The Media and Cultural Studies (MCS) program emphasizes the study of media in their historical, economic, social, and political context. We examine the cultural forms created and disseminated by media industries and the ways in which they resonate in everyday life, on the individual, national, and global level. Focusing primarily on sound and screen media — television, new media, film, popular music, radio, video games — but reaching out across boundaries, MCS encourages interdisciplinary and transmedia research. MCS courses draw on a broad range of cultural theories spanning a spectrum of concerns all centrally relevant to the functioning of sound and screen media in a diverse and globalizing cultural environment. Through coursework in the Ph.D minor, graduates also can integrate study in such overlapping fields as history, ethnic studies, gender studies, sociology, and global studies.
For degree requirements and other detailed program information, please consult the graduate handbook:
Communication Arts Graduate Handbook
Recent and forthcoming upper division and graduate level seminars include:
- Adaptations and Continuations (J. Gray)
- Culture Industries (D. Johnson)
- Digital Commodities (J. Morris)
- Digital Game Cultures (D. Johnson)
- Digital Methods (J. Morris)
- Essential Digital Media Production for Graduate Students (E. Hoyt)
- Ethics of Entertainment Media (J. Lopez)
- Fan Studies (L. Lopez)
- Feminist Media Studies (L. Lopez)
- Franchising in the Media Industries (D. Johnson)
- Gender, Sexuality, and Media (L. Lopez)
- Media and Cultural Studies Writing Workshop (L. Lopez and J. Morris)
- Media and Cultural Theory (J. Gray and D. Johnson)
- Media Audience Cultures (J. Gray)
- Media Historiography (E. Hoyt)
- Media Reproduction (D. Johnson)
- Production Cultures (D. Johnson)
- Qualitative Research Methods (L. Lopez and J. Morris)
- Race and Racism in the Media (L. Lopez)
- Race and Technology (L. Lopez)
- Sound Cultures: Podcasting and Music (J. Morris)
- Sound Studies, Sound Cultures (J. Morris)
- Sports Media (J. Lopez)
- Television Comedy (J. Gray)
- Textuality: Beyond the Screen (J. Gray)
Recent and ongoing dissertation topics have examined:
- Evolutions in Black women’s access to and participation in mainstream US media industries
- Representations of (dysfunctional) sex and sexuality on TV and in digital media in the networked era
- The intersection of nation branding and travel influencers/the social media entertainment industry
- The how-to screenwriting industry as a source of media production knowledge
- Mediated feminism for tweens and teens
- Labor and systems of value in free online games
- Streaming media and global distribution
- A cultural history of American television standards and practices from the perspective of regulators, industry, and parents
- Industrial trends and digital cultures in video games
- The role of digital media in the globalization of cultures
- East Asian media in Latin America as a reflection of hegemonic globalization and trans-peripheral dynamics
- Disney Princesses and the circulation of meaning among industry, audience, and online discourse
- The queer and feminist potential of television syndication
- Vietnamese diasporic social media in urban spaces
- Economies of identity construction and influence on social media
- North American national public service radio from the age of television to the mobile media area
- The identity politics of musicians’ labor for the contemporary television industry
- A cultural history of Internet radio
- The circulation of radio drama in the digital age
- Smart technologies, self-actualization, and mobile digital media
- Regional lockout of digital media and the disjunctive cultural logics of global entertainment platforms
- The emergence of videotape within the corporate workplace
- A cultural geography of production and television textuality
In addition, a weekly graduate student/faculty colloquium gives students the opportunity to present their own work and to hear guest lecturers from a range of disciplinary perspectives, often in cooperation with other departmental areas. We also use this time also to present information and facilitate discussions of publishing, conference presentations, and the job search process.
The Velvet Light Trap is a semi-annual journal publishing work on film, television, and other media. It is edited entirely by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the University of Texas-Austin.
The MCS Graduate Program is designed to train future media scholars and university faculty; students are admitted with the assumption that they will carry on to the Ph.D. Terminal MAs are rare and not encouraged. Though courses in film, video, and new media production are offered, this is not a production program. Financial support is provided primarily through teaching appointments, so students must have a level of English competency sufficient for the classroom.
Our graduates teach at major universities across the country, and indeed around the world. See our recent Ph.D. page for examples.
The study of media and culture is enhanced at Madison by the presence of significant resources that aid critical inquiry and research. In particular, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, founded in 1960, is one of the leading US centers for archival documentation in film, television, radio and theater history, containing over 300 collections and thousands of films, television programs, and audio recordings.