| MST 100 Introduction to Media Studies |
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*3 (fi 6) (either term, 3-0-0)
This course introduces students to the discipline of Media Studies, its development, its historical objects, its contemporary tools of study, and its contributions to our understanding of culture. We will trace media history from Gutenberg to Zuckerberg. Each week students are introduced to a key medium and its history alongside a key theoretical text. We examine a wide range of historical and contemporary media including oral, print, photographic, audio, cinematic, televisual, and digital forms. Lectures are augmented with screenings and hands-on assignments. Our key quest is to understand how various media have developed to play a fundamental role in our lives
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| MST 200 Media Theory |
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*3 (fi 6) (either term, 3-0-0)
This course allows students to explore Media Studies theories and approaches within their historical contexts. We read and critically evaluate key texts from the theoretical movements that shaped Media Studies thought and research methods. In addition, we will examine alternatives to canonical Western media theory by exploring, for example, Indigenous approaches to mediation and political communication. In your own analyses of media objects, you will apply key theoretical approaches to media emerging from feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, postcolonialism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, among other theoretical paradigms.
Prerequisite: MST 100
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| MST 210 Contemporary Media Culture |
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*3 (fi 6) (either term, 3-0-0)
This course examines key topical (and rapidly changing) issues in contemporary media culture across the world. While the examples in this course change from year to year to match contemporary trends, it will prepare you to research and analyze how digital media and technologies affect our understanding of issues including surveillance, privacy, gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, nationalism, precarity, and ecology. In the process, you will develop a critical understanding of the media practices surrounding you and how they are shaping your own lives, realities, and subjectivities. You will also gain a keen sense of how contemporary phenomena are historically anchored and, hence, where future developments in media industries and technologies may lead.
Prerequisite: MST 100
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| MST 300 Researching Media |
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*3 (fi 6) (either term, 3-0-0)
This course introduces key research methods in Media Studies. With a view to developing your own research projects for your final year, you will become familiar with and form a critical understanding of various qualitative and quantitative research paradigms, methodologies, and analytical practices, such as: textual and discursive analysis, content analysis, audience surveys, ethnographic observation, and interviews. You will learn how to design a rigorous research project, to identify a research question, to choose appropriate methods, to perform the actual research, and to draw conclusions from what you find. In doing so, you will also develop an understanding of the ethical, cultural, philosophical, and economic implications of media research.
Prerequisite: MST 100
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| MST 310 The Political Economy of Media |
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*3 (fi 6) (either term, 3-0-0)
This course explores theoretical issues surrounding the political economy of media, democracy, censorship, and freedom of expression, regulation and control, as well as issues relating to privacy, surveillance, and sousveillance. In addition to giving you an historical and theoretical context of understanding, it will enable you - through guest lectures and workshops - to engage directly with individuals working in various media industries and professions. To help you work towards a professional portfolio, the course contains an optional Community Service Learning component.
Prerequisite: MST 100
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| MST 400 Media Portfolio |
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*3 (fi 6) (either term, 0-3s-0)
In this capstone course, students produce individually or collaboratively designed and executed analytic and creative projects in a way that (a) synthesizes what you have learned throughout the Media Studies program, and (b) allows you to work on a project portfolio that will be immediately relevant to your career goals. You will develop your projects through independent study and classwork involving peer-to-peer criticism and review.
Prerequisite: MST 100, 200, 210, 300 and 310 or consent of the Program Administrator.
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