The Department of Communication Studies (CST) in NINLAN was established in 2015. The sister departments in the School of Arts,  the School of  Education and the School of Post-Graduate Studies, as well as other existing cognate departments and centres in NINLAN, offer ideal grounds for multidisciplinary collaboration with the Department of Communication Studies. The attraction of this broad-based model of a communication department is backed by historical evidence. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka pioneered communication and other liberal arts disciplines in Nigeria. But the University of Ibadan and newer universities in Nigeria have in recent times made a tremendous impact with the more elastic Communication and Language Arts programmes. Given the great popularity of these newer programmes, the Communication Studies department in NINLAN (modelled after the communication arts programmes) is unique because of its strong linguistics and new media technology components. More importantly, it is rooted in and focused on target Nigerian languages which every student is required to specialize in; which means the Department produces communication specialists with Nigerian language bias.

The Department of Communication Studies which is domiciled in the School of Arts, plans, coordinates and currently provides teaching and research at sub-degree (diploma) and post-graduate levels with a view to training and producing Nigerian languages-proficient specialists in the areas of:

• Applied Communication (Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing);
• Expressive Communication (writing, speech);
• Film;
• Instructional Communication and Educational Media;
• Internet Communication and Social Media;
• Mass Communication (Print, electronic);
• Receptive Communication (Reading, Listening, Viewing).

Because the programmes are rooted in and focused on target Nigerian languages, which every student is required to specialize in; we shall be producing communication specialists with Nigerian language bias. Thus, the Department of Communication Studies, with the listed areas of specialisation, fills the yawning gaps in communication studies in the various Nigerian languages.

To train students that will be skilful and knowledgeable in the practice of communication with a particular interest in the use of Nigerian Languages in any aspect of communication such as Public relations, advertising, book publishing, online and multimedia journalism, film production, aesthetics, rhetoric and broadcast production(scripting and news casting).

1. To employ state-of-the-art technologies in teaching, researching and publishing scholarly articles in all aspects of communication studies and Nigerian Languages. 
2. To develop and improve students’ understanding of the history and role of professionals in shaping communication. 
3. To produce graduates that will be proficient in the use of Nigerian Languages in news casting, filmmaking and developing media content.
4. To demonstrate an understanding, as well as the application of the concepts and theories of communication in the presentation of information and images.
5. To demonstrate an understanding of professional ethical principles and work in pursuit of truth, accuracy, fairness and justice. 
6. To conduct research and evaluate information by methods, numerically or statistically appropriate to the communication professions. 
7. To critically, creatively and correctly think, write, speak, listen and read in forms and styles appropriate for communication professions, audiences and purposes. 
8. To apply tools and technologies appropriate for the communication professions. 
9. To understand and apply the fundamental rights, principles and laws relating to, and regulating the practice of the media and other aspects of Communication Studies in Nigerian languages and media production.

The objectives of the Communication Studies programmes are to:

1. prepare the students of the department to respond to the industrial and national needs of 

Nigeria’s developing economy;

1. produce graduates who would work for and then manage media institutions;
2. offer training in communication skills and;
3. expose students to a broad liberal education that would prepare them for an increasingly 

interdisciplinary world.