90 courses with the subject MDST, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
Effective Date 03/22/2011 This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies.
Effective Date 08/01/2020 This course is a survey introduction to the complex and increasingly pervasive impact of mass media in the U.S. and around the world. It provides a foundation for helping you to understand how mass media – as a business, as well as a set of texts – operates. The course also explores contextual issues – how media texts and businesses are received by audiences and by regulatory bodies. Requisites MDST or 1st or 2nd Yr
Effective Date 08/01/2026 This course explores the world of cinema through storytelling, technique, and cultural influence. It covers key concepts in film analysis, including cinematography, editing, sound, and lighting, helping students understand how filmmakers craft powerful narratives. Students exploring how films reflect societal values and address complex issues. The course traces the history of cinema and offers hands-on experiences in writing and production.
Effective Date 09/22/2022 Democracy is in trouble today. Why? This course explores the growing threats to democracy in the United States and globally. Topics include: the impact of xenophobia, racism and radical nationalism on democracy; the rise of far-right media; the appeal of ethno-nationalism; the growth of White Power militias; legal barriers against voting, immigration and citizenship; as well as the impact of social media and cyber-based disinformation. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 2559 topic #13 Democracy in Danger or HIST 2559 topic #22 Democracy in Danger
Effective Date 01/01/2024 Students will learn the practical components of podcast production including: audio recording and editing, sound mixing, script writing, interview techniques, and the final production of a podcast. In addition, students will critically analyze the components of radio/podcast features. The course includes a lecture component and lab time where the instructor will consult with students about their projects.
Effective Date 03/21/2013 This course will offer historical and critical perspectives on a selected film genre each semester. Genres might include Noir, war, romance, musicals, gangster, New Wave, etc.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course will provide practice-based learning opportunities for students in various forms of media, including video, podcasting, film, etc.
Effective Date 02/26/2025 This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies.
Effective Date 01/01/2021 This course will cover all manner of media as it relates to sports journalism. Students will analyze published work across various mediums, learn the tools for reporting and writing different types of coverage, including features, profiles, long-form, game stories and more. Students will write articles, interview subjects, analyze sports journalism, participate in peer reviews and hear from some of the most prominent figures in sports journalism. Requisites Media Studies majors
Effective Date 03/01/2009 Introductory course in news writing, emphasizing editorials, features, and reporting.
Effective Date 02/01/2025 An introduction to the art and craft of screenwriting through the writing and discussion of short scripts. Will involve study of screenplays and films, and focus on the basic elements of screenwriting, including story structure, creation of character, and formatting.
Effective Date 01/28/2025 Which mediated performances of Blackness do we find acceptable, and which do we scorn? How have Black Americans worked to assert their value in a culture marked by respectability politics? We will examine how media has worked to inform “respectable,” exceptional Black self-presentation versus the deficient. Topics include: Donald Glover, the NAACP, Serena Williams, situation comedy, Tyler Perry, Bill Cosby, Sesame Street, horror, Lena Waithe.
Effective Date 08/01/2025 A course in visual thinking; introduces film criticism, concentrating on classic and current American and non-American films.
Effective Date 09/21/2021 Writing about film or television for the media provides a platform to both engender and enter into a cultural and aesthetic dialog by way of shared experience. This course explores what’s required for thoughtful, informed and engaged non-academic film criticism, including the obligation to understand the historical and contemporary landscapes of film, to write well and develop an individual voice, and to entertain and connect with a readership.
Effective Date 08/01/2014 This course introduces students at the beginning of the major to theoretical and critical literature in the field. Topics range from the psychological and sociological experience of media, interpretation and analysis of media forms and aesthetics, theories of audience and reception, anthropological approaches to media as a cultural force, and contemporary theories of media from humanities and social sciences perspectives. The goal of the course is to provide a foundation for thinking critically about media and to give them a sense of media studies as a critical and theoretical field. Restricted to Media Studies majors. Requisites Distinguished Majors; MDST majors by instructor permission
Effective Date 08/01/2020 This is a hands-on introduction to global media history. The course situates technologies, industries, texts and programs in the context of social, cultural, and political changes. Students will acquire basic competencies in historical research and writing: developing research questions, evaluating secondary sources, selecting archives, querying databases, managing notes, citing sources, sharing resources, and communicating findings as a team. Requisites MDST major/minor and must have completed MDST 2000
Effective Date 01/01/2010 This course is designed to introduce students to critical analyses of media texts, media industries, and media audiences that help explain the social, political, economic, and cultural locations of Latinas/os in America.
Effective Date 08/01/2019 The course will explore the specific features of Italian mass media from the Unification to the present, considering how the press, cinema, radio, television and the Internet have affected and shaped Italian society. It will trace the evolution of Italian media in relation to key events such as the Risorgimento, Fascism, both World Wars, reconstruction and industrialization, and the political rise of media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course uses audio, video, and text to explore the basics of media law: copyright; privacy; libel and defamation; and free speech. Students will be able to describe the tension between efforts to sustain an informed public and protect rights of expression; identify legal agents in the global system; identify powers and responsibilities of agents; grasp the basics of the 1st Amendment; and prepare for deeper analysis of these areas of law.
Effective Date 03/03/2022 Media representations of food across time and place offer a lens through which we can understand the cultural politics of food production, preparation, consumption and commercialization. Studying a range of food media genres, this course explores media storytelling around food, along with the racial, ethnic, gendered, class, and trans/national complexities that characterize our food narratives. A word of advice-do not to come to our class hungry! Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #125 Food, Media, & Popular Culture
Effective Date 10/10/2024 Black horror is a primer on the quest for social justice. What can such a boundary-pushing genre teach us about paths to solidarity and democracy? What can we learn about disrupting racism, misogyny, and anti-Blackness? If horror is radical transgression, then we have much to learn from movies such as Candyman, The First Purge, Get Out, Eve’s Bayou, Blacula, Attack the Block, Demon Knight, Tales from the Hood, Sugar Hill, and Ganja & Hess.
Effective Date 01/01/2016 The course explores Breaking Bad through study of the show’s narrative, characters, and formal design. Topics examined include: socio-economic anxieties and spiritual longings in contemporary America; the political and religious implications of addiction to speed (technological and pharmacutical); the show as revisionary Puritan narrative and revisionary Western; the problem of being bugged; the desire to get away with it; the poetry of W.W.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 In this seminar, we will investigate Star Wars as an ongoing media franchise. Students will explore media franchises as cultural, social, and economic phenomena that cut across multiple media (from films to theme parks to toys), interrogating them from media history, industrial analysis, textual analysis, and audience analysis approaches. Students will create written papers and video essays that allow them to explore media franchising scholarship and final projects on topics of their interest.
Effective Date 01/01/2023 Basic Multimedia Reporting teaches the hands on skills required for professional level news reporting, news production and short documentaries. Students may choose to specialize in Written Journalism, TV Journalism or Production. However, all students learn proficiency in research, news writing, ethics, camera use, video editing, and where requested, broadcast presentation skills.
Effective Date 01/28/2025 This course examines how the television show Better Call Saul employs innovative visual and written storytelling to explore crucial aspects of contemporary American life: the influence of media technologies (e.g., telephone; film; advertisement; document); the epidemic of loneliness; social class division; the power of charismatic authority; the business of conning; the allure and limits of self-reinvention; the precarity of the rule of law.
Effective Date 01/28/2025 Examine diverse production and representation of Asian Americans and their influences on U.S. media cultures that include film, television, literature, and social media. Explore how they shape and intersect with discussions on nationality, gender, race, migration, and technology in local and global history. Follow evolution of media stereotypes such as “model minority”, “the tiger mother”, and “techno-geek” in genres, industries, and platforms.
Effective Date 03/12/2024 The 1950s has been written about variously as the age of innocence, the height of the Cold War, a decade of great economic prosperity, the decade in which television first became a mass phenomenon, and the decade of the baby boomers which produced youth culture in its first mass incarnations. How was the experience of gender and race distinctive in this decade?
Effective Date 03/24/2023 In this course, we will explore the obstacles confronting the news industry – disinformation, declining trust in institutions, eroding business models, inequitable practices – but we won’t dwell on what’s gone wrong. Instead, we’ll focus on what can be done about it. We’ll define the role of journalism in society, we’ll examine emerging models of solutions-based journalism, and we’ll envision new models for community-minded news-sharing. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #139 Reimagining the News
Effective Date 08/02/2022 This course considers how animation and cartoons have historically been translated into the media of cinema and television. Focal points will be: Disney in traditional cinema animation, Hanna-Barbera in the broadcast television cartoon, Nickelodeon in cable television cartoons, and Pixar in digital cinema animation. Students will also practice creative and technical processes involved in making animation, individually and collectively.
Effective Date 11/07/2017 Video gaming is the fastest growing form of media: Americans spend twice as much on gaming as on recorded music and it is estimated that young men average over 670 hours a year playing video games. Yet we know relatively little about the broader social and political impact of this new medium. This class will sample the existing literature and explore ways of understanding the political implications (broadly defined) of gaming.
Effective Date 09/28/2023 This course studies nontheatrical films such as public relations films, management films, educational films, industrial films, and government-sponsored films. We will treat film as visual evidence to explore social, cultural, political, and industrial information across historical periods. Besides learning historiographical method to study cinema, students will examine representations of sex/gender, race/ethnicity, class, and religion. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #141 New Cinema History
Effective Date 11/20/2023 A study of media and culture through music. Our focus is on tracing the cultural origins of popular genres of music, mostly across the 20th century history of the United States. We will listen to the sounds of classical, jazz, country, pop, rock, hip hop, and electronic music. Central themes include instrument, identity, lyric, style, industry, and distribution media. Students will also practice making their own music. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #143 Music, Sound and Culture
Effective Date 02/15/2024 This course will explore the TV show Friday Night Lights through study of its narrative, characters, themes, filming style and the media’s response. Through episodic examinations, students will explore topics such as: team versus individual, the role of a coach, race and gender relations, socioeconomic and class structures identified through sport, the significance of high school football, and the media’s role/influence in telling those stories. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #136 Friday Night Lights
Effective Date 08/01/2014 This course examines media coverage of American wars from World War I to the present. Study of the evolution in media coverage of war provides an ideal vantage point for understanding the changing nature of warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries, war’s impact on American society, and the ways in which political elites have attempted to mobilize public support for foreign conflicts.
Effective Date 08/01/2021 This course examines the ways a changing media system is altering the dynamics of public discourse and democratic politics in the United States. Throughout the course we will critically analyze the ways in which scholars from a wide range of disciplines have studied the connection between media and politics, the methods they have employed, and the validity of their findings and approaches in the new media environment in which we now live.
Effective Date 03/27/2017 The history of American cinema is inextricably and controversially tied to the racial politics of the U.S. This course will explore how images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans and Latino/as are reflected on screen and the ways that minorities in the entertainment industry have responded to often limiting representations.
Effective Date 11/22/2013 This course will explore the complex cultural dynamics of LGBTQ media visibility, along with its social, political, and psychological implications for LGBTQ audiences. It explores four domains: (1) the question of LGBT media visibility (2) the complex processes of inclusion, normalization, and assimilation in popular culture (3) media industries and the LGBT market (4) the relationship between digital media, LGBT audiences, and everyday life. Requisites Media Studies majors
Effective Date 01/01/2014 This course provides students a familiarity with the terrain of moral philosophy, improves students’ awareness of the complex ethical issues and dilemmas in journalism and other areas of mass media, and engages students in the process of critical thinking, moral reasoning and problem solving in media communications.
Effective Date 09/22/2022 This course examines film renderings of artificial intelligence to foster critical perspectives on AI’s entanglement with human experiences (e.g., of identity, work, privacy, sex, aging, memory, death). Issues raised will include: the political economics of computational culture; the ethics of algorithmic tracking systems; the religious underpinnings of AI’s promise to deliver efficient transport (of information, services, goods, passengers). Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #110 Cinema and AI or MDST 3510 topic #5 Cinema and AI
Effective Date 09/21/2021 This course explores humorous and comedic texts and performances across a variety of media forms in America. We will begin by understanding theories of comedy and the logic of jokes alongside histories of comedians and humorous tropes and aesthetics. Examining a variety of content, we will discover how American comedy offers a rich relationship between creative expression and sociopolitical critique across different media and contexts.
Effective Date 07/20/2023 Topics have historical breadth and cover the historical development of media institutions, technology, or forms in areas of television, journalism, graphic media, film, print and publication history, digital media or other relevant areas. These courses may be repeated for credit if course content is sufficiently distinct to merit. Decision about repeated credit is at the discretion of the Director of Media Studies.
Effective Date 02/24/2025 This course will offer historical, comparative, and critical perspectives on a selected major directors and auteurs each semester. Directors might include Hitchcock, Welles, Heckerling, Ray, Speilberg, Renoir, Truffaut, etc.
Effective Date 09/05/2023 This course will offer historical and critical perspectives on a selected film genre each semester. Genres might include Noir, war, romance, musicals, gangster, New Wave, etc.
Effective Date 10/06/2024 This course will consider recent and current controversies in media and media studies. It surveys a series of “hot” topics within media. In each case it examines issues both historically and theoretically. The purpose of the course is to provide students with the tools and habits of thought to delve into the background and issues surrounding controveries so that the shallow presentation of the controversy does not remain the dominant frame.
Effective Date 09/26/2024 This course offers historical, comparative, critical, and media industry perspectives on global media. It explores how capital, geopolitics, new technologies and forms of production and consumption impact global media flows. Topics include studies of media systems, textual traditions, media circulation, globalization, the role of media technologies in international affairs, and the role of transnationalism in national and international affairs. Requisites Media Studies majors
Effective Date 03/01/2023 This course will offer historical, comparative, and critical perspectives on issues of diversity and identity in media studies. Topics may include the relationship between media and underrepresented groups, media use in identity construction, masculinity and feminine role models in media, media power, etc.
Effective Date 08/19/2022 This practice-based course will build on previous knowledge and/or experience in various forms of media, including video, podcasting, film, etc.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This hands-on course prepares students to read, evaluate, and design research in media studies. Drawing on critical, historical, administrative, and industrial traditions in the field, students will learn to assess the validity and anticipate the ethical requirements of various methods & data collection procedures. Following a theme selected by the instructor, the course culminates with each student proposing a new, original research study. Requisites Third year MDST majors
Effective Date 05/01/2026 This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies.
Effective Date 07/01/2020 This course entails study of films originating from and/or identified with non-US nations and cultures. Topics include: introduction to a nation’s cinematic achievements (e.g., Korean cinema); in-depth study of one or more influential cinematic movements (e.g., French New Wave; Italian Neo-Realism); exploration of a particular historical period (e.g., German silent cinema). The course fulfills the non-US requirement for the Media Studies major.
Effective Date 09/07/2017 Examines how television addresses women, how it represents women, and how women respond to the medium. Explores the relationship between the female audience and television by focusing on both contemporary and historical issues. Areas of particular concern include: how women have responded to television as technology; how specific genres have targeted women; how female-focused specialty channels have addressed women; and how specific programming and genres have mediated the changing status of women from the 1950s to the present.
Effective Date 09/20/2013 This course provides an overview of the enduring genre of the American Western in its classic and revised forms. The course will address the social and historical contexts informing the films. Students will be asked to perform both cultural and formal analysis of the cinematic texts.
Effective Date 09/05/2019 Disability is a pervasive, yet little studied, dimension of popular media. This class considers the stereotypes, interventions, and politics of on-screen images of disability as well as the ways in which disability affects the production and reception of media texts and technologies. Thus, we will watch a range of disability media, engage with disability cultures, and consider necessary additions to media experience (such as close captioning). Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3505 topic 5: Disability & Media
Effective Date 09/05/2019 Accessibility–building digital technologies that they can be used by people with disabilities–involves specific technological, critical, and interpersonal skills. This teaches practical web development skills alongside theoretical questions about the meanings of access, disability, design and the ethics of technological innovation. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic 105: Digital Media Accessibility
Effective Date 08/01/2020 This course will examine how the US news media is organized, what gets news coverage and why, and the role the news media plays in our democracy. Issues will include the impact of the digital news revolution, the importance of who owns the media, the differences between the many types of TV news and why the students’ personal consumption of news matters. Students will gain an ability to analyze the news, and whether it helps them as citizen. Requisites Media Studies majors
Effective Date 01/01/2014 A survey of issues in the study of new media and of new media artifacts. Objects studied may include films with digital special effects, digital animation, digital video, video games, digital art, internet art, and others. Theories of new media, media art, media change. Taught primarily via discussion with some lectures. Short papers, class participation, final project.
Effective Date 08/01/2022 This course is an introduction to the field of Game Studies, surveying theories of play and research on contemporary videogames to non-digital, analog, and “folk games.” Historic tensions and debates in game studies will form the foundation for the course, then students will engage with game studies as inherently interdisciplinary, developing novel research projects on games and play as well as interrogating their own play experiences.
Effective Date 09/29/2014 The growth of media industries in China sits at the intersection between commerce, technology and policy. The objective of the course is to cultivate a rigorous understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of these three areas within the context of China’s global expansion. Students will also be expected to develop fresh critical perspectives on the significance of analysis of industry practice as a means to critique media texts.
Effective Date 10/10/2019 This course addresses the medium of comics, including comic books, graphic novels, la bande dessinee, fumetti, and manga. Addressing comics as media, we will investigate comics form, publishing, creative movements, and adaptations into televisual media. Students will engage with primary comics sources, comic studies scholarship, and each others’ creative work. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #100 Comics and Sequential Art
Effective Date 11/26/2019 This course approaches the design and creation of “interactive stories.” Over the term, students will develop prototypes of multiple interactive storytelling media (interactive fiction, games, simulations, scenarios), balancing an understanding of the scholarship on interactive narrative with individualized design goals. No experience with game design or programming is required. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #99 Interactive Storytelling
Effective Date 10/11/2019 This course studies the relationship between social media and Global South societies. Students in this course will analyze the various theories related to the effects and affordances of social media on ideological polarization, social influence, social capital, and social movements. Students will be required to look beyond positive/negative effects of social media, and conduct in-depth interrogations about issues that surround them. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #107 Social Media and GS Societies
Effective Date 12/09/2016 This course explores the origins and impacts of American hip-hop as a cultural form in the last forty years, and maps the ways that a local subculture born of an urban underclass has risen to become arguably the dominant form of 21st-century global popular culture. While primarily focused on music, we will also explore how forms such as dance, visual art, film, and literature have influenced and been influenced by hip-hop style and culture.
Effective Date 03/03/2022 This course examines the history of athletes as activists and the media’s coverage and understanding (and at times, misunderstanding?) of those movements. How did the media cover early protests and activism from athletes? How has that coverage changed in subsequent years? How have movements paralleled larger movements (MeToo, Black Lives Matter)? We will also look at political ties to athlete activism, examining how each sphere affects the other. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #123 Athletes, Activism and Media
Effective Date 01/01/2018 Money is one of the oldest media technologies in the world, but in recent years a variety of experiments from Venmo to Bitcoin have emerged, promising to reinvent the form of money itself. This class looks at the historical, social, and cultural dimensions of money as a media technology.
Effective Date 02/07/2019 Measuring “value” is an important feature of media industries and contemporary life more broadly. This class asks how value is determined, according to what value systems, through what systems of valuation. We will look at taste, metrics, reviews, awards, likes, retweets, and ratings, to try to understand how people answer the question, “What is valuable?” Requisites Must have completed MDST 2000
Effective Date 10/05/2017 This class examines computer-mediated communication forms known as “social media.” What makes these technologies “social” or “media”? From algorithms to selfies, most aspects of social media have been met with both moral panics and utopian pronouncements. Students will develop a set of critical frames and analytical methods for understanding the role of social media in society.
Effective Date 08/01/2024 Using a mix of scholarly and popular-press readings and an examination of digital artifacts, we will analyze the creations and contributions of Black digital culture from the mid-90s to the present. Covering topics including the early Black blogosphere; the creation of niche content sites like BlackPlanet.com; the emergence of Black Twitter; the circulation of memes, and the use second-screening.
Effective Date 09/08/2016 Provides an opportunity for students to get credit for field work, in the area of media studies. Students must put a proposal together for the project with a faculty sponsor, which must be approved by the add/drop deadlines. Restricted to Media Studies Majors. Requisites Media Studies majors
Effective Date 03/03/2022 This course traces the development of national news broadcasting in the United States from the 1920s to the present. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #122 American Broadcast News
Effective Date 08/01/2014 Analyzes the development of the silent film, 1895 to 1928; emphasizes the technical and thematic links between national schools of cinema art and the contributions of individual directors. Includes weekly film screenings.
Effective Date 05/01/2023 Analyzes the development of film as an art and social force from World War II until the 1970s. Includes weekly film screenings.
Effective Date 03/03/2022 This course addresses the genre of the “superhero” across multiple media, looking at its roots in myth, its rise in print media and comics, its adaptation in television and film, and its current role as the driver of multi-billion-dollar transmedia franchises. This course addresses scholarly perspectives drawn from media industries research, transmedia storytelling, media representation, and other related media studies areas. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #121 Superhero Media
Effective Date 08/01/2019 This course is reserved for Media Studies students interested in receiving credit for participation in student-led and UVA-affiliated enterprises that are media-related under the guidance of a faculty member or industry professional in the area of media studies. Students must put a proposal together for the project with a faculty sponsor, which must be approved by the add/drop deadlines. Restricted to Media Studies Majors. Requisites Media Studies majors
Effective Date 09/27/2018 Explores the protest movements of the 1960s through the lens of media coverage in the mainstream press of the day – newspapers, general interest newsmagazines, photojournalism, television, popular culture, as well as the Movement’s own underground press. Purpose is to understand a fascinating and often misunderstood moment in American history but also to investigate what that period can tell us about our current moment of protest and activism.
Effective Date 09/28/2023 In this course, we will focus on media adaptation across multiple media (film, games, comics, books) from multiple critical, industrial, and creative perspectives. Students will engage with existing Media Studies scholarship on media adaptation, dive into adaptations first-hand through watching/reading/playing multiple media, and finally develop, individually and in groups, critical understandings of media adaptation through writing. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #138 Adapting Media
Effective Date 05/03/2022 This course examines some of the most important American films and cinematic innovations of the 1990s and combines some crucial cultural, political, and historical events (e.g. third-wave feminism, discourse of race and ethnicity in the wake of the Rodney King case) with the representation of women across different cinematic genres. Attention will be paid to the rise of female filmmakers such as Julie Dash, Jane Campion, and Kathryn Bigelow. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MDST 3559 topic #129 Avenger, Victim, Outsider
Effective Date 01/01/2021 An introduction to research methods in media studies. Intended as a foundation for thesis and project work for students in the DMP program. Covers subjects such as research design, ethics, people-based methods (ethnography, surveys, interviews) and textual analysis. Requisites Must have completed MDST 3000 and must be in the Distinguished Major Program in Media Studies
Effective Date 09/15/2016 Writing of a thesis or production or a project with appropriately researched documentation, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers or project supervisor. Requisites Distinguished Majors; MDST majors by instructor permission
Effective Date 08/01/2021 This course examines mass media ‘network television, journalism, advertising, cinema’ both during the Kennedy years and after to explore the impact, ideas, ideals, and iconography of this presidency.
Effective Date 03/22/2018 From analysis of documentary, narrative film, animation, gaming, experimental video, and social media, the class will provide students with the tools to bridge the gap between media and scientific messages about environmental issues. Students will develop critical tools to understand the aesthetic, environmental and industrial characteristics of different media practices related to some of the most significant issues facing our world.
Effective Date 09/05/2019 This course presents approaches to understanding multiple histories of games. Focusing on a central game series, franchise, or genre, students will engage with the history of game development, the impact of game play, and community practices around games. Students will engage with archival research, conducting individual research projects on game histories.
Effective Date 08/01/2026 A capstone seminar, this course offers students a supervised opportunity to pursue original research in media studies. Related to a theme selected by the instructor, the project will entail design of a research question, extensive collection and analysis of literature and data, and completion of a 15-20 page paper that provides new, critical insight or information on the subject examined. Requisites Restricted to MDST majors; students must have completed MDST 3050 AND (MDST 3510 or MDST 4000).
Effective Date 10/17/2024 This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies. Requisites Media Studies majors
Effective Date 01/01/2016 This course examines a number of American detective films and how the portrait of the hard-boiled private eye dramatizes concerns about class, race, gender relations, urbanization, the rationalization of experience, the limits of self-knowledge, the blurring of boundaries between bodies and machines, and the collapse of distinction between private life and public life.
Effective Date 11/02/2018 The course will draw from multiple genres and time periods to present an overview of how cinematic projections of whiteness have served to reinforce white supremacy. Equally important, students will examine films that counter the medium’s terrifying consecration and preservation of white privilege, films that hold up whiteness for critical inspection.
Effective Date 02/10/2014 This course turns a critical eye towards media’s relationship to everyday life. It conceptualize media, such as cell phones, television, and YouTube for example, as central forces in representing, demarcating and franchising the ordinary. We will explore the construction of ordinariness in media as well as the ways in which audiences engage with media in daily life to achieve `taken for grantedness’.
Effective Date 01/01/2015 This is an introductory course to Spanish mass media. The course gives students a critical understandings of the roles mass media plays in Spanish society, culture, and politics. The emphasis of the course is on sociological approaches to media, in particular studies of how radio and television participate in the making and remaking of modern Spain.
Effective Date 01/01/2019 This course is designed to allow students to pursue independent research and study of a topic that is not contained within the course offerings of Media Studies. This course will not fulfill the capstone requirement
Effective Date 08/01/2025 Students meet regularly with their DMP advisor to refine their research question and determine their proposed method(s). Students will read and critique published work in their area(s) of focus, with the goal of outlining a literature review. By end of term, students will produce a thesis proposal. Requisites Distinguished Majors; MDST majors by instructor permission
Effective Date 08/01/2025 Writing of a thesis or production or a project with appropriately researched documentation, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers or project supervisor. Requisites Distinguished Majors; MDST majors by instructor permission
Source: University of Virginia-Main Campus's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 59
