Media Studies Field Group

At Pitzer College, Field Groups (similar to a discipline or department) organize major requirements and courses.

Media Studies is an intercollegiate major offered jointly by Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona and Scripps Colleges, together forming Intercollegiate Media Studies (IMS). Visit the IMS Website

Media Studies is an inherently interdisciplinary field that emphasizes the cultural and historical importance of media and focuses on the production, circulation, and reception of texts and representations, which are analyzed in terms of aesthetics, meanings, and uses. 

IMS at the Claremont Colleges is one of the first undergraduate programs in the United States to combine theory, history, and practice, integrating critical studies and media production.

IMS provides rigorous interdisciplinary training, enabling our students to learn how to analyze diverse media forms and the power relations that undergird them, and to ethically express their knowledge through critical scholarship, community-engagement, and creative media practice. 

The IMS major draws from:

• Anthropology
• Art history
• Cinema and film studies
• Communications
• Cultural studies
• English
• Gender and feminist studies
• Performance studies
• Photography
• Postcolonial and transnational studies
• Queer studies
• Sound studies
• The visual arts 

The major prepares students for graduate work and careers in teaching, art, entertainment, digital media, and the non-profit sector.