Career Outcomes
This Ph.D. program prepares you for upper-level, media management positions as it allows you to cultivate and maintain ongoing partnerships/relationships with international organizations, academia, and the government sector. Leaders from various fields will be involved in the degree program, possibly hosting within their organizations doctoral students who are interested in completing case studies, action research or ethnographic work, or data collection.
Graduates of this program may seek employment in academia in the areas of communication, public relations, corporate communication, strategic communication, industry, and information and communications technology for development and related fields.
In industry, the most common titles may include Change Management Communications Director, Communication Account Executive, Communication Manager, Communication Specialist Manager, Director of Executive Communications, Director of Global Planning, Executive Communication Manager, Internal Communication Executive, Manager/Chief Executive Officer/Executive of Employee Communication, Public Sector Director, and Senior Communication Strategist.
Why Should You Choose St. John’s?
Robust Structure
This degree is unique in its structure and modeled after similar programs at the London School of Economics and the University of Leicester. It offers a robust program designed not to be financially burdensome (in alignment with our Vincentian mission) or unduly time-consuming. It attracts both domestic and international students.
Like the European models, the program is designed to be completed within three to 3.5 years as a full-time student, or five to 5.5 years as a part-time student. After you earn your master’s degree, you are required to take an additional 36 credits and a comprehensive exam. You begin your work on a dissertation upon completion of 30 credits, of which 12 credits must be in research methods courses that build qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method study foundations.
You have the option to find dissertation mentors outside the division, College, or University as the topic may demand. At least three credits are designated as research mentorship with the goal of presenting research at reputable academic conferences and submitting a publishable paper to peer-reviewed journals.
Research focus
Tentative focal points for research, among others, include interorganizational information technology networks; the relationship between communication, knowledge, and power; emerging technologies and new media in interorganizational communication, cultures, values, and digital identities; the disjuncture between global and local communication networks; and critical theories and methods of addressing interorganizational communication across institutions and countries.