Guiding Principles 

Several guiding principles shape the creative and critical intellectual projects of our department, whether in research, teaching, or mentoring of doctoral students.

• A commitment to interdisciplinarity in the study of media and culture. Scholars and doctoral students in the department engage with theoretical concepts and perspectives from a range of academic disciplines, including media studies, cultural studies, communication, anthropology, sociology, political science, and so on, in order to deploy interdisciplinary strategies of analysis. Our approach is based on the principle that the most challenging questions of our times, in relation to the study of media, technology, and culture, cannot be examined from the perspective of any single academic discipline.

• A multi-methodological approach that draws on a diverse array of research methods in media and cultural analysis, including audience studies, semiotics, ethnography, discourse analysis, political/cultural economy, content analysis, and other interpretive and critical approaches.

• A historical perspective that situates the study of media, technology, and culture within historical contexts both in terms of comparative historical research, media archaeology, genealogy, and media history.

• A global, comparative approach in relation to cultural differences, media forms, historical frameworks, and theoretical paradigms.

Research Areas

The doctoral program offers five Research Areas that operate as guiding frameworks for intellectual inquiry and collaborative work across the department. These areas of research are overlapping and interrelated, and we encourage students to take advantage of course offerings across all five areas.

Global and Transcultural Studies
While all of our doctoral research areas integrate the study of media, technology, and culture in the context of an increasingly globalized world, this field of studyarea specifically centers on inflections of the global as cross-national, transnational, or transcultural. Specific areas include: critical theories of globalization, transcultural flows, international development and postcolonial studies, comparative media systems, cross-national comparative research design, global social movements, international and intra-national media and culture treaties and policymaking, critical cultural geography, alternative modernities, and global ethnography. Faculty areas of regional expertise include: the Middle East, South Asia, South and North America, Africa, and Western Europe.

Technology and Society
The study of technology as a political, cultural, economic, and aesthetic force is a crucial area of analysis of contemporary scholarship. Our department emphasizes the philosophy and politics of technology within cultural and social frameworks. Specific areas of focus include ethnographies of technology communities; ethical, social and political dimensions of information and communications technology; information and communications policy; history of technological devices and forms of mediation; the history of science and technology; media archaeology and the study of "dead media"; the legal implications of technological regulation and change; copyright and intellectual property; information technologies, media, and privacy; digital media; visual technologies; and technologies of the built environment.

Visual Culture and Sound Studies
Scholarship on visual culture and sound studies is an important emerging field across our disciplines. The study of visual culture recognizes the primary role of visual media in the enactment of power relations, the circulation of information and ideas, and the cultural practices that make meaning. Visual culture is about the study of images across a range of social arenas, from the news to art, advertising, science, fashion, television, film, digital images, architecture, and amateur media, acknowledging the experience of cross-mediation as a key factor in the contemporary visual realm. The study of visual culture is global, political, and engaged with interdisciplinary inquiries. Sound studies incorporates cultural, technological, philosophical, institutional, and interpretive approaches to practices of consuming and producing mediated sound. As an interdisciplinary field of study, it draws on media history, aesthetics, cultural analysis, formalist methods, ethnography, technological mediation, and an understanding of social and global activity determined by its auditory, sonic, and communicative materiality.

Media Institutions and Politics
Mediated communication in all its forms is critically examined by exploring the relationships of power involved in its creation, distribution, and consumption. Specific areas of inquiry include: political economy of media systems; legal and regulatory regimes of mediated communication; the professional practices and organizational routines of workers in the culture industries, including journalism, public relations, advertising, and entertainment; critical discourse and content analyses of news; state-manufactured propaganda; media ecology; legislative debate and shaping of public policy; historical and contemporary social movements; processes of protest, public dissent and censorship; political campaign communication; media activism and advocacy; and other political uses of media and communication technologies.

Critical Theories of Media and Communication
The study of media and communication requires engagement with a variety of theoretical traditions, including historical materialism, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, pragmatism, the Frankfurt School, gender and queer theory, critical race theory, critical legal theory, actor-network theory, speech-act theory, and the various strands of structuralism and post-structuralism. Critical theories approach these traditions from the perspective of critique, that is to say, from an ongoing self-examination of how knowledge and culture are created, acquired, maintained, and transmitted. In its core courses and elective seminars the graduate program seeks to train doctoral students to be subtle and rigorous practitioners of critique in its many forms.

Academic Career Opportunities

Doctoral program alumni typically work in higher education, research, public policy and consulting. View our class notes for a selection of institutions of higher education employing graduates of our PhD program.

Frequently Asked Questions

We receive an enormous number of inquiries about our program. Our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page will provide you with basic information and the steps you should take in order to become familiar with our faculty and program.