The Bachelor of Media Studies at UBC–Vancouver is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary program equipping students with practical skills, critical perspectives, and research methods that can be applied across media and creative industries.
Key attributes
The program encourages students to build strong theoretical and research-based foundations that can be applied across various media and creative industries.
- Cohort-based – have a group of likeminded students that advance with you each year
- Engaged interdisciplinarity – no comparable programs have a similar breadth of disciplinary input, or such comprehensive crossover between the participating disciplines
- Timely & relevant – the BMS furthers inquiries of media in its evolving landscape, preparing students to contribute to the critical discourse on future topics of mediation through technology to transform knowledge, creative practice, ethical dissemination, and communication
The BMS program blends theory and practice, both in and out of the classroom. Students enrolled in the program will follow a year-by-year structure with their cohort, completing the disciplinary spine and interdisciplinary MDIA course components of the required BMS core-course curriculum, courses for their area of focus, and experiential learning outside the classroom.
BMS Core courses
The BMS curriculum provides a broad foundation in media studies with a focus on theory, research, and application. Guided by a dedicated and passionate team of instructors with a wide variety of expertise, you and your peers will build on knowledge from previous courses and put what you’ve learned into practice.
Disciplinary spine
The disciplinary spine of the BMS includes courses in the subjects foundational to media theory and practice: Creative Writing, Information Studies, English, Film Studies, German media theory, Journalism, and Art History.
Media Studies (MDIA) interdisciplinary courses
Created specifically for students in the BMS, MDIA courses bring the many disciplinary perspectives of media scholarship into one classroom. With multiple expert instructors and professionals from the field teaching together, you and your cohort will engage in media production, applying your learning in an environment similar to the workplace – while continuing to develop research and analytical skills central to the Faculty of Arts.
Students are expected to complete the Writing Component of the Faculty of Arts Writing & Research requirement in their first year of study. Additionally, the full first-year cohort completes:
- MDIA 150 Media Communities: Media engagement with community partners through data, narrative and visual processes.
Students also select at least two courses from the following options:
- ARTH 101 Ways of Seeing: Introduction to Visual Studies: Drawing on examples from across history and around the world, this course deals with the role of the visual in society, culture, and everyday experience.
- CINE 100 Introduction to Cinema Studies: Basic aesthetic, economic, sociological, and technological aspects of film.
- CPSC 100 Computational Thinking: Meaning and impact of computational thinking. Solving problems using computational thinking, testing, debugging. How computers work.
- CPSC 103 Introduction to Systematic Program Design: Computation as a tool for systematic problem solving in non-computer-science disciplines. Introductory programming skills.
- CPSC 110 Computation, Programs, and Programming: Fundamental program and computation structures. Introductory programming skills. Computation as a tool for information processing, simulation and modelling, and interacting with the world.
- CRWR 206 Introduction to Writing for the Screen: Techniques of and practice in creating, developing, and writing a screenplay. Manuscript submission is not required for admission.
- CRWR 208 Introduction to Writing for Graphic Forms: Techniques of and practice in creating, developing, and writing the graphic novel, manga, and other forms of illustrated writing.
- CRWR 213 Introduction to Writing for the New Media: An exploration of and practice in writing for new media, including podcasting, blogging, and writing for websites, games, and online environments.
- FIPR 101 Introduction to the History of Film Production: The history of film and film production by decade with a strong emphasis on filmmakers and advances in production technology.
- INFO 100 (De)coding Information and Why it Matters: Information and data as concepts and aspects of everyday experience. Creation, sharing, authorization, and valuing of information with implications for society. Critical perspectives and practices to engage with data, information, and technologies for personal productivity, scholarly inquiry, and civic engagement.
- JRNL 100 New Media and Society: Development of new media technologies, their applications, and their cultural, political, and social impacts.
- MDIA 100 Media Objects: Multidisciplinary perspectives on contemporary media objects and their effects.
- VISA 110 Foundation Studio: Digital Media: Foundation instruction in techniques and approaches to digital practice. The nature of digital technologies and their role in contemporary culture will be examined.
Students in year 2, including those just joining through the transfer stream, build a broad-based foundation in media theory, history, and practice, from across the participating disciplines, and integrate as a cohort in the collaboration-focused MDIA component.
Year 2 disciplinary spine
- ARTH 227 What is Modern Art? Select issues in 20th-century art and the visual and built environment.
- ENGL 232 Approaches to the Study of Media: philosophical; technological; cultural; theoretical.
- GMST 274 The Frankfurt School (in English): Foundations of critical theory, and key media and cultural studies concepts developed by the members of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research (1923 -), their collaborators and followers
- INFO 250 Networks, Crowds, and Communities: Introduces network concepts and methods for exploring social and organizational connectivity for work, socializing, and knowledge production. Examines impact of social media on connections that span space and place; peer production on authority structures; ubiquitous mobile connectivity on daily life.
- JRNL 200 Journalism Here and Now: Examines the technologies and trends that are changing the profession of journalism. Explore the dynamic, changing, and sometimes problematic world of journalism through critical analysis and creating works of journalism.
Year 2 MDIA courses
- MDIA 290 Collaborative Methods: Development and practice of media group production processes.
Core-course requirements for year 3 are all scheduled in term 1; students also begin taking courses in their areas of focus.
- CRWR 312 Interactive Storytelling: Origin, theory and practice of interactive story forms. Exploring structural links between interactive theatre, gaming, and extended (virtual, mixed, and augmented) reality.
- MDIA 300 Approaches to Writing for Media Studies: Interdisciplinary perspectives of thematic topics in contemporary media and related theory with focused attention on writing practices.
- MDIA 350 Media Environments: Collaborative planning and activation of media interfaces for stakeholders informed by multidisciplinary approaches.
In Term 2, students are encouraged to participate in available experiential learning opportunities. All required Core Courses are scheduled in Term 1 to accommodate these opportunities.
Students in year 4 complete their focus area courses, taking the skillset they've developed back to the cohort for high-level implementation in the MDIA courses.
- CINE 340 Media Audiences: Overview of approaches for studying audiences and receptions of film and contemporary media.
- MDIA 490 Capstone Media Projects: Advanced media works created in collaboration with community partners for public impact. (Full-year, six-credit course)
- MDIA 450 Emerging Media Practitioners: The roles and responsibilities of media producers as agents of transformation, with a focus on the student's own media decisions and artefacts.
Areas of Focus
Starting in second year, you’ll take additional courses in one of three areas of focus that dive deeper into the theory behind and production of specific forms of media – visual, narrative, and data. You’ll have the chance to apply these skills while learning, working with other members of your cohort in the MDIA courses on projects that require different talents.
For this requirement, students complete 15 credits (5 semester-long courses) in the Data, Visual, or Narrative focus areas. Students must also complete at least 6 credits (2 semester-long courses) of coursework from focus areas outside their own.
Courses in this area encompass Computer Science and Information Studies. Students focus on the archiving and accessing of cultural heritage and memory objects, including critical consideration of related hidden information (e.g., analytics, meta-data).
- CPSC 103 Introduction to Systematic Program Design: Computation as a tool for systematic problem solving in non-computer-science disciplines. Introductory programming skills
- CPSC 344 Introduction to Human Computer Interaction Methods: Basic tools and techniques, teaching a systematic approach to interface design, task analysis, analytic and empirical evaluation methods
- INFO 200 Foundations of Informatics: Theory, methods, and approaches for the analysis, design, and evaluation of information objects, activities, systems, and infrastructures in contemporary societies.
- INFO 419 Information Visualization: Basic theory and practice required to visually represent information. Introduces design principles and practical skills to create effective information visualizations. Examines effect of different visual representations on understanding and meaning.
- INFO 456 Information Policy and Society: Develops capabilities required to assess the need for information policies in professional contexts, evaluate relevant socio-technical dimensions and envision likely implications for specific communities and practice settings.
Courses in this area encompass visual arts, art history, film studies, and film production. Students focus on creating a diverse range of visual media products informed by various technologies and modes of representation (e.g., portraiture).
- ARTH 480 Visual and Digital Media Theory: A thematic examination of key arguments in visual and digital media theory, focusing on developments in lens-based and digital media in relationship to twentieth-century and contemporary artistic practice.
- FIPR 133 Introduction to Film and Media Production: A hands-on introduction to Film and Multi/New Media production, focusing on fundamental techniques for creating effective presentations.
- CINE 240 Media Industries: Overview of today's film and media industries, and of the concepts governing their practices.
- THFL/VISA 312 (under development)
- VISA 241 Digital Photography: Introduction to digital photography image creation in relation to contemporary art. Emphasis on digital camera use, file management, and digital print production.
Courses in this area encompass Journalism, English, and Creative Writing. Students focus on writing text that is crafted for various purposes (e.g., storytelling) mediated through digital forms.
- CRWR 213 Introduction to Writing for the New Media: An exploration of and practice in writing for new media, including podcasting, blogging, and writing for websites, games, and online environments.
- ENGL 332 Approaches to Media History: History of media and technological change; literary, rhetorical, or linguistic methods of inquiry.
- JRNL 201 Introduction to News Audiences: The evolution of news audiences and their relationships with journalists. Examines different approaches to audience engagement and various forms of such engagement.
- JRNL 440 Imagine Journalism Studio: Journalism startups and media innovation from practice, organizational models, audiences, leadership, theories of change, entrepreneurship and critical perspectives.
And one of:
- CRWR 302 Writing for Podcast: Exploration of and practice in writing for podcast.
- CRWR 308 Intermediate Writing for Graphic Forms: The writing of graphica (comics, manga and graphic novels), using a combination of workshopping and online modules.
- CRWR 310 Video Game Writing and Narrative: Narrative design and writing for video games.
Opportunities beyond the classroom
BMS students pursue a variety of experiential learning opportunities – and with a term free of course courses in year 3, the cohort model supports students’ pursuit of the countless options available in the Faculty of Arts.