Spring 2027

Principles and Practice of Strategic Communication

An introduction to strategic communication covering advertising, public relations, health communications, and political campaigns.

offering recorded4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Jesus Rivera

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Pete Long

One student reported 1-2 hours of weekly out-of-class work, easy grading, and study guides for quizzes.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Understand the professional and social overview of the field as a single exposure to strategic communication.

  • Develop a foundation for higher-level courses for those interested in pursuing a career in strategic communication.

  • Learn content concerning research and account planning, campaign management, creative message development, conventional and digital media buying and planning, as well as public relations, promotions, and event planning.

  • Learn the fundamentals of the academic study of strategic communication in society, its history, laws and ethics, and the application of these principles to social, health and political campaigns, as well as career trajectories that involve the use of these principles beyond brand marketing.

  • Demonstrate a higher-order synthesis of concepts related to strategic communications.

  • Develop an of application of these principles to a designated health or political campaign.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

JOURN 202 or graduate/professional standing

  • take one
JOURN 345 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

DEBRA PIERCE is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2013. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

DHAVAN SHAH is recorded teaching in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

PETE LONG is recorded teaching in Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

YOUNG KIM is recorded teaching in Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2017, Spring 2022, Spring 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1000
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 250
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 300
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 250
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 300

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Pete Long

Students described the course as centered on a semester-long group project with manageable workload and supportive instruction.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.97 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=79 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.85 GPA, 95.8% A/AB (n=96 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.97 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=88 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Pete Long

One student reported 1-2 hours of weekly out-of-class work, easy grading, and study guides for quizzes.

Past student reviews · Pete Long

A student found the group project intense and confusing online, but the instructor was helpful and easy to reach.

Topics

  • Strategic communication, advertising, public relations, health communications, and political campaigns.
  • Research, account planning, campaign management, creative message development, media buying, promotions, and event planning.
  • History, laws, ethics, and career trajectories in strategic communication.

Skills

  • Research, account planning, campaign management, creative message development, and media buying.
  • Fundamentals of strategic communication, including history, laws, ethics, and application to social, health, and political campaigns.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.09 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
JOURN 345 · Spring 2027

Principles and Practice of Strategic Communication

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:512:021439",
    "course_id": "JOURN 345",
    "course_uid": "course_65d7a926ef836ca5b1857d3f",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "021439",
    "source_subject_id": "512",
    "title": "Principles and Practice of Strategic Communication",
    "credits_min": 4,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "c30674184a2ce25d443a268f2bdb02cae02b0ef799fa2972ec2546e846970730",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}