DEPARTMENT of MEDIA STUDIES Proposal for BA in Media Studies ______
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_____________________________________________________ DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA STUDIES Proposal for BA in Media Studies _____________________________________________________ March 2014 Based on Graduate Program Proposal Outline found at: http://www.colorado.edu/GraduateSchool/academics/new_degree_process.html CMCI Proposal | University of Colorado Boulder | Appendix 2 300 Undergraduate Program Proposal Outline A. Description of Program 1. Describe the basic design of this program, including its level (baccalaureate, masters, doctoral) and the field of study. Is this an interdisciplinary program? The Media Studies Department is dedicated to examining ways of thinking about and conducting research at the intersection of media, communication and cultural practices in historical and contemporary perspective. Encompassing humanistic, social scientific and artistic approaches to the study of media and culture, and interdisciplinary in its theoretical and methodological approaches, the new degree spans traditional boundaries between theory and practice. It fosters “media literacy” in the broadest sense by providing students with the critical skills to analyze contemporary media and culture, along with technical, aesthetic and intellectual capacities that enable strong media practices. The Media Studies BA is a 4-year interdisciplinary undergraduate program. The goal of a bachelor’s degree in Media Studies is to prepare students to become intellectually engaged critics of and participants in their media environment through a curriculum that integrates rigorous scholarship and creative media practice. Media Studies students exit the program with a vital edge as well-informed, independent thinkers, and well-rounded, critically engaged and creative professionals. Students majoring in Media Studies systematically examine traditional media (such as radio, newspapers and television), including their more recently converged manifestations, and the full range of digital innovations that have so radically disrupted and transformed the contemporary media environment. As a discipline it seeks to develop an informed and critical understanding of the ways in which the media influence social, political and economic areas of life, as well as the way they shape our perceptions, attitudes, desires and behavior. It also explores and questions historical, political, industrial, cultural and aesthetic aspects of media, through a variety of media forms, theories and contexts. Media Studies majors examine how different media are produced and how they are used, received and understood by different audiences. They also explore how media products are constructed in response to a range of creative, technological, institutional and cultural conditions. 2. What are the student learning goals of this program? What will a graduate of this program have learned and therefore be able to do? The goals should be sufficiently specific that they can be readily assessed; should the program be approved, the goals should be a basic component of future program review. Media Studies prepares students for work in research, education, the arts and media sectors. Students who complete the program typically enter the media industries, politics and/or pursue advanced degrees in professional or graduate school. Many CMCI Proposal | University of Colorado Boulder | Appendix 2 301 employers in the media industries prefer graduates who have a humanities and social sciences background that equips them with a range of skills in critical-analytic thinking and expression, rather than a specifically trained pre-professional concentration. A degree in Media Studies prepares students for careers as analysts, evaluators and producers of media messages and policies in government and private industry, and for graduate education in the social sciences, humanities and law. Students gain practical experience by taking media practice and production courses in the department and in other units in the College of Media, Communication and Information, by working in campus media such as the KVCU-AM radio station, the online CU Independent news operation, the Sports Magazine weekly television broadcast, the CU Newsteam televised and online program, and by undertaking internships in a wide range of media outlets and other organization that rely heavily on sustained contact with the traditional media in a network-saturated society. In recent years, Media Studies majors in JMC have interned at the Discovery Channel, Bravo, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, The Financial Times, Kenney Marketing and Advertising, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Aspen Magazine, the Boulder County AIDS Project and KCNC-TV Community Affairs. This practical experience leads students in career directions such as journalism, advertising, public relations, communications, film and video production, and digital and graphic design, and gives them the intellectual and practical foundation to be successful in community and audience development, marketing, policy research and development, and teaching. B. Concerns to be Addressed 1. Bona Fide Need: Student Demand and Workforce Demand a. Student Demand: What is the target market? What evidence is there of student demand for this program? The Media Studies major was created in 1994 as an undergraduate emphasis (“sequence”) within the School of Journalism & Mass Communication (SJMC) and has continued within the current provisional Journalism & Mass Communication (JMC) Program. Because the SJMC/JMC is a professionally-focused, accredited program, its curriculum is shaped by the demands of its national accrediting body, which limits the total number of credit hours students may take within the School, places caps on the number of students in explicitly professional courses, and specifies the type and number of courses that constitute appropriate professional preparation. At its creation, the Media Studies emphasis faced certain restrictions: it was capped at 60 students, it was designed not to dramatically change the existing curriculum or to compromise the journalism accreditation mandates, and Media Studies majors were not permitted to enroll in skills-based courses that were required of students in the professional emphases. Due to these constraints, the number of Media Studies majors has remained at 60 students, although courses taught by faculty identified with Media Studies, such as Media, Culture and Globalization, Television and the Family, Religion and Media, and Gender, Race, Class and Sexuality in Popular Culture, have CMCI Proposal | University of Colorado Boulder | Appendix 2 302 been popular with students in all of the JMC sequences, including Journalism, Broadcast Production and Advertising. The limited access of Media Studies majors to media production courses has made it more challenging to create the dynamic and creative interplay of media theory and practice that students desire, and which is a hallmark of leading Media Studies programs across the United States and internationally. The creation of a Media Studies Department in the new College of Media, Communication and Information—based on a commitment to interdisciplinarity, porosity between units and expanded access to media production courses—will provide an environment conducive to a thriving Media Studies major. With this breakdown of artificial barriers between theory and practice, we anticipate a significant increase in the number of Media Studies majors Through its socially grounded approach to the study of media, the proposed Media Studies Department’s BA program will not only continue to serve its own undergraduate majors; it will make a major contribution to other units in CMCI by providing the context and concepts for students to understand the field(s) and profession(s) they wish to enter. The Department’s introductory core courses (Media Literacy, Media and Communication History, and Digital Culture and Politics) and its array of more specialized upper division courses, such as Media and the Public, Media Technology and Cultural Change, Media and Cultural Analysis, and Media Entrepreneurship, will serve Media Studies majors as well as students from across the college. We anticipate that providing such “service” instruction will support the curricular needs and student interests of the broader College, and will continue to provide a significant proportion of the teaching responsibilities that the Media Studies faculty have undertaken since the program’s inception. We also anticipate steady and significant growth in the number of students choosing to major in Media Studies at CU Boulder as the College takes shape and gains increasing state and national recognition. Provide enrollment projections for the program for the first five years in Table 1, following the definitions and directions specified in the table. Student Demand and Enrollment Projections Our confidence in the new BA’s attractiveness to students is supported by the proliferation of Media Studies departments and majors in prominent academic institutions such as MIT, the University of California-Riverside, the University of Virginia, the University of California-Berkeley, New York University, Rutgers University, San Francisco University and the University of North Carolina- Greensboro, and in the emergence of programs and departments that combine media and cinema studies (e.g., UC-Santa Barbara, Dartmouth, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois-Urbana, UC-Irvine, Penn State). Media Studies is in