Media Studies Cluster

The media have become core social institutions in the dissemination of information, news, entertainment, culture, politics, social interpretation, and other spheres of everyday life. In recent years, mass communication has taken on new electronic formats and has expanded worldwide to bring more and more people and places in contact with one another, shrinking our sense of time and space. The Media Studies cluster serves to unify a common subject under different disciplinary and intellectual approaches, looking at both applied and interpretive aspects of image creation and symbolic exchange within and across cultural and territorial boundaries.

Cluster Coordinator: Gerald Sussman
Office: UPA 370K
Phone: 503-725-5176
E-mail: sussmang@pdx.edu

Sophomore Inquiry: Media Studies

Introduction to Media Studies examines the social significance of media content, media institutions, and social changes deriving from uses of communication in different social, political, and cultural contexts. Critical approaches to this course include the study of: 1) systems of representation and their constitution; 2) structural characteristics of mass production and distribution of media products; and 3) the social impacts of mass media through changing technological forms.

This SINQ leads to the Media Studies Cluster.

Approved Cluster Courses: Academic Year 08-09