Analyze one of the most powerful forces in our modern world with support from award-winning scholars and researchers. Explore the inner workings and impact of media on the world while honing your analytical, critical thinking, and research skills.
Media Studies at the SOJC
With a media studies major, you don’t just learn how to create media. You ask why it matters. You examine its history, research its forms, and explore its effect on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from free speech to issues of gender, diversity, and politics. At the SOJC, you’ll unpack the latest research with guidance from some of the field’s leading minds. And you’ll develop the skills employers want, like critical thinking and analysis.
Employers across all industries want critical thinkers who can research, analyze, and collaborate. No matter what path you choose, a media studies degree sets you apart. We prepare students for a wide range of careers—from online content creator and social media coordinator to public servant or Hollywood producer. But media studies can also launch a path to a PhD in the humanities, social sciences, or law.
Get a Minor in Media Studies
Nearly any student would benefit from a media studies degree. Our program is flexible so you can weave it into your education in a way that works for you. We offer a media studies minor for UO students outside the SOJC.
Learn About the Media Studies Minor
Meg Rodgers ’18 loves TV—especially its strong female characters. Her media studies major helped her turn her passion into a research project. As an undergraduate, she scored two grants to help fund her inquiry into TV’s antiheroines—women who buck stereotypically female traits like patience and humility. Her thesis topic? Why do TV audiences give more grace to antiheroes like Tony Soprano than to antiheroines like Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw?
Hands-On Learning, Real-World Experience
Students in our program do real research—and not just in the library. Build your portfolio and deepen your understanding of media's role in society as you:
- Dance with children in Ghana while studying the nation’s emerging media presence
- Present your work at an academic symposium
- Gain hands-on experience as an intern at media outlets around the state, the nation, or the world
In the post-Gamergate era, women represent a growing segment of the gaming community—despite frequent bullying in online spaces. Media studies assistant professor Amanda Cote wants to know why. A gamer herself, Amanda studies gender and representation in video game culture while developing the SOJC’s innovative game studies curriculum.
"The SOJC and the Honors Program [link to Honors Program page] ... prepared me for a research career in media and technology, allowing me to receive graduate school admissions from MIT, Stanford, Columbia, and Cambridge. The highly interdisciplinary questions that the field of media studies addresses fascinated me and enabled me to ... explore what I was really passionate about."
--Iago Bojczuk '18, master's candidate and Lemann Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, research assistant at MIT Global Media Technologies & Cultures Lab