COMM 4850

Communication Systems and Social Inequality

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

This course examines how everyday systems of communication—urban design, news media, digital platforms, government bureaucracy related to welfare, mass incarceration, and immigration, neighborhood networks, and interpersonal interaction—shape socioeconomic inequality in the United States. Drawing from political communication, media studies, sociology, and ethnography, students analyze how communication infrastructures determine access to information, recognition, and institutional power. Through sustained critical reading, discussion, and hands-on group work, students will explore structural barriers and the lived experiences of those navigating social and economic inequality and critically evaluate how communication infrastructure can reinforce disadvantage or serve as tools of resistance and repair. Students leave the course with a deep, practice-ready understanding of how communication organizes life chances and democratic belonging.

Enrollment Priority Enrollment limited to: Juniors and Seniors only.

Distribution Requirements (D-AG, ETH-AG)

Last 4 Terms Offered (None)

Learning Outcomes

• Explicate historical and contemporary processes through which social and economic inequality is reproduced through communication ecologies.
• Analyze how communication through urban planning, media, street-level bureaucracy, digital technologies, and stigma sustain inequality.
• Apply critical communication theories to real-world contexts of social inequality.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ethical responsibilities of communicators and institutions in addressing inequality.
• Develop practical and theoretical strategies for restructuring communication channels that foster autonomy, equality and democracy.

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