Ethics of Communication

Overview

Class Central Tips

Welcome to Ethics of Communication. Geared toward working professionals in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors, Ethics of Communication covers key topics in the modern world of business. Areas of focus include an in-depth examination of the ethical dimensions of professional communication, self-examination of individual conflict styles and preferences, and crisis management scenario analysis and strategy. You will develop and enhance skills related to these concepts through lectures conducted by Notre Dame Professor, Dr. Amanda G. McKendree, written communication exercises, self-reflection, peer-graded assignments, and a variety of readings.

Syllabus

Foundations of Communication Ethics

This week, you will begin to learn how to adopt a communication ethics literacy mindset and address the question, “What is communication ethics?” You will be guided through a self-analysis of your own values through video lectures, activities, and peer-graded exercises. You will also learn to use communication ethics terminology.

The Ethics of Listening

This week is structured according to three learning objectives. The first objective will encourage you to reflect on your own values related to listening in personal and professional settings through summative reflection. The second learning objective will guide you through distinguishing between different listening types through a summative reflection assignment. The third learning objective asks you to create an action plan for improving your listening skills through a peer discussion.

Conflict Communication

This week has three primary components: (1) Assessing organizational/professional communication in conflict scenarios, (2) considering your own preferred style of conflict communication, and (3) planning strategic communication responses, including using appropriate tools to respond.

Crisis Communication

This week's topics explore the dynamics of managing a crisis in a digital communication era with an integrated crisis communication framework. You will examine major scholars and crisis resources, and document your understanding of crisis communication ethics through a crisis scenario response. You will explore the major concepts and theories of crisis communication, identify best practices for creating crisis messages, and articulate the meaning and practice of communication ethics for crisis events. There will be one cumulative peer-graded assignment to assess your knowledge of all the learning objectives in this week. While completing this assignment, you will apply crisis concepts and devise strategies for communicating with various stakeholders. Acquiring these new interpretation skills will strengthen your responses to crisis scenarios and reinforce your understanding of the crisis planning and managing phases, as well. Additionally, you will learn about the primary components and definitions of crisis and differentiate between risk, problem, disaster, and paracrisis. You will use your new interpretation skills to shape responses to crisis scenarios using technology tools.