A. Anticipated Future Trends
Health communication, communication technologies, international and intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, mass communication, persuasion and social influence, and organizational communication are abiding and increasing areas of interest among MSU faculty and students. The Department of Media and Information continues to broaden its curriculum. Courses and programs cover areas such as (among others) digital media and technologies, electronic commerce, information technology and organizations, game and interactive media development, web development and design, and media policy and management.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are critically important areas that will continue to shape current and future trends. Scholarly publishing in communication and media and information studies increasingly focuses on racial and gender equity. Communication, media, and information studies researchers also increasingly employ intersectional analyses (for example, exploring the relationship between racial and gender justice in social media activism, or investigating health communication and breast cancer among black women).
B. Relationships with other resources
Communication and media and information studies are very interdisciplinary fields. Related disciplines include business, computer science, engineering, government documents, health sciences, journalism, law, linguistics, psychology, and sociology.
A sufficient number of communication and media and information studies materials are acquired to meet most departmental curricular and research needs. Some individual advanced research requires access to outside collections. Materials from other libraries can be identified using electronic resources, such as WorldCat. Most materials from other Big Ten Academic Alliance libraries can be obtained easily through interlibrary loan.