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Media, Technology, and Society

Media, Technology, and Society

Graduate work in Media, Technology and Society covers research on media and technological processes, their consequences, and the role that mass communication plays in both public and private life. Courses focus on local, national, and global media systems and audiences, as well as emerging information and communication technologies and environments. Current MTS course offerings include the impact of new technologies on media and society; cognitive and emotional reactions to media; politics, media, and public opinion; global communication networks; the impact of communication technologies on social groups and organizations; collaborative learning; and video games.

Why Purdue for Media, Technology, and Society?

  • You’ll earn a degree from one of the top-ranked communication programs in the nation.
  • As a student in the Lamb School, you’ll work with some of the most prolific scholars in our discipline.
  • We’ll work with you to design a personally-tailored plan of study that best suits your needs and interests.
  • You’ll collaborate with faculty members and fellow graduate students to conduct multidisciplinary research.
  • As a student and an educator, you’ll teach or assist with undergraduate MTS courses.
  • You’ll work closely with the C-SPAN Archives, housed in the Purdue Research Park.
    Students have opportunities to take classes abroad in Copenhagen and in Paris, in collaboration with the Copenhagen Business School and University of Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Program Strengths and Faculty Interests:

  • Robert Browning: Media and Politics
  • Emily Buehler: Computer-mediated communication; interpersonal communication
  • Jessica Collier: Social media, political polarization, misinformation
  • Jeremy Foote: Computational social science, online organizations, and collective decision making
  • Jennifer Hoewe: Media effects, political communication, stereotyping and identity, cognition
  • Seungyoon Lee: Social network analysis, complex systems, network perception and evolution
  • Sorin Adam Matei: Virtual communities and AI-human interaction; data ethics
  • Torsten Reimer: Decision making, groups and teams, consumer behavior, risk communication
  • Brett Sherrick: Positive impact of media; video games; media industries; media effects
  • Gene Spafford (Computer Science Faculty): Information security, privacy and ethics
  • Howard Sypher: New media, cognition, and online interaction; innovation and entrepreneurship
  • Glenn Sparks: Media effects and history
  • Diana Zulli: Strategic political communication, scandal and crisis communication, digital technology, and communication theory

Selected Course Offerings:

Historical Trends in Mass Communication Research, Current Trends in Mass Communication Research, Online Interaction and Facilitation, Media Effects, Social Network Analysis, Advanced Social Network Analysis, Communication, Media and Public Opinion, Social Media Analytics, Video Games and Society, Introduction to Programming and Data Science

Interdisciplinary Connections:

MTS faculty members are engaged in various interdisciplinary initiatives, including the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering, the Center for Education and Research in Information Security and Assurance (CERIAS), the Envision Center for Data Visualization, the Purdue Systems CollaboratoryPurdue Polytechnic Institute, the Purdue Center for the Environment, and the Purdue Policy Research Institute. Students have the opportunity to develop research and professional connections through all of these programs.