The Media Studies Department has a significant emphasis on digital media through approaches to its history, theory, and technology and their impact upon contemporary life. Subjects of study include: aesthetics and form; individual perception; the history of media; the ethics and effects of media in the arena of policy studies; the social impact of media on public opinion; and the relations between media and the law.

Students are strongly urged to choose the balance of their MDST courses according to an individual plan of study. Students should consider the broad range of topics relevant to a full understanding of media studies: media aesthetics (rhetoric and the shape of argument in media, formal analysis, media criticism, and theory of a specific medium); the history of media (film, photography, television, digital, and print media); the individual experience of media (psychology and sociology); the social experience and effects of media (political science and government, law, or public policy, ethics, anthropology, and sociology); and the economics and business of media.

All courses listed in the catalog are not offered every semester and faculty often offer new courses under the mnemonics of MDST 3559 and MDST 4559.  The topics of these new courses will be listed in the schedule of classes for the particular term they are offered.  Students should realize that these new courses may be one-time offerings and plan accordingly.  Students may take repeat MDST 3559 and MDST 4559 as long as the topic is not the same as one previously taken.  Students may also take multiple sections of MDST 3559 and MDST 4559 as long as the topics are not the same.

The links at the left will take you to the offerings for the current semester and also to our course descriptions page.  The course descriptions page lists a description for each course in the permanent catalog and those MDST 3559 and MDST 4559 topics offered in the current semester.

In addition, we often review courses from other departments to be applied toward the Media Studies major requirements. If you see a course in another department that you would like to take with a media focus, you can have it evaluated by submitting the course syllabus and this form.