communication. Using familiar, real-world examples to help you connect theory to practice, the themes of systems, culture, power, and how to develop various communication skills for the workplace will be explored. Highlights of the class include: working on conflict management and leadership skills, dealing with crisis communication, understanding the nature of power in organizations, establishing confirming communication climates, enhancing creativity, and managing meetings. By developing an awareness of your own communication style and adapting that style to a variety of interpersonal communication settings in the workplace, it is the goal of this class for your organizational communication skills to improve.
Professional Communications
Description: This open textbook has been compiled, edited and partially adapted by faculty from the School of Language and Liberal Studies at Fanshawe College by using existing open educational sources available through a Creative Commons ShareAlike attribution licence.
If sections of this resource appear to contain several styles of writing and/or voice, then that’s intentional! As a compilation, we have attempted to gather sources that not only reflect and reinforce the core teaching and learning methodologies we use in our professional communications curriculum, but also to mirror the often collaborative nature of professional communication itself.
Stand up, Speak out
Description: Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking features two key themes. First it focuses on helping students become more seasoned and polished public speakers, and second is its emphasis on ethics in communication. It is this practical approach and integrated ethical coverage that sets Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking apart from the other texts in this market. For questions about this textbook please contact textbookuse@umn.edu
Telling Our Stories
Description: Telling Our Stories: Student Experiences at UW Tacoma is a collection of video stories and reflections, created by undergraduate students in TCOM 347: Television Criticism & Application. Students worked in teams to document and produce short digital stories highlighting the experiences of other UW-Tacoma students with regards to one or various aspects of their identity, whether related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability, place of origin, etc. With the goal of understanding how students’ identity, and overall way of seeing the world, affect their college experience. Through this work, students engaged in conversation about their own social identities and their positionality in relationship to the people they are interviewing.
Trends in Digital & Social Media (V14)
Description: Social media, digital devices, and networked communication systems have entered our collective bloodstream. This e-book touches upon the human experience of contemporary trends that affect how we perceive ourselves, others, and society.
Understanding Media and Culture
Description: This media studies course is positively-reviewed and has been successfully adopted by other faculty. It covers introductory concepts in media and culture, from the modernization to the violence in media.
Includes: instructor resources, student resources, applications, summaries, exercises, solutions, and group activities.
Understanding Media and Culture
Description: Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, will support an engaging and interesting course experience for students that will not only show them the powerful social, political and economic forces will affect the future of media technology, but will challenge students to do their part in shaping that future. For questions about this textbook please contact textbookuse@umn.edu
Visual Communication
Author: Steve Covello
Description: A General Education textbook for the study of visual rhetoric
Writing for Strategic Communication Industries
Description: Good writing skills are important in today’s competitive work environment. This is especially the case for communication-related professions such as public relations, brand communication, journalism, and marketing.