Digital Studies

Undergraduate Minor Requirements

The 20-unit Minor in Digital Studies offered through the School of Cinematic Arts explores the rich potential of digital media for critical analysis and creative discovery. Learning the exciting and dynamic potential of a broad array of tools and technologies, students create innovative, scholarly projects, from photo-essays to Web-based documentaries, from interactive videos to sophisticated Web sites, and from typography in motion to 3-D visualizations. Elective courses explore media for social change, the ethics of virtual worlds, transmedia expression and more, allowing students to use media in pursuit of their own interests and to enhance their major.

The Digital Studies Minor presumes no prior experience with media production. All Digital Studies courses combine theory and practice in lab-based seminars featuring hands-on tutorials to support students in producing sophisticated media-rich work. Participants in this minor gain powerful skills useful in future endeavors within or beyond academia, where the ability to work effectively with media is a crucial job skill.

Further information :-
Sonia Seetharaman, Academic Program Coordinator (sseetharaman@cinema.usc.edu // 213-743-2198)

Required Courses:

A minimum of twelve units of IML elective coursework. A minimum of four units of non-IML elective coursework.

Course Number	Course Name	Units
IML 201	The Languages of Digital Media or	4
IML 140	Workshop in Multimedia Authoring (taken twice) or	(2+2 Units)
IML 104 & IML 140	Introduction to Digital Studies and Workshop in Multimedia Authoring	(2+2 Units)

IML Elective Courses

Course Number	Course Name	Units
IML 340	The Praxis of New Media: Digital Argument	2
IML 346	Methods in Digital Research and Execution	2
IML 400	Dynamic Multimedia for Web Infrastructures	4
IML 420	New Media for Social Change	4
IML 466	Digital Studies Symposium	4

Non-IML Elective Courses

School of Cinematic Arts

Course Number	Course Name	Units
CTCS 400	Non-Fiction Film and Television	4
CTCS 411	Film, Television and Cultural Studies	4
CTCS 412	Gender, Sexuality and Media	4
CTCS 478	Culture, Technology & Communications	4
CTPR 327*	Motion Picture Camera	3
CTPR 335*	Motion Picture Editing	3
CTPR 385	Colloquium: Motion Picture Production Techniques	4
CTAN 330	Animation Fundamentals	2
CTAN 432	The World of Visual Effects	2
CTAN 448	Introduction to Film Graphics-Animation	4
CTIN 309	Introduction to Interactive Entertainment	4
CTIN 405L	Design and Technology for Mobile Experiences	2
CTIN 462	Critical Theory and Analysis of Games	4
CTIN 483	Introduction to Game Development	4

Viterbi School of Engineering

Course Number	Course Name	Units
ITP 300x*	Database Web Development	3
ITP 301x**	Interactive Web Development	4
ITP 404x* **	Developing Web Services and Application Programming Interfaces	3
ITP 411x*	Interactive Multimedia Production	3

College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences

Course Number	Course Name	Units
ANTH 470	Multidisciplinary Seminar in Visual Anthropology	2,4
ANTH 472	Visual Techniques in Anthropology: Stills	4
ANTH 475	Ethnographic Film Analysis	4
ANTH 476	Ethnographic Film Theory From an Historical Perspective	4
AMST 446	Cultural Circuits in the Americas	4
AHIS 475	Blackness in American Visual Culture	4

Annenberg School for Communication

Course Number	Course Name	Units
COMM 411**	Communication Criticism	4
COMM 412	Communication and Social Movements	4
COMM 422	Legal Issues and New Media	4
COMM 450	Visual Culture and Communication	4
COMM 455	Advertising and Society	4
COMM 456**	Entertainment, Marketing and Culture	4
COMM 458m**	Race and Ethnicity in Entertainment and the Arts	4
COMM 465m	Gender in Media Industries and Products	4
JOUR 330	Photojournalism	4
JOUR 405**	Non-Fiction Television	4
JOUR 420**	Advanced Photojournalism	4
JOUR 421	Photo Editing for News Media	4
JOUR 422	Visual Journalism	4

* Please note that these are 3 unit courses, and will not alone fulfill the elective requirement of 4 units.
** Please note that these courses have prerequisites and/or corequisites