Departments & Programs

The Media School

B.A. in Media
Media Technologies and Cultures Concentration
Purpose

Students in the Media Technologies and Cultures concentration will learn how to investigate the dynamics (power, politics, identities, etc.) of different forms of media technologies; inquire into how particular technologies might have operated in distinct historical situations; and address the development and implementation of media technologies in diverse cultural contexts. The concentration provides a range of critical-cultural research tools (including but not limited to media theory, philosophy, history, and ethnography) that equip students to understand, critique, and intervene in the technologically-mediated productions, politics, debates, and power relations that construct our everyday public and popular lives.  Technologies in this area are inclusive of a wide range of social, technological, digital, material, visual, auditory, and screen media cultures.

Students will:

  • become familiar with a wide range of social, technological, digital, material, visual, auditory, and screen media cultures;
  • acquire critical and analytical tools necessary to investigate the dynamics (power, politics, identities, etc.) in the spectrum of media technologies;
  • develop historical perspectives about the particular impacts and operations of specific technologies in distinct periods;
  • recognize the diverse cultural contexts in which media technologies develop and operate;
  • practice a range of critical-cultural research tools (including but not limited to media theory, philosophy, history, and ethnography) that equip students to understand, critique, and intervene in the technologically mediated productions, politics, debates, and power relations that construct our everyday, public, and popular lives.
Media Technologies and Cultures (MTC) Concentration Requirements

Note: Media Technologies and Cultures students should choose one of the core courses linked to this concentration. See "Choosing Managing/Thinking/Making Courses Based on Degree Sequence."

1. 15 credit hours of Media Technologies and Cultures coursework with special attention paid to

  • historical approaches to media technologies
  • theoretical or philosophical approaches to media technologies
  • global and transnational approaches to media technologies
  • concerns of identity (race, gender, sexuality, disability) for media technologies

2. Any 9-credit hour media specialization

Course List:
  • ANTH-E 438 Communication in the Digital Age
  • MSCH-A 315 Advertising and Consumer Culture
  • MSCH-D 337 New Media
  • MSCH-F 306 Writing Media Criticism
  • MSCH-F 309 Images of War and Peace in Public Culture
  • MSCH-F 311 Media History
  • MSCH-F 336 Using Popular Culture
  • MSCH-F 375 Race, Gender, and Representation
  • MSCH-F 391 Media Audiences
  • MSCH-F 392 Media Genres
  • MSCH-F 398 National and Transnational Cinemas
  • MSCH-F 420 Topics in Media History
  • MSCH-H 399 Readings for Honors
  • MSCH-I 497 Telecommunications Internship
  • MSCH-I 382 Internship in Media
  • MSCH-J 450 History of Journalism
  • MSCH-J 470 Broadcast Media Analysis
  • MSCH-M 411 Media Industries and Cultural Production
  • MSCH-P 335 Production as Criticism
  • MSCH-P 435 Documentary Filmmaking: Theory and Practice
  • MSCH-T 410 Media Theory