Drawing on our strengths in multicultural studies of the United States in a global context and our interest in digital diversity, we are offering a unique degree concentration within the American Studies program. Students can pursue a Master's or PhD degree track in multicultural multimedia studies.
This track allows student to simultaneously gain a multicultural understanding of the nation's past and present, and learn technical skills of new media production. Students can combine courses on digital imaging, multimedia authoring, website design, and critical cyberculture studies, with our program's core courses in US cultural history, race/ethnicity studies, gender studies, and cultural theory.
Students in the program will do a two semester internship with a non-profit community organization as part of WSU's Institute for Digital Diversity.
Students create a multimedia electronic thesis or dissertation as their final project. The thesis will generally deal with some underrepresented aspect of US culture, often an aspect tied directly to the current digital divide. We encourage students of color in particular to explore aspects of their communities that they feel have been misrepresented or too little understood.
The multimedia theses produced and the skills gained by our students will be put to use in a number of ways. Some will want to return the knowledge they have gained to their communities by becoming new media workers for
Xuan Nguyen, PhD Candidate
community organizations (some have called this the "repatriation of knowledge," most just call it giving back). Other students may wish to use the thesis as a kind of portfolio to help them get jobs in mainstream new media production where they can help insure broader representation of currently underrepresented groups, issues, and ideas. Still others may continue on into teaching careers where new media technologies are seen as an increasingly essential part of an arsenal of pedagogical tools and resources.
Life is good at WSU.
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A unique richness of students, faculty, location, activities, and organizations creates a full, lively student life at the University. This section gives you the insider's view on student life and a sampling of the opportunities here.
"Glimpses." Students talk about life at WSU
These brief posts are written by WSU students to give you a personal look through their window on campus life.
