Introduction

The Bachelor of Arts in Mass Media degree provides students with theoretical and practical frameworks for understanding media development, production, distribution, and its multiple social, political, cultural, and cognitive effects domestically and globally. We aim to produce graduates who are theoretically grounded, digitally literate, and sensitive to the ways in which power affects media production, distribution, representation, and access. In our program, we generate a lively and stimulating socially conscious based and intellectual environment—one that allows every student to expand the scope of his or her cultural experience. The program is broad-based, focusing on a wide range of traditional and alternative media including television, radio, recorded music, journalism, publishing, the world wide web, and new communication technologies within their cultural, social, historical, economic, global, and political contexts. The goal of the degree program is to develop theoretically informed and critical consumers and innovative creators of media texts.

The program requirements for a degree in Mass Media include core courses which form the foundation of study and electives that allow the student to develop their interests according to their intellectual and career goals. As all coursework is aligned with the four cornerstones of the degree —Theory, History, Criticism, and Production—the core program provides a theoretical and methodological foundation for critically analyzing and creating media. Students in the Mass Media major will develop a general understanding of the relation between media texts and production processes, power, and culture through breadth and depth course requirements. Students will complete courses across the following three concentration areas as well as completing more in-depth study in the concentration of their choice: Media Uses and Effects (MUE), Media Organizations and Systems (MOS), and Mass Media Production (MMP).

MUE: Media Uses and Effects

Courses in this area emphasize research and theory about:

1. The ways that individuals, groups, enterprises, and institutions use mass media as part of routine activity; and
2. The ways that information distributed by mass media and practices associated with the use of mass media affect individuals, groups, cultures, and societies.

MOS: Media Organizations and Systems

Courses in this area emphasize research and theory about:

1. Mass media distribution and regulatory systems (national and international);
2. The development and functioning of media organizations;
3. The development and functioning of media industries;
4. The effects of governmental regulatory bodies on mass media development and distribution.

MMP: Mass Media Production

Courses in this area emphasize:

1. Training in the production of video, television, film, recorded music, digital multimedia, news, and radio;
2. Understanding of the communication processes that shape routine production activities and the resulting products;
3. Understanding of the conventions guiding media production;
4. Understanding the influence and application of media technologies; and
5. Understanding politics and ethics related to use of, and access to, media technologies.