The Media School
Minor in Media, Sex and Gender
The Media, Sex and Gender minor studies the highly complex and controversial role that mediated messages about sexuality and gender play in contemporary society. The minor allows The Media School to collaborate with a number of departments working on gender in media using their distinctive methods and approaches. The list of upper-level courses represents a variety of approaches and skills allowing students to engage with sexuality and gender by focusing on its construction and representation in film, through the study of these topics as their intersect with technology, as well as the investigation of these phenomena as broadly social constructs. Courses will investigate questions of ethical behavior, pleasure, consumption, and psychological impacts.
Requirements
The minor requires at least 15 credit hours, including the requirements listed below.
- Introduction to Media, Sex and Gender. One (1) course:
- MSCH-C 211 Screening Gender and Sexuality
- MSCH-C 216 Social Scientific Perspectives of Gender and Media
- MSCH-C 218 Sports, Media and Society
- MSCH-C 247 Screen Cultures
MSCH-C 211 Screening Gender and Sexuality
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Critically examines how gender and sexuality are mediated through screen and audio-visual media (including film, video, television, radio, internet) and their cultural contexts. Using humanities approaches, topics might focus on popular media production; various genres, movements, and media cycles; specific cultural and historical contexts; impacts of technological change. Screenings may be required.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of CMCL-C 203 or MSCH-C 211.
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
MSCH-C 216 Social Scientific Perspectives of Gender and Media
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines the representation of women in the media and analyzes women's creative work as media producers from a social scientific perspective. The course will include lecture and discussion of areas of critical debate: visual representation across media platforms, women's employment in media industries; women as an audience/consumer group.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of MSCH-C 216 or TEL-T 192.
- Spring 2027CASE DUScourseFall 2026CASE DUScourse
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
MSCH-C 218 Sports, Media and Society
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examination of the social and financial relationships between sports organizations, media and society. Study of the social implications of sports media content in light of economic connections between sports media and college and professional sports teams, including how television contracts influence media coverage and how organization-based media influence audience perceptions.
MSCH-C 247 Screen Cultures
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Draws on theories of screen-based spectatorship and the spatial, material, and performative aspects of screens to present a historically-grounded comparative analysis of the relationship between screen technologies and cultural screen practices. Focuses on public and urban screens, mobile screens, touch screens, and interactive screen-based installations.
- Spring 2027CASE AHcourseFall 2026CASE AHcourse
- Advanced Media, Sex and Gender Electives.
- Media School Electives. Two (2) courses:
- MSCH-F 370 Women Directors
- MSCH-F 375 Race, Gender, and Representation
- MSCH-F 420 Topics in Media History (approved topics only; see academic advisor)
- MSCH-J 326 Fashion, Beauty, and Lifestyle Media
- MSCH-S 310 Sex in the Media
- MSCH-V 470 (approved topics only; see academic advisor)
MSCH-F 370 Women Directors
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Focuses on women directors in cinema, from the silent era to the present day. Explores the presence of women directors in American and European cinema, the connection to feminist theory in cinema, and the challenges confronting women who wish to direct films.
MSCH-F 375 Race, Gender, and Representation
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Construction of race and gender identities across a range of media. Emphasis on the power of sound/image representations to shape and contest ideas about race and gender. Topic varies.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours in CMCL-C 412, JOUR-J 375, or MSCH-F 375.
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
MSCH-F 420 Topics in Media History
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Media historiography, topics in national media history, national and international movements and trends. Topic varies.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours in CMCL-C 420 and MSCH-F 420.
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
MSCH-J 326 Fashion, Beauty, and Lifestyle Media
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines the world of media related to fashion, beauty, and lifestyle (FBL). Focuses on cultural influence, media history, sustainability, and the future of FBL. Includes analysis of bodies of knowledge associated with past and present expressions of human behaviors, beliefs, and experiences related to FBL.
MSCH-S 310 Sex in the Media
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Explores the role and portrayal of sex and sexuality in media and examines in detail the potential social and psychological effects of exposure to sexual content in the media.
- Repeatability
- Credit give for only on of MSCH-S 410 or MSCH-S 310.
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
- Additional Electives. Two (2) courses:
- Additional course from the Media School Elective list above
- AAAD-A 222 Black Women Artists
- AAAD-A 430 The Cinema of Africana Women
- GNDR-G 310 Representation and the Body
- GNDR-G 325 Gender and Celebrity Studies
- GNDR-G 330 Looking Like a Feminist: Visual Culture and Critical Theory
- INTL-I 425 Gender: International Perspectives
- SOC-S 422 Constructing Sexuality
AAAD-A 222 Black Women Artists
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines black female creativity in the United States from colonial times through the present. Studies art and creativity under slavery, nineteenth-century pioneering artists, racial and gender stereotypes in visual culture, the Harlem Renaissance, WPA art, civil rights and Black Power movements, feminist art, abstraction, conceptual and performance art, vernacular art, postmodernism, and black feminist futurism.
- Spring 2027CASE AHcourseFall 2026CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2027CASE DUScourseFall 2026CASE DUScourse
AAAD-A 430 The Cinema of Africana Women
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Historical and critical overview of films produced by African American women from the 1940s to the present. The course emphasizes how black women filmmakers combine their creative abilities with a desire to capture dominant issues that affect black women's lives in America.
- Spring 2027CASE AHcourseFall 2026CASE AHcourse
GNDR-G 310 Representation and the Body
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Analysis of scholarship concerned with how the body is perceived, represented, and symbolically charged. This course examines concepts that include sexed bodies, desiring bodies, corporeality, body politics, and sociological bodily rituals. Thematically, the course investigates exterior/interior, solid/fluid, and sex/gender distinctions critical to discussions of the body.
- Spring 2027CASE AHcourseFall 2026CASE AHcourse
GNDR-G 414 Gender and Celebrity Studies
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Celebrity theory concerns the way that cultural narratives and identities conform to or depart from societal scripts. Course examines both historical moments and transnational phenomena, guided by interdisciplinary discussions on media, sociology, queer studies, race and class, all in discussion with gender and media theory.
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
GNDR-G 330 Looking Like a Feminist: Visual Culture and Critical Theory
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Advanced study of feminist film theory which examines gender in popular film from a variety of perspectives. Examines how cinema works as a “technology of gender,” how film constructs subject positions and identities, and what these constructions can tell us about how gender structures our culture.
- Spring 2027CASE AHcourseFall 2026CASE AHcourse
INTL-I 425 Gender: International Perspectives
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examination of gender issues from international and interdisciplinary perspectives.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 12 credit hours.
SOC-S 422 Constructing Sexuality
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A sociological examination of a variety of forms of human sexuality from the perspectives of social constructionism and politics of sexuality.
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
- Media School Electives. Two (2) courses:
- Minor Hours and Minimum Grade Requirements.
- Minor Residency. At least 9 credit hours in the minor must be completed in courses taken through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
- Minor Upper Division Courses. At least 9 credit hours in the minor must be completed at the 300-499 level.
- Minimum Grade. A grade of C- or higher is required for a course to count toward a requirement in the minor.
Minor Area Courses
-
Unless otherwise noted below, the following courses are considered in the academic program and will count toward academic program requirements as appropriate:
- Any course at the 100–499 level with the
MSCHsubject area prefix—as well as any other subject areas that are deemed functionally equivalent - Any course contained on the course lists for the academic program requirements at the time the course is taken—as well as any other courses that are deemed functionally equivalent—except for those listed only under Addenda Requirements
- Any course directed to a non-Addenda requirement through an approved exception
- Any course at the 100–499 level with the
Exclusions
The following courses cannot be applied toward minor requirements:
- ANTH-E 422 Native American and Indigenous Media
- ENG-R 339 Freedom of Speech
ANTH-E 422 Native American and Indigenous Media
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Study of contemporary Native American and global indigenous representation and communication, including oral performance and media. Explores the poetics and politics of media and performance in the context of indigenous histories, cultures, and experiences of colonization. Examines the use of performance forms as symbolic resources in literature, film, the Internet, music and television. Addresses intersections of gender, class and race in indigenous media worlds.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ANTH-E 422 or CMCL-C 430.
- Spring 2027CASE SHcourseFall 2026CASE SHcourse
ENG-R 339 Freedom of Speech
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- An examination of the concept of freedom of speech as a historical, philosophical, legal, and rhetorical concept.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of CMCL-C 339 or ENG-R 339.
- Spring 2027CASE AHcourseFall 2026CASE AHcourse
This program of study cannot be combined with the following:
- Area Certificate in Journalism [JOURUGACR1]
- Major in Cinematic Arts (Bachelor of Fine Arts) [CINEARTBFA]
- Major in Game Design (Bachelor of Science) [GAMEDSGNBS]
- Major in Global Media (Bachelor of Science) [GLBMEDIABS]
- Major in Journalism (Bachelor of Arts in Journalism) [JOURBAJ]
- Major in Media (Bachelor of Arts) [MEDIABA]
- Major in Media Advertising (Bachelor of Science) [MEDIAADVBS]
- Major in Public Relations (Bachelor of Science) [PBLCRELNBS]
- Major in Sports Media (Bachelor of Science) [SPTMEDIABS]
Exceptions to and substitutions for minor requirements may be made with the approval of the unit's Director of Undergraduate Studies, subject to final approval by the College of Arts and Sciences.