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Dr. Leah Waks Wins Outstanding Academic Program Leadership Award

Congratulations to Dr. Waks!

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Faith Otchere Awarded 2025 ACLS Leading Edge Fellowship

Congratulations to Dr. Otchere, May 2025 COMM PhD graduate!

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COMM Department 2025 Award Winners

Congratulations to this year's departmental award winners!

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Dept. of Communication's Graduate Program wins Award for Graduate Student Mentorship

We are very proud of our Graduate Program!

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Register for Summer 2025 COMM Courses!

Satisfy a requirement AND stay on track for graduation. Register for Summer Session today! #KeepLearningUMD

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The Department of Communication at the University of Maryland offers a B.A. in communication, a rhetoric minor and an oral communication program. Communication is a Top Ten major at the University of Maryland and has been for ten years.


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Picturing Madam Vice President on the Campaign Trail: Instagram Narratives and User Fantasies of Kamala Harris

New Study on Instagram Narratives and User Fantasies of Kamala Harris

Communication

Author/Lead: Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour
Dates:

Instagram has become an essential platform for youth engagement and political campaign discourse. This study builds on this strand of knowledge by analyzing how the U.S. Vice President and the Democratic party’s presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, employed the platform during the 2024 campaigns over 5months by assessing the narratives as well as user fantasies. Findings indicated that the narratives emphasized her administration’s political achievements and positions, her commitment to amplifying every voice, her personal and social identity, as well as global voice and initiatives. These narratives generate two fantasy themes around her personalized leadership style, impact, and ideological positioning. Harris’s campaign discourse on Instagram conformed to the identity expectations of the American electorates and the youth-dominated platform dynamics, positioning her as an advocate for equity.

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Intercultural Public Relations: Insights from the Middle East

Intercultural Public Relations book now published

Communication

Author/Lead: Ganga Dhanesh
Dates:

Intercultural Public Relations: Insights from the Middle East is co-authored by UMD COMM Associate Professor Dr. Ganga Dhanesh along with Dr. Ruth Avidar, Senior Lecturer at Yezreel Valley College. This book explores how culture shapes public relations in the Middle East, focusing on Israel and the UAE. Using the Global Public Relations Framework (GPRF), it examines how political, economic, social, and organizational cultures influence key PR practices such as identity, reputation, listening, and engagement. Through an interpretive, inductive approach, the book highlights the interplay between local and global cultural forces, offering fresh insights into PR in non-Western contexts. It’s a valuable resource for scholars, practitioners, and students of global PR, intercultural communication, and Middle Eastern studies.  

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The U.S. Empire Remembers Violence Against Asian Women: “Comfort Women” Monuments and Transnational Global Memoryscapes

New article in WSiC on memory studies and the San Francisco “Comfort Women” Column of Strength

Communication

Author/Lead: Jin R. Choi
Dates:

This paper offers a rhetorical analysis to read the San Francisco “Comfort Women” Column of Strength memorial within the context of the United States’ historical violence against Asian women with white sexual imperialism as a theoretical lens. Utilizing in situ rhetorical field methods and critical rhetorical criticism, I contend that the San Francisco “Comfort Women” Column of Strength memorial illuminates how the medium of a public memorial faces certain constraints and difficulties in being able to name and critique U.S. imperialism as a historical narrative to be publicly remembered in dominant national memory. I offer transnational global memoryscape, extending Phillips and Reyes’ global memoryscape, as a concept that necessarily draws our attention specifically towards unequal forces of power across borders, such as Western imperialist forces in Asia. Ultimately, a critical, transnational lens on public memory is imperative to situate national public memories within a global context as memories flow across borders.

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