Online Public Communication

We encounter public communication today almost exclusively through media, and increasingly through online channels. Mass political campaigns, appeals for social causes, marketing messages, and even our professional presentations have shifted from in-person to online contexts. We create many of our relationships online, do much of our jobs online, express our interests and feelings online, and even take up our political causes online.

This course is an introduction to the best practices in online public communication and the theories that explain and guide those practices. By studying the foundations of spoken communication, including the principles of persuasion and delivery, this course empowers students to better evaluate, create, perform, and distribute public discourse online.

Course Syllabus [pdf]

Download the course syllabus for full details about expectations, readings, assignments and more.

Learning Objectives/Outcomes

Upon successful completion of SPCH 145, students will be able to:

1. Identify and demonstrate appropriate means of recorded and live online oral communication for varied audiences and purposes.
2. Reason clearly in online speaking to inform, persuade, and exchange views.
3. Articulate a critical, informed position on an issue and engage in productive and responsible intellectual exchanges online that demonstrate the ability to grasp and respond to other positions as well as set forth their own.
4. Determine the nature and extent of information needed for various online oral communication objectives and identify sources applicable to that need.
5. Evaluate information and its sources for credibility, bias, and currency.
6. Employ appropriate conventions for integrating and citing sources ethically and legally.
7. Use, manage, and communicate information using appropriate technology to accomplish various communication objectives.

All learning outcomes in this distributed learning course are equivalent to a face-to-face (F2F) version of this course.