American University of Beirut

Media Studies Graduate Courses

MCOM 300 Graduate Research Methods in Media Studies 2.2; 3 cr. 

This course teaches students how to critically read, design and implement scientific research and use quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods and data analysis techniques to address research questions common in the field of media studies. Students participate in actual research projects and apply various techniques of data collection, analysis and interpretation. Prerequisite: Restricted to major or instructor consent. Annually. 

MCOM 301 Seminar in Communication Theory and Research 3.0; 3 cr. 

The seminar introduces students to trends in media studies research and theoretical approaches to the media and communication process. Focus is placed on contemporar y media and communication theories. Prerequisite: Restricted to major or instructor consent. Annually.

MCOM 302 Seminar in Middle East Media and Society​ 3.0; 3 cr.  

A seminar on the political, social and economic effects of the Arab media on modern Arab society. Special attention is given to the relationship between communication media on social and sociocultural change. Prerequisite: Restricted to major or instructor consent. Annually. 

MCOM 313 Seminar in Communication and Development 3.0; 3 cr.

A seminar on the role of communication in developing societies, with focus on the media as a modernizing agent and on questions that are relevant to the understanding of the socioeconomic developmental process in less developed cultures. Occasionally. 

MCOM 314 Issues in Transnational Media Studies 3.0; 3 cr.

In this graduate seminar, students will be introduced to some of the key debates and issues facing the field of media studies in our increasingly global era. In the last twenty years, “globalization” has become an academic buzzword. What does globalization mean for the production, distribution and reception of media texts, including film, television, social media and music? In this course, students will be introduced to a variety of issues in transnational media studies. Readings will deal with questions of media industries, transnational distribution practices, methods of sur veillance and security, and social media activism. Occasionally.

MCOM 315 Race and Media 3.0; 3 cr.

In this graduate seminar, students will be introduced to several important ongoing debates regarding the intersection of race and media. After looking at a variety of scholarly approaches to race, students will closely examine an array of contemporar y inter ventions in media and race studies. Topics may include lynching photography, Hollywood orientalism, music videos, race on the Internet, zombie horror cinema and the racialization of bodies in the era of drone warfare. Occasionally.

MCOM 316 Media, Belief and Conflict 3.0; 3 cr.

This course examines the complex relationship between media, modern forms of belief, and their role in contemporar y social and political conflict. The course takes a comparative approach, drawing connections between critical theor y and current interdisciplinar y conversations to open up the three terms in the title. Occasionally.

MCOM 317 Sex, Gender and Media in the Middle East 3.0; 3 cr.

This seminar examines media’s central role in the production and circulation of narratives and counter-narratives of gender oppression and sexual liberation in the region. Through critical readings in film, television and literature, we consider how representations of male dominance, women’s emancipation and LGBT rights have shaped Middle Eastern politics with particular emphasis on decolonization, the War on Terror and immigration. Occasionally.

MCOM 362 Media Representations 3.0; 3 cr.

This course examines the role of the media in constructing our social reality through an examination of media practices both historically and in the present. It particularly examines the representations of Arabs and the Arab world in the Western media, and the US in the Arab media. It covers politics of culture and identity as they shape and intersect with today’s globalized media. Occasionally. 

MCOM 363 Historical Approaches to Media 3.0; 3 cr.

This course situates the histor y of communication – from the telegraph to today’s social media – as more than a histor y of technology, and discusses the complexity with which the social world is constructed. Both technology and histor y enter into conversation, opening up points of critical engagement of modern understandings of the world.Occasionally.

MCOM 390 Special Topics in Media Studies 3.0; 3 cr.

This course is normally devoted to MCOM faculty or visiting professors and recognized scholars to explore topics of current interest. May be repeated for credit. Occasionally. 

MCOM 391 Graduate Tutorial in Media Studies 3.0; 3 cr. 

This course is open to graduate students preferably during the second term of their first year of program study. Tutorials provide opportunities for students to pursue directed readings and preliminar y grounded research of relevance to their envisaged fields of concentration. May not be repeated for credit. 

MCOM 395A/B Comprehensive Exam 0 cr. 

Prerequisite: Consent of advisor. 

MCOM 398 MA Project 3 cr.

MCOM 399 MA Thesis 9 cr.



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