Film and Media Studies
Lauren Steimer, Director
The Film and Media Studies Program is devoted to the critical study of media – its many forms, industries, aesthetics, audiences and impacts on global culture. Students learn to critically engage with a wide array of media forms and practices as citizens, creators and scholars. Our programs cultivate increasingly important skills such as analysis and interpretation, research, writing, communication and collaboration. Graduates enter diverse career paths within the entertainment and media industries as well as professional fields such as law, education, business and nonprofit administration, advocacy, diplomacy and more.
Our program offers a Bachelor of Arts in film and media studies and a minor. Students build media literacy skills, investigate media history from an international perspective, examine the economics and labor structures of globalized media industries, and engage the central methods and concepts of the discipline. The program provides unique opportunities that include production collaboration with Media Arts, engagement with the remarkable film and television archival content of Moving Image Research Collections, and support from faculty to conduct independent research on almost any aspect of media culture.
The program regards basic knowledge of media production as essential. The major requires coursework in this area, although it is not primarily a production degree. Most courses require students to experience media (watch films, read comics, play games, etc.) as preparation for class lectures and discussion. Access to these media objects and texts are provided via the course Blackboard site.
Students who might want to major or minor in film and media studies should begin with either FAMS 240 (CC-AIU) or FAMS 300 (CC-GHS). FAMS 110 (CC-AUI) is designed for non-majors who seek a broad introduction to foundational concepts in the analysis and production of media arts.