Media Studies Courses

Media Studies — Required Courses

JCOM 221 Media Studies Production 2 credits

Build on your production skills by adding critical and cultural theory. By examining how theory and practice connect, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how production shapes culture and society.

JCOM 311 Introduction to Media Studies 4 credits

Get a historical overview of how media has been studied, with a close look at the major theoretical approaches and how they apply to today's media environment.

JCOM 312 Media Studies Research Methods 4 credits

Develop the core skills to evaluate studies critically and conduct your own research in the media studies tradition, working with methods like experiments, surveys, observation, and interviews.

JCOM 426 Media Studies Capstone 4 credits

Bring together the skills and knowledge from across your coursework to demonstrate research competence in the capstone, the culminating course of the major.

Media Studies — Track Courses

The courses below make up the three tracks. Which ones you take depends on the track you choose — see the Degree Requirements page for each track's structure.

JCOM 220 Introduction to Documentary Production 4 credits

Learn the theory and practice of documentary making, covering aesthetics, technology, research, and writing across preproduction, production, and postproduction.

JCOM 314 Understanding Disney 4 credits

Examine the Walt Disney Company and its products through multiple lenses, from the company's history and political economy to textual analysis of Disney media and the range of audience responses to it.

JCOM 315 Indigenous Media 4 credits

Explore the diverse forms of communication used by Indigenous societies, with attention to the deep cultural connections between these communities and their territories.

JCOM 316 Black American Media 4 credits

Survey the history of Black Americans in media production, representation, and reception since the late 19th century, analyzing newspapers, magazines, film, television, and music.

JCOM 317 Media and Religion 4 credits

Examine how media technologies shape religion in the modern world, drawing on foundational thinkers to explore religion's role in politics and culture and to question the theory that religious influence is declining.

JCOM 318 Documenting International Human Rights 4 credits

Study the documentary films that have shaped our understanding of human rights, examining how the form can reveal both atrocity and progress, and how it can tell the truth or distort it.

JCOM 319 Documenting Civil Rights 4 credits

Investigate the American Civil Rights struggle through documentary cinema, examining how documentary film both tells these stories and intervenes in the movements and lives it depicts.

JCOM 320 Survey of the Documentary 4 credits

Ground yourself in documentary film history and theory as art, journalism, and statement. You'll view, research, and write about the documentary as an essential part of media and social history.

JCOM 321 Documentary Filmmaking Aesthetics 4 credits

Analyze the aesthetics of the moving image in documentary film, working through framing and composition, light, color, sound, and editing to sharpen your creative approach as a filmmaker.

JCOM 322 Documentary Screening and Guests 4 credits

Screen, discuss, and analyze current Oscar-shortlisted documentaries and other notable films, examining visual style, editing, writing, producing, marketing, and distribution.

JCOM 323 Documentary Master Directors 4 credits

A rotating topics course studying the work of major documentary directors. (Topics vary.)

JCOM 380 The Games Industry 4 credits

Examine the shape and structure of the global games industry — its producers, value chains, sales, and industrial logics — along with the critical questions the industry raises.

JCOM 381 Theories of Play in Media and Communication 4 credits

Explore play and its relationship to culture and media, covering its role in history, psychology, game design, and modern media and internet cultures.

JCOM 382 Game Design and Critique 4 credits

Work through the elements, steps, and processes of creating a game to build in-depth knowledge of game design and development.

JCOM 383 Understanding E-Sports 4 credits

Analyze organized competitive gaming, addressing players and teams, business structures and management, diversity and inclusion, and the media and communication around esports.

JCOM 411M US Film Industry 4 credits

Trace the past and present of the U.S. film industry, from the rise and restructuring of the major studios to Hollywood's relationship with television and the internet. Cross-listed with cinema studies.

JCOM 412 Internet Law and Regulation 4 credits

Survey the laws and policies governing online communication and commerce, including free speech, privacy and surveillance, electronic contracts, copyright, trademarks, and computer crime.

JCOM 413 Data, Media, Surveillance 4 credits

Explore the intersections of data, media, and surveillance in society through discussion and projects, developing tools to analyze commercial and government data practices and media platforms.

JCOM 414 Media Technologies and Structures 4 credits

Examine how emerging technologies and contemporary media produce new forms of social organization and cultural production, and how media infrastructures shape discourse and public life. (Topics vary.)

JCOM 415 Culture, Power, Media 4 credits

Explore culture, identity, and power, including the role media play in reinforcing social, political, and economic disparities. (Topics vary.)

JCOM 416 Black American Television 4 credits

Examine the conditions that have shaped Black Americans' presence on U.S. television, on-screen and behind the scenes, from the 1950s to the present, using an intersectional framework.

JCOM 417 Cross Cultural Monster Narratives 4 credits

Explore monster archetypes across cultures, examining how monster stories are embraced, remixed, and subverted, with attention to race, gender, sex, and power.

JCOM 418 Global Television 4 credits

Analyze television from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East to understand how social and political conditions shape popular culture around the world.

JCOM 419 Reality Television 4 credits

Use the reality television genre as a lens to explore key issues in contemporary culture and society.

JCOM 424 Latin American Cinema 4 credits

Survey the cinema of Latin America, from Golden Age films and Brazilian Cinema Novo through the militant film era to contemporary work made for global distribution.

JCOM 427M Latino Roots I 4 credits

Study Latino history in what is now Oregon since 1500 and learn to conduct oral history interviews. Cross-listed with anthropology and sequenced with Latino Roots II.

JCOM 428M Latino Roots II 4 credits

Continue from Latino Roots I to produce a short documentary built on oral history, covering the basics of digital documentary production. Cross-listed with anthropology.

JCOM 480 Gamification and the Media 4 credits

Study gamification — the use of game elements in non-game contexts — and learn to analyze, critique, and apply game elements in your own media production.

JCOM 481 Making the Virtual a Reality 4 credits

Explore the foundational scholarship of immersive media and build the theoretical and practical tools to assess trends like platformization, digital surveillance, and algorithmic bias.

JCOM 482 Analog Games 4 credits

Analyze analog games through genre-based modules — cards, dice, board games, and more — examining game history, mechanics and design, and social impact.