Media Studies (MDIA)
MDIA 201 - HISTORY OF CINEMA AND MEDIA I: INVENTION TO 1945
Short Title: HISTORY OF CINEMA AND MEDIA I
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This seminar will introduce students to the history of cinema from its inception to 1945 by considering individual cinematic artifacts in their technological, economic, aesthetic, political, and social contexts. Cross-list: GERM 280.
MDIA 202 - HISTORY OF CINEMA AND MEDIA PART II: 1945-PRESENT
Short Title: HISTORY OF CINEMA AND MEDIA II
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Introduction to major movements, practices and theories of film and media from 1945 to present. Formerly offered as, and mutually exclusive with, CMST 202. Students who have earned credit for CMST 202 cannot earn credit for MDIA 202.
MDIA 203 - INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDIES
Short Title: INTRO TO FILM STUDIES
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This course introduces students to the fundamental principles of film analysis. We will focus on the visual and narrative organization of film and moving images; examine the evolution of film form in specific historical contexts; and work on developing critical and interpretative skills for understanding, and writing about, cinema. Formerly offered as, and mutually exclusive with, CMST 203. Students who have earned credit for CMST 203 cannot earn credit for MDIA 203.
MDIA 204 - INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES
Short Title: INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Our world is saturated with media. But what does that mean for us? This course explores the study of media in two ways. First, it introduces students to a range of theoretical perspectives on the role of media within society. Second, it guides students through the analysis of different forms of media, including social, broadcast, print, journalistic, and digital. This course pays special attention to how dynamics of class, race, gender, and generation affect media’s production and consumption. By the end of the semester, students will have developed a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of how media shape our lives. Formerly offered as, and mutually exclusive with, CMST 204. Students who have earned credit for CMST 204 cannot earn credit for MDIA 204.
MDIA 211 - CINEMA AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Short Title: CINEMA AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This course explores how cultural production, such as environmental film, shapes our understanding of environmental issues, crises, and conservation. Students will strengthen their critical thinking and analytical skills by examining the narratives and values embedded in diverse media forms. The course encourages students to imagine and creatively engage with cultural responses that inspire awareness and action toward a more sustainable future. Cross-list: ENST 211.
MDIA 238 - SPECIAL TOPICS
Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar, Independent Study, Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Lecture/Laboratory
Credit Hours: 1-4
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Topics and credit hours vary each semester. Contact department for current semester's topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.
MDIA 242 - SEX AND MEDIA: REPRESENTATION, OBSCENITY, AND SCANDALS
Short Title: SEX AND MEDIA
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This course considers the history, aesthetics, and politics of sex in media, including film, television, the Internet, and social media. Topics include the regulation and representation of sex in Hollywood cinema, the spread of celebrity scandals, the history and law of Internet pornography, and the mediation of sex on smartphone hookup apps. Cross-list: ENGL 242.
MDIA 243 - NOT JUST STUFF: OBJECTS AND THE MAKING OF GENDER
Short Title: OBJECTS & THE MAKING OF GENDER
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This course asks the following questions: What can material objects and cultural representations of these material objects teach us about gender? What can feminist thought teach us about objects, especially, perhaps, those that are not overtly gendered? In answering these questions, we will consider a wide range of sites responsible for the production of cultural ideas about gender and objects, including: thrifting; art deco movements; trad wives; interior design, and garage sales and estate sales. To think through these questions and cultural sites, students will have the opportunity to acquire and transform objects into original pieces of art through working with local artists and artisans, including woodworkers, textile artists, and painters. Collectively, we will curate our objects into a a multi-media public-facing exhibition. Cross-list: ENGL 243.
MDIA 251 - TV TO TIKTOK: EVERYDAY MEDIA
Short Title: TV TO TIKTOK: EVERYDAY MEDIA
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Recent surveys suggest that the average college-age American spends upwards of six hours a day consuming media of one form or another. Moreover, from television to streaming, radio to podcasts, and print media to social media, the range and volume of content available is staggering. Despite the realities of our unique consumption habits and personalized algorithms, overlap remains—a viral reel or the shared experience of time lost doom-scrolling. To understand how this relationship to media shapes our society, our culture, and ourselves, we need to start from those common elements and experiences.
MDIA 287 - INTRO TO VIDEO AND INSTALL ART
Short Title: INTRO TO VIDEO AND INSTALL ART
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Studio
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Learn to create unique experiences by sculpting time and space. This course introduces students to installation art and experimental uses of video. Students will learn the basic tools and techniques used in the production and exhibition of video art. Cross-list: FILM 287.
MDIA 301 - WOMEN’S FILMMAKING SINCE THE 1970S
Short Title: WOMEN’S FILMMAKING SINCE 1970S
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This course introduces students to a rich cinematic tradition: movies made by women. Starting in the 1970s and moving to the present, our fifty-year survey will be a global one and consider a range of genres, aesthetics, and production modes. We will also examine the broader artistic, political, and social contexts that have shaped and been shaped by the cinematic work of women. We will ask: what does the world’s film history look like through the lens of women filmmakers? And what methods are needed to appreciate and engage critically with such work?
MDIA 332 - CONTEMPORARY FILM DIRECTORS
Short Title: CONTEMPORARY FILM DIRECTORS
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This course explores contemporary cinema, from the 1990s to the present, by delving into the distinctive visions of over a dozen directors working today. We will examine a range of genres and styles, as we consider how movies reflect and shape the contemporary world. Cross-list: HART 332.
MDIA 341 - AMERICAN POLITICAL MEDIA
Short Title: AMERICAN POLITICAL MEDIA
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This seminar asks fundamental questions about the history, production, circulation, and consumption of political media in America. What defines American political media in the twenty-first century? What are the common features of partisan media from across the political spectrum? What are the strategies that make it effective and persuasive? To answer these questions, students will: supplement media studies scholarship with insights from anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and communication studies; apply different frameworks to analyze a wide range of partisan political media; and conduct an original research project that examines the relationship between our polarized politics and the contemporary media environment.
MDIA 381 - HOUSTON NEWSROOM PRACTICUM: REPORTING, PRODUCING AND PUBLISHING AUDIO JOURNALISM
Short Title: HOUSTON NEWSROOM
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: Students will gain hands-on experience in Rice’s new Houston Student Newsroom, an audio journalism initiative producing professional-quality NPR-ready stories for broadcast and digital distribution. Through reporting, editing, and production, students will learn how to tell compelling, community-connected stories while building a portfolio of publishable work.
MDIA 384 - CREATIVE COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Short Title: CREATIVE COMMUNICATION
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: How can creative forms of communication help us respond to the climate crisis and other urgent problems? How much does fictional media actually change peoples' minds? This course examines these and related questions by considering examples of creative communication for social change (such as film, TV, standup comedy, social media, memes, and graffiti) and situating them within research on influence and persuasion from communication studies, psychology, and sociology. For their final project, students will apply these lessons by crafting their own creative communication on a topic of their choice. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for MDIA 384 if student has credit for ENGL 207.
MDIA 401 - CRITICAL MEDIA LAB
Short Title: CRITICAL MEDIA LAB
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Laboratory
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: In the Critical Media Lab, students advance the critical study of media and politics as part of research teams under the direction of a rotating roster of instructors of record. Students and the instructor work together to research a media problem and to produce and disseminate new scholarship, for instance in the form of articles, podcasts, or video. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the empirical study of how representations of climate change affect audience perceptions and how media genres adapt to new constellations of activist discourse. *Students wish to repeat the class for credit should do so with a different instructor and on a different topic.* Repeatable for Credit.
MDIA 410 - MEDIA STUDIES SENIOR WORKSHOP
Short Title: MEDIA STUDIES SENIOR WORKSHOP
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment limited to students with a class of Senior. Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Media Studies. Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): (MDIA 203 or CMST 203) and (MDIA 204 or CMST 204)
Description: This Media Studies capstone course brings together majors to synthesize their major coursework while simultaneously pursuing an applied project, typically either: (1) a critical research project; (2) a creative project (such as launching a podcast or directing a documentary); or (3) an internship or placement in a local community organization. The mix of critical, creative, and applied projects will allow the expertise and interests of students to influence one another.
MDIA 411 - MEDIA STUDIES DIRECTED SENIOR PROJECT
Short Title: MEDIA DIRECTED SENIOR PROJECT
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Independent Study
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): (CMST 203 or MDIA 203) and (CMST 204 or MDIA 204)
Description: In this Directed Senior Project taken in lieu of MDIA 410, students still pursue one of the three applied projects, but as directed by an individual faculty member instead of as part of a larger course: either (1) a critical research project; a creative project (such as launching a podcast or directing a documentary); or (3) an internship or placement in a local community organization.
MDIA 477 - SPECIAL TOPICS
Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS
Department: Media Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar, Independent Study, Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Lecture/Laboratory
Credit Hours: 1-4
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: Topics and credit hours vary each semester. Contact department for current semester's topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.