Media Studies
Office: 142 New Cabell Hall
Phone: (434)243-8855
Media Studies is an interdisciplinary major in the College of Arts and Sciences. The program focuses on the forms and effects of media (radio, film, television, photography, print, digital and electronic media). It includes the study of aesthetics and form, individual perception, and the history of media (primarily mass-circulation prints, journals and newspapers, recorded media, communications and broadcast media, and electronic modes); it is also concerned with the ethics and effects of media in the arena of policy studies, with the social impact of media on public opinion, and with the relations between media and the law. It is also concerned with free speech issues, as well as the commerce and regulation of media in the public sphere, and is critically engaged with the creative analysis, production, and research of traditional and emerging forms of media. The program has a significant emphasis on digital media through approaches to its history, theory, and technology and their impact upon contemporary life.
Students are admitted to the Media Studies major after a competitive application process that is normally completed at the end of the second year. Those planning to major in Media Studies should have a 3.4 GPA and normally take MDST 110 and MDST 201 before being accepted into the major. Please consult our web site for actual application deadlines.
Students may declare a Media Studies minor (unlike the major there is no competitive process). Students may declare the minor after completion of MDST 110 and MDST 201.