CMST 213 Communication in Social Media

CMST 213 – Communication in Social Media introduces the discipline of communication studies in the context of social media. From Roman times to the present, social media, such as graffiti, Facebook, Snapchat, and messaging, affects the way people, societies, cultures, and nations communicate with one another. The course studies the historical significance of social media, self-identity and self-presentation, relationships and choices, social movements, and news consumption.  

Students who successfully complete the class will be able to:

  • Describe major shifts in social media over time
  • Examine their self-identity and self-presentation
  • Interpret the impact of social media choices on their relationships
  • Analyze social media’s influence on social movements, both domestic and global
  • Examine the impact of social media on their news consumption and worldview

Social Media Research Project

The Social Media Research Project is an opportunity for students to investigate a topic of their choice regarding communication in social media. The project follows a scaffolded set of assignments designed to build towards a short, APA-style original research project including:

  • developing a research question or hypothesis
  • conducting a literature review
  • designing a survey to investigate their research question or hypothesis using selection and rating scale questions
  • sampling a population with the survey
  • analyzing their data and results
  • discussing the interpretation of their findings
  • writing a report to APA format of introduction and literature review, method, results, and discussion

Student Papers

Below are some select papers submitted by students. (Names have been abbreviated for FERPA purposes.) These are links to PDF documents to maintain their original presentation integrity.