The 21st Century Media Studies course is an interdisciplinary cultural studies course in which students examine and interpret the ways various media modes influence us. Students study media theory, analyze cultural and historical contexts, the aesthetics of a variety of formats, examine how forms have shifted, and investigate the relationship between media and reality, ways that media influences and changes our culture, and how responses to media change over time. The course considers a variety of critical approaches that include: cultural, psychoanalytic, feminist, and others. Through these approaches, students contemplate issues and problems considering such aspects as: technology, representations of reality, human meaning, identity politics, economics, self/other dynamics, gender/race/ethnicity, and community/belonging. This lens of analysis reverberates both within and outside of America.
The NCSSM Connect program offers live, synchronous virtual courses taught by NCSSM faculty to students in their local high schools across North Carolina. During class, Connect instructors use group activities and cutting-edge instructional technology to facilitate active participation, project-based learning, and cross-site collaboration with students from around the state. Students can interact with others from the mountains to the coast. Our NCSSM Connect program allows smaller, rural schools to offer AP and honors-level courses that may otherwise be unavailable.