An instructor sitting with a student at a table

Department of Communication Studies News

The Department of Communication Studies offers programs focused on relational and public communication. We teach and deploy communication skills in interpersonal, small group, organizational, and political settings, which in turn helps others to develop critical thinking, writing, and speaking skills. Our goal is to best serve communication needs by training citizens to engage, motivate, and impact communities.

Current Communication Studies News

Headshot photo of a Native American woman with dark hair wearing a dark top with red lipstick and long dark green tassel-like earrings smiles in an image inset within a stock photo depicting desert brush in the foreground and a blue sky and mountain range in the background
People |

For the Patrick T. Smith Achievement in Service honoree, offering a helping hand to those in need isn’t an obligation — it’s a way of life.

Students in a calssroom.
Campus News |

This class helps students appreciate and understand cultural differences to find common ground.

A professor sits at a desk with two students on their laptops.
Campus News |

Communication studies classes and a new COM Lab feature help students from any major improve public speaking and listening skills.

Two women talk across a desk.
Campus News |

The COM Lab helps students prepare for presentations and develop confidence for in-person interactions.

UNLV letters placed in front of rocky landscape at Red Rock state park
People |

Created in honor of longtime staff member, a new geoscience scholarship celebrates 50 years of change while helping the next generation of scientists.

Mariella Bueno in black pants and jacket and red Rebels tshirt sits on a campus bench
People |

From City Hall to campus: UNLV's new director of advocacy champions policies to empower students and communities.

Communication Studies In The News

ABC News

Fewer than half of Senate races will have candidate debates this year.

Las Vegas Review Journal

As he walked outside the Thomas & Mack Center after Saturday morning’s UNLV spring commencement ceremony, new graduate Miguel Cerda said he felt pride and a sense of relief.

Las Vegas Review Journal

Nevadans are feeling the effects of extreme heat in their lives and on their wallets, a newly published UNLV report reveals.

City Cast Las Vegas

Ahead of World Circus Day this Saturday, we’re taking a look behind the curtain at the physical strain performers endure for their careers. Las Vegas is a major destination for acrobats, but our city lacks the protections and medical care needed to help manage the pain that accompanies their dazzling skills. UNLV professor and aerial performer Laura Martinez studies the culture of the circus industry and how they discuss pain. She joins co-host Dayvid Figler to explain this behind-the-scenes dynamic — and how Las Vegas commodifies performers’ bodies.

Juris Education

What’s the most challenging and the most rewarding aspect of joining a debate union?

Grist

You’re probably familiar with the concept of a carbon footprint: a personal tally of transgressions that contribute to planet-warming emissions. The “carbon footprint” is well established in the climate movement’s lexicon, despite the guilt and shame that it evokes — and despite the fact that many people now know the term was popularized in an ad campaign by the oil company British Petroleum, a shockingly effective gambit to put the onus of addressing the climate crisis on individuals, not the corporations or governments that have contributed the most to the problem.

Communication Studies Experts

A rhetorical studies professor who researches the impact of cultural influences on how we view food and taste.
An expert on debate and argument theory.
An expert in privacy and disclosure in online communications.
An expert in organizational communication that pertains to emergencies such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and mass shootings.
An expert on science communication, religion and politics.
An expert on interpersonal communication and long-distance relationships.

Recent Communication Studies Accomplishments

Donovan Conley (Communication Studies) and Justin Eckstein (PLU; former UNLV MA graduate) published a co-authored paper titled "Phronimos / Taster" in Rhetoric Society Quarterly. The essay theorizes "venatic taste," the hunter-like attentiveness to foraging, as a mode of rhetorical invention rooted in phronesis, or practical wisdom. The authors…
David R. Gruber and Donovan Conley (both Communication Studies) published a co-authored paper titled, "The architecture of anomaly: agential errancy in human-AI relations" in Critical Studies in Communication. The article examines errors arising amid human and AI interaction, theorizing them as “agential errors,” namely, as generative…
Jeffrey T. Child (Communication Studies) co-authored a chapter examining how families manage privacy, disclosure, and communication boundaries. Published in the third edition of Engaging Theories in Family Communication, the chapter applies communication privacy management theory to family relationships and highlights how individuals negotiate…
Benjamin Burroughs (Journalism and Media Studies) and Tēvita O. Ka'ili (Brigham Young University-Hawaii). published a paper titled "Indigenous Rhythm" in the journal Culture, Theory and Critique. The article reads the Kū Kiaʻi Kahuku movement's sonic, educational, and digital rhythms (live streaming as a form of Indigenous rhythm) as…
Craig Hennigan (Communication) has published his first textbook intended to provide an accessible text for those instructing argumentation in the classroom. The text focuses on more informal styles of debate and innovates as it surveys newer debate styles that are seen on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube. This preliminary edition will be…
Emma Frances Bloomfield (Communication Studies) published an article with co-author Leah Ceccarelli (University of Washington) titled, "Bad Arguments, Bad Science, and Bad Consequences: A Response to an Anti-Trans Keynote" in Argumentation. In response to an anti-trans keynote address given at the International Society for the Study of…