Dr. Teri Kwal Gamble Professor of Communication Graduate School The College of New Rochelle

"Our students have used the Masters in Communication Studies to advance in their current jobs, retool themselves to perform key functions in corporate and organizational communication, advertising and public relations, sales, marketing, and customer service, human resources and training and development - either with an existing or a new employer, or begin their own communication consulting firms and businesses."

The media are continually attacked (from all sides) for delivering the news; slanting the news; spinning the news; and, in fact, for just giving us the news. How do you approach this “problem” in your classes?

In the M.S. in Communication Studies Program, we offer a series of core courses including Theories of Communication and Public Opinion and Persuasion in which we explore such topics as the nature of agenda setting, the construction of public opinion, the increasing amounts of bias and incivility in opinion programming, the role we hoped that “the fourth estate” would serve in society, as well as the effects that burgeoning media empires are having on the media and society with special attention paid to how they are affecting news coverage.

We do our best to allow the program’s students to conduct research that enables them to draw their own conclusions regarding objective versus “point of view” news offerings, the status of the public’s right to know, the pressures placed on news organizations by advertisers and advocacy groups, how framing alters news coverage and content, the manipulation and manufacturing of news, and what “fair and balanced” coverage really means today.

Are we as a society suffering from too much media? Are we better off today with instant news than we were in the 1800s when it took weeks for news to travel across the United States?

There is no question that we live in a media-saturated or what I call a “media-more” society. It is virtually impossible today for any one of us to be “media-less.”

With the increasing prevalence of cell-phones, PDAs, blackberries, MP3 players (now even embedded in the sunglasses we wear), wireless zones and portable, even wearable, computers, we are never at a loss for information or entertainment that has been personalized to suit our needs and wants.

What is more, we can always reach or be reached by others. We expect to be able to go online and virtually instantaneously find whatever we need to know. We expect to tune into 24-hour news networks such as CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, or FOX and receive up to the second (forget up to the minute-that idea is passé) accounts of what’s happening in our world.

Lest we forget, however, huge corporations with vested economic and political interests control these networks and “the information superhighway.” As we receive information and entertainment from them, they watch us, learning about how we think, how we are influenced, and how we buy. I think we are at a crossroads-and one of the key questions we need to ask is will our democratic principles survive the onslaught of corporate influence?

News, by definition, needs to be timely. It is, however, the meaning we have for timely that continues to evolve. While we have both hard and soft news today, the reality is that news is always developing or continuing. And with the advent of the Internet and highly competitive 24-hours news programming options, there is the threat that accuracy and organization will be supplanted by distortion and disorganization in order that news voids be filled. Always looking for the latest sound bite, the stopwatch of our obsessive media consumption culture never seems to be put on “pause.” While we may be faster at getting the news we want, we probably are not better for it. When information provided by sources is not verified, when the rush to be first counts more than the need to be right, when the pushing of a position replaces the testing of the facts used to support those positions, then the likelihood is that instant news will deliver instant trouble.


We are witnessing the growth of blogs and the decline of newsprint. How does that trend influence your decisions in terms of what you teach and what courses you offer at the graduate level here at CNR?

There is no question that the movement toward the personalization of media is altering both the media and corporate marketplace. We are now not just the users but also the creators and programmers of media content. Bloggers (webloggers), for example, have taken the diary to new heights by making the intensely personal, very public. Bloggers share their innermost thoughts about controversial issues with virtual strangers. As a result of blogs and their attendant web links, new political and social interest groups form.

Continuing technological advances also make it possible for corporations to stay connected with their employees and their publics. We are free to telecommute, teleconference and videoconference, send text and instant-messages. The cultures of the organizations we work for and in are changing as quickly as the means of communication they use to reach their varied publics and accomplish their objectives.

In Communication Studies, we explore the growth of blogs and other new means of communication. We attempt to identify the impact such communication forms are having, how they are changing the culture, altering our responses to each other as well as global events as they do so. In addition to surveying the media, we also pay special attention to the fields of advertising, public relations, organizational communication, and leadership studies. People in these fields have to possess a broad understanding of how we use myriad media of communication to interact with and influence one another, learn from and share knowledge, beliefs, and values with one another, and join together to function as teams.


What are some of the key issues and concerns a person should consider before enrolling in a graduate program in Communication Studies at CNR?

We are looking for students who are interested in enhancing their knowledge of the media of communication, interested in playing a role in public relations or related industries, and/or motivated to become leaders and proficient communicators in diverse organizations.

The fact is that in the future we will all function as consumers and generators of communication. We will be the users, creators, and evaluators of communication. With this in mind, the program in Communication Studies seeks to meet an array of needs. Prime among them are to educate students to cope with changing communication environments, to equip them with the communication skills they need to traverse their ever-evolving media rich world, and to prepare them to use an array of communication skills to improve their abilities to relate with others, handle on the job conflicts, overcome the challenges posed by gender and diversity, think critically about the role communication plays in society and organizations, as well as perform as the field’s leaders or as members of productive work teams.

What have some of the graduates done (in terms of jobs and careers) after finishing the CNR Masters Program?

Our students have used the Masters in Communication Studies to advance in their current jobs, retool themselves to perform key functions in corporate and organizational communication, advertising and public relations, sales, marketing, and customer service, human resources and training and development - either with an existing or a new employer, or begin their own communication consulting firms and businesses. Some have become professors in higher-education institutions, while others have gone on to Ph.D. programs.