媒体和文化研究课程旨在通过定量，定性和批判的方法和理论（从社会学，历史，政治，经济学和人文科学等多学科中得出）来回答有关个人，媒体和社会之间联系的日益复杂的问题。这条轨道涉及社会中的权力问题，包括媒体进入权力关系，传达政治话语，塑造国际关系，阻碍或促成抗议和异议以及影响文化表达和身份形成的方式。媒体激进主义，政治运动以及社区层面和国际关系是该领域所鼓励的一些研究领域。
The Ph.D. in Communication, Culture and Media Studies at Howard's Graduate School welcomes applicants who hold a master's degree (M.A., M.F.A. or M.S.) with backgrounds in the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, and other communication-related fields. Our program highly encourages an interdisciplinary, multicultural approach to investigating communication issues locally, nationally, and globally. Students engage theoretical concepts across diverse fields, including critical media and cultural studies, visual culture, sociology, history, science and technology studies, anthropology, history, and political economy. As a graduate of the program, you'll be prepared to compete successfully for postdoctoral positions, tenure-track teaching appointments at colleges and universities, and senior-level communications consulting or research positions in the public or private sector. Our program emphasizes critical frameworks and mixed methodological approaches to communications studies, including quantitative and qualitative methods, discourse analysis, network analysis, semiotics, critical communication theory, and ethnography. You may choose from three distinct areas of specialization: health communication, media, and cultural studies, and technology, policy, and society. You'll enjoy a highly collegial atmosphere and the close mentorship of faculty notable for their wide-ranging research, including examinations of the role of communication in health promotion, mass communications and public policymaking, strategic communication, culture and media history, the political economy of media, multicultural and mediated communication, and interrelations between global social movements, art, and media.