Contemporary dramas of the civil rights movement…the UPN and WB networks’ appeal to young female viewers…convergence of music and drama in contemporary TV…technology and aesthetics of early radio…Bollywood online as transnational public sphere…gay-themed television of the 1990s … Indian diasporic identity on the internet…feminism and television in the 70s…All of these are examples of work done by students in the Media and Cultural Studies program in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin- Madison.

The Media and Cultural Studies 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 – radio, television, film, popular music, internet – but reaching out across boundaries, MCS encourages interdisciplinary and transmedia research. MCS courses draw on a broad range of cultural theories – political economy, globalization, historiography, feminism, critical race theory and ethnic studies, theories of nation and the public sphere, discursive analysis, new media theory – spanning a spectrum of concerns all centrally relevant to the functioning of sound and screen media in a diverse and globalizing cultural environment. Recent upper division and graduate level seminars include:

• Race, Ethnicity and Entertainment Media (Prof. Mary Beltran)
• Cultural Industries (Prof. Michael Curtin)
• Beyond “Americanization:” Transnational Media Histories (Prof. Michele Hilmes)
• Critical and Cultural Studies of Stardom (Beltran)
• Globalization of Media (Curtin)
• Media and Modernity (Curtin)
• Sound Studies (Hilmes)
• History and Historiography (Hilmes)
• Media and the Public Sphere (Hilmes)

In addition, a weekly grad 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 are currently using this time also to present information and facilitate discussions of publishing, conference presentations, and job search.

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. The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, along with the Wisconsin Historical Society, maintains one of the most significant film and television archives in the US, featuring extensive film, video, audio and photographic collections as well as the papers of such key organizations and individuals as the National Broadcasting Company, United Artists, the National Association of Broadcasters, David Susskind, Irna Phillips, Ed Sullivan, Fred Coe, and many more. Faculty and graduate students in Communication Arts participate in a variety of University-wide research initiatives whose purpose is to promote areas of study that cross traditional academic boundaries, including Global Studies, Sound Studies, Visual Culture Studies, Chican@ and Latin@ Studies, Asian American Studies, South Asian Studies, Women's Studies, and more.