These courses are offered to MIT students and affiliates. More information can be found at the MIT subjects catalogue.
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Prereq: None
Units: 3-3-6
Lecture: MW3.30-5 (1-277) or TR1-2.30 (26-168)
Offers an overview of the social, cultural, political, and economic impact of mediated communication on modern culture. Combines critical discussions with experiments working with different media. Media covered include radio, television, film, the printed word, and digital technologies. Topics include the nature and function of media, core media institutions, and media in transition. Enrollment limited.
Fall: S. Larkin
Spring: P. Roquet, K. Fendt
Textbooks (Spring 2022)
() 
(Subject meets with CMS.807)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-3-6
Studies the design and analysis of invented (or constructed) worlds for narrative media, such as television, films, comics, and literary texts. Provides the practical, historical and critical tools with which to understand the function and structure of imagined worlds. Examines world-building strategies in the various media and genres in order to develop a critical and creative repertoire. Participants create their own invented worlds. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 13.
J. Diaz
()
Not offered regularly; consult department
(Subject meets with CMS.808)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Focuses on the interactions between graphic stories and media technologies from the rotary press of the late 19th century to contemporary touch screens, exploring the changing relations among narrative expression, reader experience and media form. Working with examples from Pulitzer’s Yellow Kid and McKay’s Little Nemo, through the classic comics (from DC superheroes to EC horror) and graphic novels, to interactive and non-linear texts (Cognitos Operation Ajax), examines such elements as graphic design, interface, and form as well as the circulation and economies of these various media-based texts. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Staff
()
(Same subject as 21W.763[J])
(Subject meets with CMS.809)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-2-7
Explores transmedia storytelling by investigating how science fiction stories are told across different media, such as the short story, the novel, the screenplay, moving image, and games. Students consider issues of aesthetics, authorship, and genre, while also contextualizing discussion within the broader framework of the political issues raised by film, TV, and other kinds of science fiction texts. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Staff
() 
Not offered regularly; consult department
(Same subject as ES.333[J])
Prereq: None
Units: 3-1-8
Develops communication and media skills through the production of educational videos. Students conceive, plan, script, shoot and edit video content to teach elements of MIT’s curriculum. Each student creates a series of short videos that concisely explains and contextualizes specific problems of importance to disciplines at MIT, especially physics, math, chemistry, biology, or the humanities. The resulting videos present these problems through compelling use of illustrations, demonstrations, animations, and commentary, all from the student’s perspective. Empowers students specifically to communicate their MIT expertise to communities of learners and generally to reach broad audiences with quality, accessible online content. Limited to 12; preference to students in ESG.
Staff
()
(Same subject as 21W.786[J])
(Subject meets with CMS.836)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Explores the history and current state of social-issue documentary. Examines how cultural and political upheaval and technological change have converged at different moments to bring about new waves of activist documentary film production. Particular focus on films and other non-fiction media of the present and recent past. Students screen and analyze a series of key films and work in groups to produce their own short documentary using digital video and computer-based editing. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 18.
Staff
()
(Subject meets with CMS.839)
Prereq: Permission of instructor
Units: 3-0-9
Provides an overview of historical developments and current innovations in virtual reality (e.g., gear, software, and storytelling techniques) and looks into new trends in augmented, mixed and holographic reality. Includes practical instruction and a step-by-step exploration of the fundamentals of virtual reality creation – from new visual languages and grammars, to storyboarding, scripting, sound design and editing, to new and innovative ways to capture, scan and reproduce 360-degree images. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 18.
Staff
()
Not offered regularly; consult department
(Same subject as 21W.737[J])
(Subject meets with CMS.850)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Gives a broad understanding of what it means to produce journalism today. Evaluates the limitations and strengths of specific types of media, ranging from New York Times stories to Twitter feeds. Provides students with tools to effectively communicate their own work and research to non-specialist audiences. Students submit assignments via an online portal, which mimics the style and substance of an online news source. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 12.
S. Mnookin
()
(Subject meets with CMS.860)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Examines civic media in comparative, transnational and historical perspectives. Introduces various theoretical tools, research approaches, and project design methods. Students engage with multimedia texts on concepts such as citizen journalism, transmedia activism, media justice, and civic, public, radical, and tactical media. Case studies explore civic media across platforms (print, radio, broadcast, internet), contexts (from local to global, present-day to historical), and use (dialogic, contentious, hacktivist). As a final project, students develop a case study or project proposal. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 20.
Staff
() 
(Subject meets with CMS.862)
Prereq: One subject in CMS or MAS
Units: 3-0-9
Project-based studio focusing on collaborative design of civic media provides a service-learning opportunity for students interested in working with community organizations. Multidisciplinary teams create civic media projects based on real-world community needs. Covers co-design methods and best practices to include the user community in iterative stages of project ideation, design, implementation, testing, and evaluation. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 16.
Staff
()
(Subject meets with CMS.876)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Lecture: W EVE (7-10 PM) (E25-117)
Surveys the interrelated histories of communications media and technological development, from the emergence of 19th-century forms of mass print media and telegraphy, to sound capture and image-based forms (e.g., film, radio, and television), to the shift from analog to digital cultures. Examines how new forms of communication exert social, political, and cultural influences in the global context. Explores how technological innovation and accelerating media affect social values and behaviors in the popular and global adoption of a media device. Includes two papers and a research project on aspects of media history. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Enrollment limited.
J. Paradis
No textbook information available
()
Not offered regularly; consult department
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Explores the ways in which humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. Examines how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally. Describes the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, and the globalized travel of these technologies. Addresses questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing. Particular focus on how the sound/noise boundary is imagined, created and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples–sound art, environmental recordings, music–will be provided and invited. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided. Limited to 20.
Staff
()
(Subject meets with CMS.815)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Examines how various movements have tried over time to create games that enable players to enact social change. Students collaborate in teams to design and prototype games for social change and civic engagement. In a workshop setting, teams develop games and showcase them at an end-of-term open house. Features guest speakers from academia and industry as well as the nonprofit sector and the gaming community. Readings explore principals of game design and the social history of games. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
E. Gordon
()
(Subject meets with CMS.831)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Explores visualization methodologies to conceive and represent systems and data, e.g., financial, media, economic, political, etc. Covers basic methods for research, cleaning, and analysis of datasets. Introduces creative methods of data presentation and storytelling. Considers the emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and practical effects of different presentation methods as well as how to develop metrics for assessing impact. Work centers on readings, visualization exercises, and a final project. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Staff
()
(Subject meets with CMS.855)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Lecture: TR3.30-5 (56-167)
Investigates the museum as a participatory public space and rethinks visitor engagement and museum education in light of digital technologies, including extended reality (XR) technologies. Students develop concepts, models, and prototypes that integrate physical and digital spaces in novel ways in close collaboration with partners at local museums. Readings provide theoretical, critical, and analytical foundations for collaborative class projects. Students taking graduate version complete additional readings and assignments.
K. Fendt
No textbook information available
()
Prereq: CMS.790
Units: 3-3-6
An advanced introduction to core theoretical and methodological issues in comparative media studies. Topics covered typically include globalization, propaganda and persuasion, social and political effects of media change, political economy and the institutional analysis of media ownership, online communities, privacy and intellectual property, and the role of news and information within democratic cultures.
Staff
()
Not offered regularly; consult department
(Subject meets with CMS.308)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Focuses on the interactions between graphic stories and media technologies from the rotary press of the late 19th century to contemporary touch screens, exploring the changing relations among narrative expression, reader experience and media form. Working with examples from Pulitzers Yellow Kid and McKays Little Nemo, through the classic comics (from DC superheroes to EC horror) and graphic novels to interactive and non-linear texts (Cognitos Operation Ajax), the course examines such elements as graphic design, interface and form as well as the circulation and economies of these various media-based texts.
J. Paradis
()
(Subject meets with CMS.615)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Students will collaborate in teams to design and prototype games for social change and civic engagement. Run as a workshop in which student teams develop their games and showcase them at a semester-end open house. Features guest speakers from academia and industry as well as the non-profit sector and the gaming community. Readings will explore principals of game design, and the social history of games. Graduate students will complete additional assignments.
E. Gordon
()
(Subject meets with CMS.627)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Aims to help students invent and analyze new forms of computer-based art, gaming, social media, interactive narrative, and related technologies. Students participate in a range of new and ongoing projects that are designed to hone skills in research, development, design, and evaluation. Topics vary from year to year; examples include cognitive science and artificial intelligence-based approaches to the arts; social aspects of game design; computing for social empowerment; and game character, avatar, and online profile design. May be repeated for credit with permission of instructor. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Staff
()
Not offered regularly; consult department
(Subject meets with CMS.631)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Explores visualization methodologies to conceive and represent systems and data, e.g., financial, media, economic, political, etc. Covers basic methods for research, cleaning, and analysis of datasets. Introduces creative methods of data presentation and storytelling. Considers the emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and practical effects of different presentation methods as well as how to develop metrics for assessing impact. Work centers on readings, visualization exercises, and a final project. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Staff
()
Not offered regularly; consult department
(Subject meets with 21W.786[J], CMS.336[J])
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Explores the history and current state of social-issue documentary. Examines how cultural and political upheaval and technological change have converged at different moments to bring about new waves of activist documentary film production. Particular focus on films and other non-fiction media of the present and recent past. Students screen and analyze a series of key films and work in groups to produce their own short documentary using digital video and computer-based editing. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 18.
V. Bald
()
(Subject meets with CMS.339)
Prereq: Permission of instructor
Units: 3-0-9
Provides an overview of historical developments and current innovations in virtual reality (e.g., gear, software, and storytelling techniques) and looks into new trends in augmented, mixed and holographic reality. Includes practical instruction and a step-by-step exploration of the fundamentals of virtual reality creation – from new visual languages and grammars, to storyboarding, scripting, sound design and editing, to new and innovative ways to capture, scan and reproduce 360-degree images. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 18.
Staff
()
Prereq: None
Units: 3-1-8
Introduces programming through “free projects” in which students choose (or discover) the direction of their project through exploration. Covers the fundamentals of programming and how to develop a programming practice. Students complete analytical and generative projects, using different media. Examines how to think with computation, how computation and media interact, and how computation can be understood as a part of culture. No background in programming required. Limited to 18.
Staff
()
(Subject meets with 21W.764[J], CMS.609[J])
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Considers the many uses of text, language, and writing in creative digital media. Focuses on non-narrative uses of text, such as in information display, visual and lyrical settings, and human-legible computer code. Considers the use of text within the context of computing and different computing platforms. Draws on concepts and approaches from poetics, the material history of texts, and computer science. Assignments include individual and group writing projects, which involve reading and modifying computer programs. Previous programming experience and writing coursework helpful. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 18.
N. Montfort
()
(Subject meets with 21L.432)
Prereq: Permission of instructor
Units: 3-0-9
Lecture: W EVE (7-10 PM) (4-253)
A cultural approach to television’s evolution as a technology and system of representation. Considers television as a system of storytelling and mythmaking, and as a cultural practice studied from anthropological, literary, and cinematic perspectives. Focuses on prime-time commercial broadcasting, the medium’s technological and economic history, and theoretical perspectives. Considerable television viewing and readings in media theory and cultural interpretation are required. Previously taught topics include American Television: A Cultural History. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Staff
No textbook information available
(, )
Not offered regularly; consult department
(Subject meets with 21W.749)
Prereq: Permission of instructor
Units: 3-0-9
Meets with 21W.749, but assignments differ.
Fall: B. D. Colen
Spring: B. D. Colen