Media Studies

Associate Professor Jennifer Friedlander, department chair
Intercollegiate Steering Committee: Friedlander, Ma (PZ), Macko (SC), Mayeri (HM), Morrison (CM)

Professors Juhasz² (PZ), Ma (PZ), Macko (SC), Morrison (CM)
Associate Professors Lerner¹ (PZ), Friedlander, Ma (PZ), Mayeri (HM), Tran (SC)
Assistant Professors Hall, Talmor (PZ)
Visiting Assistant Professor Shurkus
Lecturer Thomas Connelly
Visiting Fellow Media Praxis, Travis Wilkerson
Intercollegiate Media Studies Production Director, Hutin
Intercollegiate Media Studies Academic Director, Affuso
Nancy Jugan, academic coordinator

The Media Studies Department offers an intercollegiate major jointly with Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona and Scripps colleges (Intercollegiate Media Studies [IMS]). Media studies is an interdisciplinary field that explores the histories, technologies and social and cultural contexts of a range of contemporary media forms, including film, video, television, print, the Internet and other electronic means of communication. Media studies at The Claremont Colleges presents students with an integrated approach to media production and the critical study of the media, seeking to understand the present state of media practices through an examination of their historical and technological development, an analysis of their genres and a rigorous investigation of the theoretical approaches that have been brought both to the creative practices of media producers and the critical practices used by contemporary scholars.

Production is a key element of the Media Studies Major, but the mode of production studied at The Claremont Colleges is not oriented toward traditional narrative film or television, or toward commercial models of new media; rather, the major stresses “independent” narrative forms, documentary, video and digital art and community-based and activist media. Media studies also understands critical scholarship as a form of media practice, seeking to confront not only the ways that the media constructs the contemporary cultural environment, but also the ways in which we, as producers and consumers, are all constituted by the same cultural formations that we seek to challenge. Above all, the major seeks to explore media from a perspective that eliminates traditional boundaries between disciplines and between media theory and media production, thus illuminating new ways of seeing, thinking and communicating in the world.

Faculty affiliated with the IMS Program include: Mark Allen, William Alves (HM), Isabel Balseiro (HM), Dipa Basu (PZ), Matthew Delmont (SC), Ken Gonzales-Day (SC), Laura Harris (PZ), Phyllis Jackson, Minju Kim (CM), Konstantine Klioutchkine, Marianne de Laet (HM), Ntongela Masilela (PZ), John Peavoy (SC), Frances Pohl, Nathalie Rachlin (SC), Arden Reed, Larissa Rudova, Monique Saigal, John Seery, Elizabeth Sweedyk (HM), Lynn Thomas, Valorie Thomas, Salvador Velazco (CM).

• Media Studies Major
   
• Media Studies Minor
   
• Media Studies Courses
   

Read more about our learning objectives:
www.pomona.edu/administration/academic-dean/learning-objectives