Mission & Goals

 

Mission Statement

In the Department of Media & Communication at Muhlenberg College, students and faculty research, critique, and create media of all forms—visual, digital, print, oral and hybrid forms—and investigate the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts that both shape and are shaped by these converging media.  Here, critical thinking meets hands-on experience, through engaging coursework, internships in professional environments, experiential and service-learning in local communities and global contexts.  Our aim is to foster graduates who are not only information literate, but who become information leaders in helping to realize the democratizing potential of media.  The department is dedicated to the integration of media analysis and media production for social justice in a liberal arts setting.

 

Program Goals & Learning Outcomes

GOAL I. Students will become ethical and responsible cultural producers

  • students can identify the ethical dimensions inherent in (media) representation

  • students practice ethical standards in their media making

  • students demonstrate an awareness/attentiveness to the legal dimensions of cultural production (copyright, fair use, plagiarism, liability, privacy)

  • students experience multiple forms of media making (assumes critical media literacy entails media making and not just consumption)

GOAL II. Students will think systematically about media and communication

  • students can apply a range of qualitative and quantitative social science and humanities research methods                                                     
  • students can discriminate between everyday and academic forms of knowledge                                                                                           
  • students can discriminate between conjecture and evidence                                                                                                                        
  • students can comprehend professional journal articles and a challenging theoretical text                                                                             
  • students can produce well-written, accurately cited papers with an original, insightful argument

GOAL III. Students will know the legal, aesthetic, historical, sociological, political and economic foundations of media institutions

  • students can explain the historical development of commercialized media

  • students can identify media as products of social relations (and forces)

  • students can identify identify media as forms and narratives

  • students can identify underlying intra and extra organizational structures of media institutions

  • students can articulate the tensions between freedom of expression and market forces (profit pressures) in a democratic society

  • students can identify the legal and regulatory foundations media industries

GOAL IV. Students will understand the centrality of media for citizenship, social and racial justice in a democratic society

  • students can deconstruct media messages about race, marginalization and power and reconstruct alternate messages
  • students can recognize that media systems are not natural and are therefore subject to transformation
  • students can identify themselves as allies and advocates for social change and democratic change in the media
  • students can exhibit engagement with anti-racism and social justice in written and media production work
  • students can recognize the vital importance of journalism for a healthy democracy, including locating alternate sources of media outside of the mainstream commercial media
  • students can identify ethical dimensions in media representations of race and ethnicity, and how these are influenced by political and economic power
  • students can mobilize knowledge and practice to advocate for more equitable, inclusive, and just social worlds–considering, for example, race, class, gender, sexual identities and other intersectional and marginalized communities

GOAL V. Students will acquire literacy in visual and emergent media forms

  • students can understand the underlying language and structure of visual representations

  • students can apply their understanding of visual media to interpret future media forms

  • students can explore the complex interplay of words and images in narrative works

  • students can analyze the nature of emerging interactive media forms

  • students can experiment in the exploration of emerging interactive media forms

  • students can explore the implications of digital media for image ethics

  • students can understand a range of media theories

GOAL VI. Students will understand the complex interplay between media and society

  • students can analyze media in production, audience, textual and historical frames

  • students can explain core concepts in the study of media and communication

  • students can explain that all human activity is mediated by communication

  • students can identify and critique the varied research and intellectual traditions of media and communication

 

Department Scope

The Department of Media & Communication at Muhlenberg College affirms its commitment to scholarship and curricula that span the social sciences, humanities, and the arts. The fields of media, communication, and film studies have diverse intellectual standards and traditions. That heterogeneity is reflected in both the department's history and the present composition of its faculty. The department embraces an inclusive and capacious understanding of media, communication and film study and practice.