Media

Media explores how images, technologies, and stories shape the way we see the world and each other. You will examine how media reflects and influences culture, identity, and power, and study everything from classic cinema to TikTok, and from the Walkman to environmental storytelling. This field gives you the tools to think critically, create thoughtfully, and engage with media as both a scholar and a maker.

Opening up Media courses

You can easily take any of the 100 and 200-level courses in Media, as none require a gateway course. If you want to take 300-level courses in Media, make sure to first take the Researching Humanities gateway.

Courses in Media

Gateway

Researching Humanities

Explores the role of the humanities in fostering critical thinking, empathy and cultural awareness. Introduces methodologies and research skills across Film and Media, Communication, Literature, and Heritage, Art and Museums, helping students make sense of the world through stories, images and technology. Prepares students for upper-level courses and emphasizes asking better questions rather than memorizing facts.

100-level

Introduction to Film & Media

This course introduces you to film and media as systems of meaning and cultural production. You will examine how images, narratives, and technologies shape perception, identity, and power. Topics include filmic storytelling, representation, national genres, and film’s role in global culture. Through readings, examples, and analysis, you will develop tools to engage critically with film and media in cultural and academic contexts.

100-level

Media Archaeology

Introduction to Media Archaeology explores how media technologies shaped knowledge before the arrival of digital culture. You will study cassette tapes, typewriters, and early printing as material objects that carry meaning. Through readings, discussions, and hands-on experiments, you will examine how media have weight, texture, and decay. Activities may include recording silence, analyzing cassette hiss, or researching the Walkman. No technical background is required.

200-level

Media & the Environment

This course examines how environmental concerns are represented through visual culture. You will explore the Anthropocene, animal representation, deep time, biocentrism, contested ideas of nature, and indigenous and postcolonial media. We analyze how media shape environmental understanding and sustainability discourse. You may write a paper or create a media project as the final project. Through readings, discussions, and practice, you will develop tools to analyze and produce environmental media.

200-level

From T.V. to TikTok

“Boys Beware!” warns the title of a 1950’s televised commercial. Of what and whom and why wonders the audience. “Nothing about us without us,” demands dis/abled people on TikTok. “Be our smoke signals” implores a Lakota Matriarch in person. How, questions the class. Media provides the answers. It teaches us to fear, pity, avoid, admire, respect, and how to be good allies.

300-level

Media & Race

Whose stories are remembered and whose are erased? What do the stories un/told teach us about power, privilege, and resistance? How do cultural expressions including Afrofuturism (i.e., Black Panther) address systemic racism while envisioning just futures? These questions steer this course. Addressing them reveals links between past and present that students explore in final podcasts grounded in research and fueled by passion.

300-level

The Documentary

In this course, students will be introduced to the development of the documentary form. Students will A) produce a theoretical paper dealing with a problem and 2) deal with the problem in a short documentary film, video, or piece of media. The aims of the course are to foster an understanding of documentary as a diverse form, with a range of styles and genres, to root this diversity in its various historical and social contexts, and to introduce you to analytical tools appropriate for study of documentaries.

Also consider these options:

Media, Culture & Communication

The other fields within the Media, Culture & Communication cluster.

Media, Culture & Communication

Explore History!

To understand how past events shape the stories we tell and the way information spreads today.

History

Explore Mathematics!

To strengthen your storytelling with data analysis and uncover deeper truths behind the stories you tell.

Mathematics

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The UCR Program Builder is designed to help you easily plan your academic program. Step by step, the tool guides you through selecting courses, building a balanced curriculum, and meeting UCR’s academic requirements.

Try the Program Builder

The UCR Program Builder is designed to help you easily plan your academic program. Step by step, the tool guides you through selecting courses, building a balanced curriculum, and meeting UCR’s academic requirements.

Try the Program Builder

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Media

Media

Opening up Media courses

Courses in Media

Courses in Media

Researching Humanities

Researching Humanities

Introduction to Film & Media

Introduction to Film & Media

Media Archaeology

Media Archaeology

Media & the Environment

Media & the Environment

From T.V. to TikTok

From T.V. to TikTok

Media & Race

Media & Race

The Documentary

The Documentary

Also consider these options:

Also consider these options:

Media, Culture & Communication

Media, Culture & Communication

Explore History!

Explore History!

Explore Mathematics!

Explore Mathematics!