Culture and Media Sub-Major

The Culture and Media sub-major offers a rigorous study of the everyday life of media technologies.

This course of study responds to a growing demand for qualitative and critical approaches to understanding how media forms and technologies are changing societies around the world, as well as how those societies interpret, take up, and transform media in culturally diverse and historically specific ways. Anthropology offers a uniquely cross-cultural, comparative perspective on media and technology, and its ethnographic methods of observation and recording will equip students with the knowledge and skills to make sense of and navigate the intersections of culture, media and technology in a global context.

This sub-major offers courses in both media anthropology and multimodal experiential ethnography.

• Media anthropology: the ethnographic study of the production, consumption, and circulation of media forms in social life, from mass broadcast media such as television and radio to digital media platforms and algorithmic cultures. Ethnographic approaches to media focus on various aspects, from the sensory to the infrastructural to the political and economic; it covers media in interactive environments of various kinds, from digital platforms to live concerts and performances.
• Multimodal experiential ethnography: ethnographic film-making along with the history and critical study of ethnographic film; multimedia, such as podcasts, sonic ethnography, comics, and animation; sensory ethnography; and video analysis of gesture and embodied communication.

Prerequisites

None, but ANTHRCUL 101 is recommended.

Requirements

Students in the Culture and Media sub-major must complete 16-17 credits from the courses listed below as part of their anthropology major elective credits for a minimum of 32 credits total.

Constraints

The Culture and Media sub-major is only available to declared Anthropology majors and is not a major or minor. The sub-major will be notated on the student's official transcript.

A maximum of 6 credits of independent research can be counted toward the major.

Residency

At least 20 credits must be completed in residence at the University of Michigan.

Distribution Policy

No course used to fulfill a major requirement may be used toward the LSA Distribution Requirement. In addition, courses in the ANTHRARC, ANTHRBIO, and ANTHRCUL subject areas may not be used toward the Distribution Requirement.

Exclusions

Students may elect only one of the optional sub-majors.