Communication Management

Our programme is designed for people who are interested in learning how communication can contribute to an organization’s strategy and success as well as in society at large. It offers systematic knowledge of modern communication theories, methods and applications. Areas covered in the course are media relations, organizational behaviour, strategic communication and planning, stakeholder relations, research methodology, risk and crisis communication and marketing.

Generally the courses take place Monday through Thursday starting from 16.15 (occasionally some courses can be organized during daytime) and full days on Friday. 

See the study programme

Anastassia Zabrodskaja, PhD is a Professor of Intercultural Communication, Head of the Communication Management master’s programme at the Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media and Arts School, and is Executive Director of the European master's in Intercultural Communication programme. She has taught a number of courses in Intercultural Communication, Sociolinguistics, Language Contacts, Multilingualism, etc. She is a Management Committee Member of the COST Action "Transnational Family Dynamics in Europe (TraFaDy)" (2022–2026). Her research deals with identity, intercultural communication, code-switching and linguistic landscape. She has published a monograph and numerous articles on identity and language contacts. 

anastassia.zabrodskaja@tlu.ee

Anastassia's research profile on ETIS

Ulrike Rohn, PhD is a professor of Media Economics and Management at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School (BFM).
She is also President of the European Media Management Association (emma), Associate Editor of the Journal of Media Business Studies (Taylor & Francis), and Co-Editor of the Springer Seriesin Media Industries. Previously, Ulrike was a Researcher at the Arcada University in Helsinki (Finland) and the University of Tartu (Estonia). She has been a guest researcher and lecturer at universities in the UK, Sweden, China, and Austria. She has worked in leading media companies in Germany, Japan, India, and the US.

Ulrike received her PhD in 2009 from the University of Jena. Her MA comes from the Freie University of Berlin (both Germany).
Her research and teaching includes topics on audiovisual industries, European audiovisual policy, (international) media strategies,
media business models, media branding, and cross-cultural audience demand.

ulrike.rohn@tlu.ee

Ulrike's research profile on ETIS

Katrin Tiidenberg is Professor of Participatory Culture at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School of Tallinn University, Estonia. She is the author and editor of multiple books on social media, digital visual cultures and digital research methods, including, most recently “Tumblr” (2021, co-authored by Natalie Ann Hendry and Crystal Abidin, and the award-winning “Making sense of the Datafied World: a Methodological Guide” (2020, in Estonian, co-edited with Anu Masso and Andra Siibak). She is currently lead of an international research project on visual digital trust (TRAVIS) and leading the Participatory Wellbeing Research Group of the newly funded Estonian Centre of Excellence of Wellbeing Sciences. Her research interests span social media, digital cultures, networked visuality, internet governance and self-care. More info at: https://katrin-tiidenberg.com/. 

katrin.tiidenberg@tlu.ee

Katrin's research profile on ETIS

Arko Olesk is a lecturer and a PhD student in the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School at Tallinn University. He holds a MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London. In his PhD project Arko studies the interaction between scientists and media under the conception of mediatization of science. As a journalist. he has been twice awarded the national award for the popularization of science. Arko is the chair of the advisory board of the national science communication programme TeaMe+. As a researcher, he also works on the topic of environment communication.

arko.olesk@tlu.ee

Arko's research profile on ETIS

Mart Soonik is BFM's lecturer of PR studies. 

He has this to say about himself: "My seminars are trainings rather than lectures. They consider of real-life cases, where I look for tactics for strategic goals and solve current problems using proven theoretical models.

This is facilitated by my daily experience as a consultant at MSMedia, through which I research, analyze, train, and advise on a wide range of PR concerns.

I have been working as a communication manager since 1998, in 1991-1998 I was active in the press. I have been a lecturer at Tallinn University since 2006. I defended my master's degree in organizational research in 2009 at the University of Tartu in the field of organizational communication.

In my previous research articles, I have focused more on evaluating the public capital of organizations, making sense of content marketing, and researching the impact of advertising."

soonikm@tlu.ee

Mart's research profile on ETIS

Alessandro Nanì teaches cross-media, transmedia storytelling and media research methods at BA and MA levels. 

Nanì holds a PhD in Media and his research interests revolve around audiences, cross-media and participatory media. As part of his academic contribution, he was chair of the Audience and Reception Studies thematic section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) until 2022.

From 2014 until 2019, he was the project manager of Cross Motion (CM), an Interreg Baltic Sea Region project and EU Policy Area Culture Flagship project.

Currently, he is the principal investigator (Estonian research group) of the Horizon Europe project Mapping Media for Future Democracies (MeDeMap).

nani@tlu.ee

Alessandro's research profile on ETIS

Kerli Kirch Schneider, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Participatory Visual Communication in the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School where she teaches Communication Theory and Interpersonal Communication courses. Her latest grant-funded research project focuses on representations of femininity in Estonian popular music. She received her PhD from the University of Miami, where she researched alternative representations, practices and imagination of post-soviet rural women. She has also studied the portrayals of Jamaican adolescent mothers
in the UNFPA mini documentaries. In 2019 premiered her award-winning short film called “Virago” – a dark comedy, which portrays heroic and dangerously self-sufficient Eastern European rural women.

kirchkerli@gmail.com

Kerli's research profile on ETIS

Indrek Ibrus, PhD is professor of media innovation and head of Tallinn University Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture. He holds a PhD from London School of Economics and Political Science and a MPhil from the University of Oslo. He was the initiator of the Crossmedia Production MA programme at BFM. He recently served for two years as the audiovisual advisor at Estonian Ministry of Culture. In relation to this he was Estonia’s representative at the audiovisual working group of the European Council, at European Commission’s AVMSD Contact Group and at Council of Europe’s Steering Committe for Media and Information Society. Currently he serves as the member of Estonia’s Digital Cultural Heritage Council.
He is a co-editor of Baltic Screen Media Review, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to audiovisual cultures around the Baltic Sea. He has edited also special issues of the International Journal of Communication and International Journal of Cultural Studies. Together with Carlos A. Scolari he co-edited Crossmedia Innovations: Texts, Markets, Institutions, published by Peter Lang in 2012.

Indrek's research profile on ETIS
 

General requirements

• Completed Bachelor's degree
• Proof of English Proficiency

Application Deadlines and Requirements

Entrance exam:

• Motivation letter - should be submitted with admission documents - 50% 
• Interview - when all the documents have been submitted, applicants will have an interview with the staff of the curriculum. The objective of the interview is to meet in person with applicants and discuss their motivation letter. Interviews can be done via internet, e.g. using Skype (NB! a web-camera is required) - 50% 

Follow these guidelines when writing the motivation letter

Each part of the examination is assessed on a 50-point scale. The scores for each part are added up. The motivation letter and the interview will be evaluated by each member of the admission committee based on the evaluation criteria. The admission committee will assess the candidate against the pre-agreed assessment criteria, giving a consensus assessment at the end of the interview.

Evaluation criteria

Motivation letter

• Defining the research problem and justifying the actuality of the topic
• Evaluation of structure (integrity, balance, logic) 
• Logic and justification of conclusions
• Formatting (compliance with formal requirements, referencing techniques, general impression of the motivation letter)
• Language and proofreading 

Interview

• A clear interest towards the field of communication
• Reasoning and justification skills
• Correct use of language
   

General Admissions Information

The Communication Management Master’s Programme will prepare students for positions of leadership in communication for public sector organizations such as ministries, municipalities and also for private companies. Graduates can also be employed in communication agencies as consultants and experts. Post-graduates will be competent not only in basic operational tasks but especially in strategic communication management. Studies will also train students to become good listeners, writers and professionals with effective interaction and language skills.

Our curriculum is aimed at preparing students for competent professional interaction at the international level by teaching the necessary knowledge and language skills. We are a part of European Masters in Intercultural Communication (EMICC), a teaching and research network of the European universities: Universität Bayreuth (Bayreuth, Germany), Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge, United Kingdom), University of Jyväskylä (Jyväskylä, Finland), Universidade Aberta (Lisbon & Coimbra, Portugal), Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland), Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Paris, France), Tallinn University (Tallinn, Estonia), Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo (Urbino, Italy), Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands) and University of Warsaw (Poland).

In addition:

• The theoretical studies are effectively balanced with best practitioners in Estonia in the teaching process. 
• Students will work with real communication cases as part of their studies and may apply knowledge gained in classrooms when working with problems in practice.
• Teaching staff includes members from different nationalities as well as many foreign guest lecturers.
• Students will specialize in the field of Intercultural Communication.
• The Baltic Film, Media and Arts School has partnership contracts with almost 20 renowned universities worldwide and actively participates in a number of international research projects.
• The Baltic Film, Media and Arts School is part of the teaching and research network European Master in Intercultural Communication which unites ten European universities: the four month intensive programme Eurocampus is taught by professors from the network universities each year in a new university. Tallinn University students can participate in the programme during Erasmus+ exchange.
• Possibilities for further studies at Tallinn University on PhD level. 

Specific questions regarding the program should be directed to Professor Anastassia Zabrodskaja at anastassia.zabrodskaja@tlu.ee and to Crisely Apri, Study Counsellor and Specialist, at crisely.apri@tlu.ee.

For additional guidelines regarding admission procedure please contact the international admission specialist.

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