MCS Minor in 'Fandom, Cult Media, and Subculture Studies' Coming Fall 2016!

The Media and Cinema Studies Program is proud to to be part of a new minor in Fandom, Cult Media, and Subculture Studies which will begin in Fall 2016.

The College of Communication currently features multiple classes across many programs and curricula that all focus on the idea of “cult” media or subcultural audiences—that is, aspects of culture that are separate from, or differentiate themselves from, the mainstream, or that present new ways of examining consumers and the emotional resonance of various media products on contemporary audiences.


Courses that focus on genre films and television, audience analysis, affect, and cult products span the Communication Studies,  Media and Cinema Studies, Journalism, and Public Relations and Advertising programs. This new minor will unite these courses under one banner in order to provide interested students with a focused concentration on fandom and cult media.

The purpose of this minor is to allow students to understand how audiences and media producers design media texts to confront and challenge contemporary ideologies, to offer alternatives to the mainstream, and to engineer deliberate affective reactions in audiences.


Learning Goals for the Fandom, Cult Media, and Subculture Studies Minor:

Identify critical components of the contemporary media and communication environment, and audience reaction to them

Differentiate cult and mainstream media texts along with their diverse contexts of production, distribution and reception

Describe contemporary audience behaviors

Apply media and communication theories to genre film, television, and new media texts

Analyze the content and aesthetics of cult texts


A list of specific classes that will apply towards this new minor will be announced soon, and will include courses on fan studies, comic books, B-movies, sports fandom, horror cinema, celebrity studies and more.