Graduate Program
The Department offers two main degree tracks within Media Studies: the M.A. and Ph.D. A dual degree option is available for students pursuing the M.A. track. Click below for details about each degree track.
The Department has several areas of interest that represent current concentrations of faculty interest and subjects covered regularly in course offerings. Students are free to take courses in any area of interest during their program of study.
This area of interest focuses on the examination of media industries, texts and their audiences from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives with special emphasis on cultural studies and the political economy of the media. The analysis of media content and the systems and organizations that produce it and the influence of media on political social, cultural, and personal communication are among the subjects addressed. Areas of research and teaching include media and culture, the function of media in the lives of individuals and communities, how audiences receive and interpret content, the processes of media production, the analysis of media institutions and organizations, and media economics, law and policy.
This area of interest investigates the relationship between the media and ethnic/minority groups. Teaching and research considers questions such as how ethnic/minority groups are represented and stereotyped in the media, how they are conceived as political and economic target audiences, how ethnics/minorities respond to mass communications, and how ownership and other structural characteristics of ethnic-oriented media influence all these issues.
This area of interest focuses on issues of gender and sexuality in media representations, institutions, production processes, and subjectivities. Teaching and research considers the nature of social structures that both condition production processes and create spectators and audiences who perceive representations in various ways; portrayals in different media products; stereotyping; problems in representing bodies and desire; media contributions to sexual, gender, and sex role socialization; sexism and heterosexism in production processes; the claims of the "feminization" of certain media or genres; and genders and technology.
This area of interest focuses the global development of communication systems and their underlying technologies. The growth and trajectory of national cultural, economic, political and technological forces are analyzed in the context of globalization and the incorporation of national communication systems into a global communication network. Impacts and uses of technology, development communication, critical studies of the growth of communication industries, and research on local and national cultural systems are emphasized.
History and the Historiography of Media
Research and teaching focus on the history of the production, reception, and influence of twentieth-century media. Research examines sources of that history in earlier cultural forms and in the interconnected nature of specific technologies, industries and institutions. Emphasis is placed on how such histories are written, considering a variety of economic, social, and political theories used to explain the production and reception of texts within historical contexts. The relation of specific communities (e.g., youth, ethnic, feminist, social activist, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) to media is also addressed.
Analysis and Evaluation of Texts
Theoretical frameworks and methods include new criticism, content analysis, genre study, auteurism, structuralism, semiotics, deconstructionism, feminism, ideological criticism, and various psychological approaches. Additionally, the study of textual evaluation addresses philosophical questions about social and psychological functions of texts, as evident in debates regarding mass culture and canons, modernity and postmodernity, and aesthetic or socio-political uses of mass media texts.
This area of interest focuses on the history, development and social, economic, and political contexts of various communication and information technologies and broader issues related to culture and the information society. Specific technologies addressed include, telecommunication and satellite systems, film, broadcasting and cable systems, computers, digital networks and digital production technologies, as well as the impacts of these technologies on older systems like print media and oral communications. Teaching and research emphasize the economic, legal, regulatory, social and cultural dimensions of these technologies.