Media Theory and Methods

Media Theory and Methods pairs two parallel tracks: you read canonical theorists (Frankfurt School, Lasswell, Habermas on the public sphere, structuralism, feminist and cultural theory) while simultaneously walking through Creswell's research-design framework week by week, so the abstract debates always land back on a concrete methodological choice. The semester is built around an independent research project, you draft a literature review, purpose statement, research questions, and proposal, defend it in class, and present results at the end, with a midterm anchoring the theory side. It's the capstone-style methods course that turns earlier COMD content classes into something you can actually research, and it's the natural prep for a senior thesis or graduate work in media studies.