 |
Media and Communication Studies
Main Office: Fine Arts 416
Phone: (410) 455-2041
Email: loviglio@umbc.edu
Department Website: http://www.umbc.edu/mcs/
Department Head: Jason Loviglio
Introduction
The program in media and communication studies is a distinctive, interdisciplinary program that emphasizes a broad liberal arts approach toward the teaching of critical media literacy, intercultural communication and new digital media skills. These skills include a critical understanding of the emerging forms of digital technologies of communication, information, surveillance and entertainment. Students will learn how to integrate new communicative practices into their traditional liberal arts education.
The program uses materials and methodologies from various disciplines. It also emphasizes learning through seminar experiences and independent projects. The emphasis in the core curriculum on applied experience, undergrad research, critical thinking and interdisciplinary approaches to study of media is part of the program's fundamental liberal arts orientation. Core courses build one upon the other, developing students' critical skills, historical background and theoretical sophistication so that they gradually move from cursory understanding of media and communication to increasingly sophisticated understanding of the social, political, economic and cultural issues at stake in how and where human communication occurs.
The elective courses, which are drawn from American studies, English, modern languages and linguistics, visual arts, along with several other departments and programs across the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, reinforce the commitment to a broad liberal arts education. Students choose electives from a broad set of choices in three areas: critical media literacy, intercultural communication and technology and applied communication.