North Quad - Future Home of the Department of Communication Studies
                                        Expected Completion - 2010

Faculty in our department focus on the study of the mass media and new communication technologies. Our courses examine their impact, their uses by everyday people, their management by political and economic elites, their history, and their regulation and institutional structures. The mass media have become some of the most powerful institutions in American society and, indeed, the world. They affect every aspect of our lives--how we think, what we believe, how governments are run, who we choose as our leaders, what is seen as success and failure, and what we regard as just and unjust. Thus, at Michigan, we emphasize four crucial reasons for studying the mass media and new media: their centrality to every day life and public policy; their enormous influence on our culture and those around the world; their role in shaping our individual and collective identities, including our attitudes toward others; and their ability to advance or thwart democracy.

Our goal is to cultivate a thoroughgoing media literacy among our students so that they can navigate the media-saturated environment that surrounds them and become more sophisticated consumers and producers of media fare. Our courses emphasize critical thinking and seek to develop a portfolio of analytical skills that will benefit students throughout their lives in whatever careers they choose. Through our research and writing, the faculty also seek to advance public understanding of the impact of the mass media and new media on our country and the world under the broad frameworks of communication and the public interest and the media and individual and group identities.