Media Studies

Media Studies uses a variety of research methods (including criticism, history and uses) and artistic production (filmmaking, scriptwriting and visual communication).

The Media Studies curriculum is designed to foster an appreciation, awareness and understanding of content and messages, origins, evolution, interrelations and processes of the mass media industries including:

the critical, historical, cultural and theoretical foundations;
creative and commercial contexts;
the sociocultural, psychological and political impact on audiences;
visual and cultural literacy;
basic writing, design, production and technological skills; and
professional experience and contacts via the internship program.

Visual Media track within Media Studies

The Visual Media track provides students with the conceptual framework, historical context and technical skills necessary for the production of digital artworks and the effective use of digital communication. Through the creative application of technology, students will learn to produce projects which fall within traditional media, including documentary and narrative film, and within new media, including interactive media for the web. The computer will be treated as both a tool and a site for creative exploration. In the tradition of the liberal arts, ideas will be considered as important as the techniques and tools used to express them.

The Visual Media Track addresses the necessity of teaching students how to express ideas by means of digital images, whether by film, television, the Internet or mobile devices. This will prepare them for jobs in a global community in which an ever-increasing variety of media formats are used to visually convey ideas and information across an ever-increasing number of fields.

The Visual Media track is designed to provide students the necessary foundation for a wide variety of jobs in digital media, including careers in interactive Web design, filmmaking, motion graphics design, and related fields that involve digital image production, design, display and exhibition.

Students filming senior project on bridge with a jib and canon equipment

Showing composition and framing for a class project on Canon DSLR

Student slates the scene on a collaborative student film project in Auburn

Student production group using camera stabilizers and audio boom poles on interior shot for a student film

Students and actors discussing camera movements and scripts

Student prepping scene on location in Gulf Shores Alabama for a student film

Recording natural audio sounds of crashing waves and two actors talking on a beach location

Student filming a walking scene from a moving car out of a sunroof

Students working with Canon equipment and shoulder mounts during an in-car scene

Students working with professor as actors read the final script

Aerial scene of actors waiting to enter scene during student film project

Student slates an interior scene to mark take number and scene

Students and faculty attending guest speaker talk and screening at a local coffee shop

Closeup of students collaborating together in a computer lab working on post-production techniques

Over the shoulder image of students reviewing footage previously filmed for a collaborative project

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For more information

Hollie Lavenstein

Associate Director for Media Studies
227 Tichenor Hall
Auburn University, AL 36849
(334) 844-2727
lavenho@auburn.edu

Last Updated: August 24, 2018