Communication Skills

Communication Skills In The Digital World

This course will take you through a range of the changes in the field of communication in our ever-evolving digital world. The course details a variety of communication tools and practical advice from both professionals and academics to help individuals in society and at work understand how to help shape communications strategically. 

Standalone Study Only

You will not be awarded credits for studying this course. It is available for standalone study only and cannot be counted towards an OU qualification.

What you will study

The course comprises of eight units: 

Unit 1: Digital Communications, Marketing and The Individual

The opening theme is communications tools changing over time. We'll consider the five phases of digital communication and how they affect consumers before switching to how you might make the most of digital communications from the perspective of an individual in the world of work. This unit raises complexities and challenges of surviving and thriving in a digital society and explore associated trends affecting people.

Unit 2: Brand Communication Through Individuals

We'll now look at digital communications from the organisational perspective, from carefully planned marketing online to having to react to two-way digital communications. We’ll also look at the implications for organisations having a face to represent their brand and the rise of professional digital communicators as influencers in our hyperconnected world.

Unit 3: Professional Communicators

In this first of two units on activities undertaken by professional communicators, we will focus on several jobs as case studies to demonstrate challenges and changes in a digital world, including the work of professional negotiators and how this has changed. 

Unit 4: Communicating Through Counselling

We will continue to highlight the work of professional communicators, looking at the work of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and hear from a counsellor about how digitisation has offered challenges and opportunities in her role.

We’ll also use video to understand how counselling can be undertaken online so you can explore the complexities of project communication interactions between the virtual world and the material one of people and places. 

Unit 5: Strategic Communications

We will look at strategic-level communications in a digital world, using a model to help us organise our ideas. The five tenets of strategic communication will help us explore message design, platform, timing, audience issues and planning and measuring impact. We'll look at how these factors interact with organisational stakeholders to help you analyse how to get the best from communications planning and organisation.

Unit 6: Making Communications Work

We will consider how the theories of communication might work in practice, using a series of mini case studies and video examples to unpack supply chain, customer, employee, and external relations in turn. They will help you understand the benefits of holistic approaches to communication for organisations.

Unit 7: Public Sphere Of Digital Communications

This unit considers communication in the public sphere and how technologies are blurring traditional boundaries and what we know – or think we know – about communication activities in public life. 

Unit 8: Bringing Communication Together

We turn to the practical part of the theories we have studied in unit 7 and use case studies to explore how online interactions were seen as a game changer in the election of Donald Trump in the US in 2016. 

You Will Learn

By Studying This Course You'll Have The Ability To:

• examine how digital communications are offering challenges and opportunities

• consider how digital communications have changed relationships and recognise the implications they have on brands and branding

• analyse how different job roles are being impacted and developed by new digital communications practices

• consider how to apply negotiation and active listening skills to your own practice

• apply the principles of effective strategic communications and consider the benefits

• consider the practicalities involved in strategic communication Identify the impact of new communication platforms on public life

• recognise how new ways of gaining data have influenced and continue to influence major events around the world.

Learner Support

Expert, confidential learner support is available when you need it from a learning adviser, who will respond to you directly. Other support is available via the course forum, dedicated website and computing helpdesk.

Practice-Based Assignment

There is a practice-based assignment (PBA) which you complete at the end of the course to demonstrate how you have applied, or are intending to apply, the theories and models you have learnt.

Once completed and successfully passed you will receive a digital badge and a course completion certificate which you can download as a record of your learning.

Work-Based Activity