Program Description

The Media and Entertainment major at Kennesaw State University invites students to explore the critical ways in which communication and converged media connect with and affect our lives, society, and culture. The theoretically-based program focuses on the forms and effects of media, including radio, film, television, print, and electronic media, and requires that students demonstrate basic digital media production skills.

Our students are critically engaged with creative analysis, production, and research into traditional and emerging forms of media. The curriculum emphasizes media history, media institutions, theory and research, production, ethics, policy, management, and technology and their effects on contemporary life. In addition to producing digital media, students learn to analyze and synthesize important information about media’s role both within American society and globally, the formal attributes of a variety of media genres, media as a site of gender and racial identity formation and reflection, and the technological and cultural impacts of digital media. Media and Entertainment Studies majors learn to read and write effectively and look at the world with a critical eye.

Students who graduate with the BS with a major in Media and Entertainment will be ready for careers as media professionals within communication-based industries (i.e., media writing, media production, media editing, media sales, media buyer, media research, public affairs, publishing, public information officer, community outreach, political advocacy, and ministry), government, education, law and policy, management, and/or non-profit organizations. This program also lays the groundwork for further graduate study of mass communication, thus opening the door for employment as instructors in higher education. 

The major requires 18 credit hours of lower-division course work (1000-2000 level) comprising various offerings that serve as important groundwork leading to advanced studies. Lower-division offerings include basic courses in communication research, visual communication, public speaking, writing, law and ethics, and an introductory course relevant to the student’s selected program of study.

Program Student Learning Outcomes

Students who successfully complete this program will be able to: 

1. Gain knowledge of the historical development of media forms, including but not limited to film, video, television, Internet, and digital text.
2. Learn the foundational relationships between media, entertainment, culture, society, and self.
3. Cultivate critical skills in assessing media/entertainment as a consumer and citizen, analyzing the historical, social, cultural, and political contexts within which a mediated text is produced, distributed, and consumed (SLO #1).
4. Develop foundational skills in digital media professional practice and understand the historical and contemporary practices of electronic media (SLO #2).
5. Develop creative storytelling formats across a multitude of media, including documentary filmmaking and entertainment venues (SLO #2).
6. Recognize the legal and ethical constraints on media and entertainment practices .
7. Understand and apply media and entertainment theory and research on media uses and effects.
8. Conduct original research by finding, reading, and assessing appropriate sources for the support of an idea, and developing and applying research skills in media analysis.
9. Write creatively, analytically, interpretively, and argumentatively in a range of mediated formats.

This program is a part of the Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences .

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Admissions, Enrollment, and Graduation Criteria

Admissions Criteria

Admission to this program is open to all students who meet Kennesaw State University’s general admission standards. Visit the Admissions  section of the Catalog for more details.

Enrollment Criteria

This program does not have specific enrollment requirements. 

Graduation Criteria

Each student is expected to meet the requirements outlined in Academic Policy 5.0 PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS & GRADUATION .

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Program Course Requirements