The PhD program offers three areas of specialization:

Rhetoric, Politics, and Society (MA & PhD)
The graduate program in Rhetoric, Politics, and Society challenges students to consider the core question of rhetoric’s role in the diverse settings of America’s culture. Located in a city with a rich and controversial legacy involving civil rights, faculty in this program focus on how public address, advocacy, media, and the arts—historically and theoretically—have influenced the multiple meanings of American citizenry and human identity.

Health Communication (MA & PhD)
Our focus on Health Communication at University of Memphis provides graduate students an interdisciplinary experience in the theoretical and research practices in the study of health communication. Blending social scientific, rhetorical, and critical cultural perspectives, our faculty research includes patient-provider communication, medical education, palliative care, cancer communication, health information technology, science communication, and public health communication. 

Media, Technology, and Society (MA & PhD)
The Media, Technology, and Society emphasis in the Department of Communication offers a diverse, interdisciplinary approach to the study of how communication technologies and cultural processes shape identities, communities, relationships, and subjectivities. Faculty research focuses on science & medicine, Internet & new media studies, and critical pedagogy, and pays close attention to issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality in society.