Communication Management

This page lists the offerings for the current Academic Year, in addition to outlining the requirements for a BBM student. For the most updated and accurate list of Communication Managmeent courses offered and their course attributes, please go to OASIS > STUDY > Course & Schedule > Browse Catalogue.

Alternatively, you can go to www.smu.edu.sg:
Undergraduate> Course Catalogue> Select relevant course> View Class Sections.

For non-BBM students, please check the major requirements here.

Managing Core Module for All BBM Students (1 CU)

Management Communication (COR-COMM 1304)

Management Communication equips students with strategies that will enable them to successfully communicate their solutions to organizational problems. Since the course emphasizes the importance of effective written and spoken communication within a business setting, students will be exposed to strategies that will enable them to communicate their ideas and values in a clear, persuasive and memorable way. Students will, therefore, learn the art of producing impactful business documents and delivering engaging presentations in various business contexts.  By the end of the course, students will be able to function as proficient communicators who are ready to embrace the communicative challenges inherent in today’s dynamic business environment.

Communication Management Major's Compulsory Modules (2 CUs)

Foundations in Strategic Communication (COMM102)

COMM102 is the core course of the communication management major. It lays the foundations for managing corporate communication and external relations and connects all other electives via a common structure and understanding. In this course, students examine communicative practices in the corporate environment, including internal communication, reputation and image management, crisis communication, public relations, corporate social responsibility, and new communication technologies. Through discussions of corporate communication theories, case studies, and practical applications, this course introduces students to the perspective that the organization is the sum of its stakeholder perceptions and relationships. Students with a communication management major are thus enabled to choose a focus for their curriculum and/or career.

Designing Communication For Behavioural Change (COMM 302)

What makes people notice certain commercials or news and not others? How can media content be catchy, convincing, and contagious? When addressing such questions in organizational settings, communications managers often rely on what they know from executive experience and/or conventional wisdom, executing a number of communication strategies aiming at having a desired impact. This course will show how strategies that may hold intuitive appeal can be challenged and better informed by psychological principles underlying human judgment and decision-making. Students will learn the key psychological principles about how people process information in a given context and how to assess the conditions under which intended and/or unintended consequences arise. The learning, in turn, can be transformed to exert a competitive edge by identifying contributing and constraining factors of strategic communication to make an impact.

Communication Management Major's Elective Modules (CHOOSE ANY 4 CUS)

Fundamentals Of Media Engagement (COMM 121)

Engaging the media has become important. This can be mainstream media or online media. 

Many organizations and organizational leaders still regard engaging the mainstream media as paramount priority. Latest studies by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University found the increasingly importance of mainstream media. Increasingly, organizations also want to increase their engagement with key opinion leaders like social media influencers and understand how tools like TikTok can help them disseminate organizational messages. 

The course equips students with the knowledge of how to engage the Tier 1 mainstream media (otherwise known as earned media) drawing on Pang’s (2010) Mediating the Media model. It also equips students on how to complement this with the organization’s owned and shared media. 

As leaders of the future, regardless of which industry you are in, it is important to understand how the Tier 1 media work. It is a useful course for students of all disciplines – in your roles as domain experts in the respective fields, consultants, organizational leaders or communication professionals as you would need to engage the media. It also prepares you for work in all sectors – be it corporate, public, not-for-profit, or for those who want to work in overseas markets.

Crisis Management And Communication (COMM 246)

Organizations are battling crises of some form or other every day. This can be internal crises like organizational miscommunication, personality clashes; or external crises, for instance, arising from policy mismanagement to terrorism. Due to the vulnerability of the organization to both internal and external uncertainties, no organization is immune from crises. Even as we speak, we have just emerged from a global crisis,Covid-19,that has engulfed the world. 

This course equips students with the necessary skills and abilities to prepare for organizational crises, diagnose the nature of the crises, how to communicate during crises, and how to recover and learn from crises. 

As leaders of the future, it is important to understand how crises can impact the organization. It is a useful course for students of all disciplines: Some of you will be leading crisis management and communication in your roles as domain experts in the respective fields or as organizational leaders, others may become consultants or communication professionals who work with C-suites to navigate through crises. 

It also prepares you for work in all sectors – be it corporate, public, not-for-profit, or for those who want to work in overseas markets

Storytelling with AI (COMM 253)

Stories and narratives can help organizations and individuals to build long-term competitive advantages. This course will teach you how to combine the science of storytelling with generative AI tools and prompts to create impactful stories and narratives that have the potential to shape perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors. In addition, you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learnt to a real-time, real-world client project. The outcome of this project will be a tangible deliverable (e.g. GenAI video) that you can add to your professional portfolio.

User Experience (UX) And Digital Product Design (COMM 255)

This course provides an introduction to user experience (UX) practices, theories, and real-world approaches that can help you prepare for work at some of the most innovative technology companies of today that obsess over their users’ needs, feedback, and satisfaction. With focus on communicating human-centered design across stakeholders in digital technology product organizations, you can learn how to create user experiences that enhance and augment the ways people work, communicate, and interact. Through a series of lectures, hands-on tutorials, and project-based assignments, you will acquire skills in all four basic activities of interaction design: discovery, design, prototyping, and evaluation. You and your project group will design an interactive digital app prototype based on the research findings of real human needs.

Design Thinking And Communication (COMM 256)

Design Thinking is an open-ended, open-minded, and iterative approach to finding solutions for difficult business problems. It uses technology and a designer’s toolkit, while focusing on human needs. You don’t need to be a designer to become a design thinker. This course is your opportunity to learn to apply creative and collaborative tools, such as brainstorming and prototypes, to real-life challenges with a particular focus on how to communicate (i.e., pitch) innovative solutions. As we will discuss design thinking case studies at many Fortune 500 companies, you will be first introduced (in the form of interactive lectures) then practice (through hands-on workshops) the design thinking process. Designs go through many iterations and you will also refine your project multiple times. The course culminates in a group project pitch in front of external judges, who are ready to mentor (and sometimes even invest in) students to turn their entrepreneurial ideas into the next unicorn start-up.

Visual Analytics for Decision Making (COMM 301)

The course is designed for students majoring in Communication Management, specifically within the Data, Design, and Communication (DDC) Track. It aims to equip students with the skills necessary for understanding and implementing data-driven decision-making in business contexts. The curriculum provides a step-by-step tutorial on constructing and applying machine learning algorithms for business problem-solving using Python programming. Central to the learning process, students will learn how to report and draw insights from analytics using advanced visualization frameworks and Python toolkits. 

Throughout the course, students will develop a comprehensive understanding of machine learning techniques. The real-world applications of the course cover a variety of business queries including market segmentation, personalization, algorithmic trading, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling of text data. The course strives to make machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) accessible, actionable, and interpretable (AAI), transforming these concepts into powerful tools for business problem-solving through effective visualization and data storytelling with Python. 

The course employs an interactive lecture format to explore the principles and applications of machine learning, paired with a hands-on programming approach. Students engage directly with the material by completing parts of provided script templates. This blend of conceptual and technical learning is crucial for the experiential aspect of the course, which is strongly emphasized to encourage students to learn by doing. Such an approach is essential for understanding and applying course material in real-world scenarios, enabling students to effectively collaborate with data science teams within their organizations. 

This course is specifically tailored for DDC-track students who aim to build analytical rigor with a strong emphasis on using the Python programming language for machine learning applications. Consistent practice in Python is vital for mastering the programming skills being taught, akin to the persistent practice required to learn to play the piano.

Strategic Communication In Asia (COMM 334)

COMM334 – an overseas project experience – is an advanced elective module with an overseas study component designed for students majoring in communication management. With Asia’s economic ascendancy and modernisation, corporate strategic communication in Asia has taken on a new importance in the past two decades. Home to over half of the world’s population, unprecedented political, economic, media, social and technological forces in an age of discontinuities are creating a new world order for Asia. The importance of communicating strategically and the need for greater cross-cultural understanding, including being innovative and enterprising have never been more critical for organisations struggling to effectively communicate with diverse stakeholder groups across different geographies in this new multi-polar business environment. 

An SMU-XO module, this course is divided into two segments – Singapore and China (Hong Kong). The overseas experience aims to equip communication students to better understand the unique geopolitical dynamics which affect communication in a one country and two systems nation. Students will be equipped with the ability to apply theory and understand how strategic communication has evolved to influence the integration of paid, earned, shared and owned media which are vital to unearthing unique characteristics that drive communication practice in countries in Asia. In addition to gaining insights from top Asian practitioners in the region, students will also acquire in-depth knowledge of the socio-political-cultural-economic factors that underpin the practice that influence business outcomes in the world’s most populous continent. This course will prepare students in communication management to readily transit and take on responsibilities to manage communication for businesses operating across Asia.

Investor Relations (COMM 360)

Investor Relations (IR), sometimes referred to as financial communications or financial public relations, is the strategic management responsibility which integrates finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance to deliver effective two-way communication between a company and its stakeholders, ultimately contributing to a company's securities achieving fair valuation. 

This course introduces students to the essentials of effective IR and covers the various methods that publicly-listed companies can employ to successfully communicate with the global investment community, including institutional investors, retail investors, analysts, financial media, financial bloggers and regulators. 

The course will look into the development of a company’s investor communication strategy and investment narrative. Groups of students will role-play as Investor Relations practitioners to plan, develop and execute investor relations communications for a company through its life cycle. 

Three real-world scenarios will be introduced to provide students with insights into how a company can respond to an investor relations crisis, a merger& acquisition transaction, and a change in corporate strategy. Groups will work through the investor communications for these scenarios with the objective of developing appropriate narratives to secure buy-in from the financial community and protect the reputation and valuation of the company. 

Students will also examine the digital and mainstream building blocks of IR tools, which are integral parts of a sound IR programme, and understand how data analytics can be used to enhance shareholder identification and targeting. As part of the course, students will also develop a 12-month investor communications programme to engage IR stakeholders.

Communication Strategies In The Digital Age (COR-COMM1312)

Have you ever wondered why some videos/campaigns go viral while others flop or how some companies have successfully leveraged Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter to reach out to their stakeholders? How are some companies able to effectively manage a crisis using social media while others flounder, crash and burn? How can organisations make best use of new technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, NFTs, and artificial intelligence to better engage and manage their stakeholders?What opportunities (and dangers) does the metaverse hold in store for organisations?COR-COMM1312 will help you answer these questions and more. 

In this course, you will learn how social media and new technologies affect and change the way organisations communicate with their publics. You will analyse the theories, strategies and practices that govern social media usage and application in today's business and social environments and learn how best to harness social media and new technologies to help an organisation achieve its goals and objectives. This course will also touch on current issues affecting the industry due to the rise of new technologies and the resultant implications for the organisation, industry and society.

Intercultural Communication (COR-COMM 1313)

The course provides strategies on how to read a person’s culture as well as corporate culture.  Features of culture such as individualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, power distance and issues related to intercultural adaptation, ethnocentrism, stereotyping and prejudice will be discussed.  The aim of this course is to develop intercultural competencies, which will make business practices more meaningful and significant.

Misinformation Management (COR-COMM 1315)

Smartphones, social media and generative artificial intelligence have made easy work of information production, dissemination and consumption. They have also, correspondingly, facilitated the proliferation of misinformation. Widespread false, inaccurate and misleading information can have profound consequences on the well-being of individuals, organisations, and societies; threatening public health and safety, inciting social unrest, and disrupting livelihoods. Its effects have been especially pronounced in recent years, hindering vaccination drives, compelling irrational behaviours, threatening political processes, and causing significant financial losses. What drives some to believe in, and act on misinformation? What can individuals, organisations and societies do to manage misinformation? Can we believe anything that we see anymore? In exploring concepts, conditions and consequences of misinformation, this course invites students to question the truths, tales and lies that may be guiding human behaviours, social relations, and global affairs.

(Disclaimer: Please note that the course listing is not exhaustive and may vary from term to term. Do write in to the Academic Advisor for more information.)