The field of communication promotes the effective and ethical practice of human communication. The discipline is interested in how audiences interpret symbolic meaning and the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of speech and language in context. Communication studies draw from humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry to investigate how people use messages to generate meanings within and across various contexts, cultures, channels, and media.
As represented by the National Communication Association, the discipline is "Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication." NCA "promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems"
Teachers and scholars in the Department of Communication at the University of Cincinnati focus on media, rhetoric, public communication, interpersonal, public relations, and organizational communication. Topics include media effects, health and environmental communication, risk and science, leadership and advocacy, social and personal identity, new media, politics, and more.