In the MA in Communication Management at the University of Denver, you’ll develop the strategic, ethical, and creative expertise to design and lead the communication that shapes organizations and public life. You’ll build advanced skills in strategic messaging, audience analysis, ethical decision-making, data-informed storytelling, and campaign leadership — grounded in communication theory and built around applied practice you can take to work the next day. Because every course is fully online and asynchronous, you’ll do the work on your own schedule, completing your degree in as few as 18 months from anywhere in the world.
You’ll choose between two concentrations — Marketing Communication or Public Relations — and shape the rest of your studies through electives and a culminating capstone that becomes a portfolio piece for your career. Whether you’re finishing your bachelor’s, building on your first few years in communications, or stepping into a communication leadership role for the first time, you’ll graduate with the intellectual foundation, the practical toolkit, and the credibility to lead the work.
Start Dates: Fall, Winter, Spring
Curriculum: 48 Credit Hours
Program Length: Complete in as few as 18 months; flexible part-time pacing supported
Format: 100% online and asynchronous
18 Months to complete on the standard pace
100% Online and asynchronous
2 Career-aligned concentrations
How our curriculum prepares you for your career
Build on a foundation of strategy, ethics, and applied practice
You’ll develop expertise in messaging, audience analysis, ethical decision-making, data-informed storytelling, and campaign leadership through coursework grounded in communication theory and shaped by current practice.
Shape your coursework around your career goals
Choose between concentrations in Marketing Communication and Public Relations, then customize your path with two electives selected in conversation with program leadership.
Learn alongside communicators in active practice
You’ll work with faculty drawn from accomplished marketers, PR practitioners, journalists, and corporate communicators, supported by the academic depth of two CAHSS departments.
Graduate with a portfolio piece.
Your capstone becomes a deliverable you’ll take directly into your next interview, promotion case, or career step — work you’ve built, refined, and own.
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Concentrations
Marketing Communication
Discover the power of brands to move an audience while learning how to craft, deploy, and measure campaigns from start to finish. Create integrated marketing plans driven by strategic objectives, backed by data-informed decisions, and built to deliver desired results. Apply your learning from each course through hands-on experience evaluating traditional and digital marketing communication tactics and examining current marketing trends.
This concentration prepares students to:
- Design, manage, and measure persuasive, integrated marketing communication campaigns.
- Assess the current scope and anticipate future trends in traditional, social, mobile, email, and search marketing.
- Measure marketing communication efforts and create plans to adjust and defend future decisions based on results.
- Create strategies to elevate an organizations or client’s marketing and branding efforts through the selection and application of appropriate strategies and tactics.
Public Relations
Public relations careers span virtually every sector and industry. Gain practical experience using technology to manage how information flows to and from key audiences, use data to connect with influencers, and leverage social media strategically, all while employing principles of persuasion and quality content creation. From researching and evaluating audiences to assessing the value of PR campaigns, you will apply critical thinking, precise writing, principles of ethics, and complex reasoning throughout your courses.
This concentration prepares students to:
- Communicate persuasively with targeted audiences to meet specific organizational outcomes.
- Create communication plans with measurable results using public relations best practices, tactics, and strategies.
- Develop, manage, and analyze effective media relations practices.
- Articulate and defend the selection of techniques to measure, monitor, and influence an organization’s reputation.
- Articulate the primary principles and practices of public relations in an increasingly interconnected, global economy.
Are you ready to launch your career in Communication Management?
Our unique fully online master's degree program will propel you onto a fulfilling path of personal and professional growth.
Degree Requirements
- The M.A. in Communication Management requires 48 credits and takes two years to complete on a full-time basis
- Coursework requirements
- 6 core courses
- 4 courses in concentration
- 2 electives
- All courses are ten week terms in a online asynchronous format
- Students will work with their academic advisor to determine the best set of courses to choose for their electives
What Sets Us Apart
Designed around your real life.
With three start terms a year, rolling admissions, and coursework that can be completed in as few as 18 months, you’ll earn your degree on a timeline that fits the rest of your life.
Truly built around your schedule.
Every course is fully asynchronous from start to finish, with no required live sessions and no required campus visits. You’ll complete coursework when your work, family, and life allow for it — early mornings, evenings, weekends, between meetings.
Two career-aligned paths.
Choose between concentrations in Marketing Communication and Public Relations to develop the focused expertise that matches the roles you want — in agencies, in-house teams, nonprofits, and government.
Learning alongside communicators in active practice.
You’ll work with faculty drawn from accomplished marketers, PR practitioners, journalists, and corporate communicators, supported by the academic depth of two CAHSS departments.
A program that meets you where you are.
Whether you’re finishing your bachelor’s, two years into your first communications role, or fifteen years into a corporate career, you’ll find peers and faculty who recognize that smart, ambitious communicators come from many starting points.
A capstone you’ll carry into your career.
Your culminating project becomes a portfolio piece demonstrating strategic thinking, ethical reasoning, and measurable impact — work you’ll take into your next interview, promotion case, or career step.
Get Started on Your MA in Communication Management
Build your communications career with a master's degree from the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
