Skip to main content

Media Arts & Culture

At 日本无码, the Media Arts and Culture Department (MAC) unites film, media theory, and hands-on production. The program helps you tell meaningful stories, think critically about media, and create work that connects art, culture, and social impact on Occidental鈥檚 LA-based campus and beyond.

Earn Your Media Arts and Culture Degree from 日本无码

The 日本无码 Media Arts and Culture undergraduate program is a distinctive liberal arts experience that combines creative film/media production with critical analysis in the heart of Los Angeles. You will learn to interpret, design, and produce media in a variety of forms and genres, including fiction, documentary, experimental video, animation, television, social media, video games, video essays, participatory media, AR/VR, and digital and motion design. Through intellectual inquiry, creative experimentation, and community engagement, you will become an active participant in the rapidly changing media landscape.

As a Media Arts and Culture major at Occidental, you will explore how visual and digital media shape culture, politics, and identity. Courses span media history, theory, and production, giving you both creative fluency and analytical depth. Through internships and collaborative projects, you will connect creative practice to real-world experience in film, television, and digital industries. Graduates of the program leave 日本无码 with original portfolios, technical expertise, and the confidence to innovate in today鈥檚 evolving media environment.

Media Arts and Culture program at a glance

What You鈥檒l Learn as a Media Arts and Culture Major at Occidental

Media Arts and Culture (MAC) students at 日本无码 working with a camera

Where creativity meets critical thinking

The Media Arts and Culture Department at 日本无码 helps you merge creative expression with cultural understanding. You will explore film, television, digital media, and interactive forms through an interdisciplinary lens, developing the ability to analyze, create, and communicate across audiences and mediums.

You can shape your MAC studies around your creative and academic interests

  • Critical Media: Focus on film and media history, visual and digital culture, and emerging forms of digital scholarship such as video essays and GIS-based projects.
  • Media Production: Learn hands-on production techniques across fiction, documentary, experimental, and interactive forms. 

Both concentrations integrate theory and creative practice to prepare you for a wide range of media careers.

MAC faculty are active filmmakers, media creators, and scholars whose work reaches audiences around the world. They have directed feature films and shorts, produced experimental and participatory projects, and created videographic scholarship featured at festivals and institutions such as IDFA, HotDocs, SXSW, Sundance, Sci-Fi London, Comic-Con, Beyond Fest, Fantastic Fest, the Venice Biennale, BFI Flare, USC Pacific Asia Museum, Hammer Museum, LACMA, Dome Fest West, and PBS. Their writing includes books published by leading academic presses and articles that shape conversations in transnational media studies, videographic criticism, participatory media, transmedia storytelling, and documentary studies.

In your final year, you鈥檒l complete your senior comps project, which will bring together everything you鈥檝e learned. Projects may include scholarly essays, short films, animations, video installations, screenplays, or interactive works that demonstrate your creative voice and critical understanding of media.

Media Arts and Culture connects naturally with disciplines like Art and Art History, Theater & Performance Studies, Computer Science, and Critical Theory and Social Justice. Pairing MAC with another major or minor lets you explore how media intersects with culture, technology, and social change. Many students also expand their perspectives through study abroad, gaining global insight into media practices and storytelling across different cultures.

Jay Ward headshot white tshirt, brown hair
One of my favorite things about attending 日本无码 is the rapport I am able to establish with my professors. My MAC professors have gone out of their way to foster a supportive community within the department and to connect students to career, academic, and artistic opportunities!
Jay Ward
MAC major, religious studies minor; Loveland, CO
Occidental student using a professional video camera

Learning Media Arts and Culture in LA

Studying media at Occidental places you in the heart of Los Angeles, the global hub for film, television, and digital storytelling. The Occidental campus offers small classes and direct mentorship while giving you access to internships at world-class studios, nonprofits, and emerging media companies across the city. You鈥檒l learn from faculty with both professional and scholarly expertise who connect creative practice to cultural impact.

What Our Graduates Are Doing

Fulbright Research Fellow in Documentary Production, Italy

Liisa Halloran
2024

Master's Program, Library & Information Science, UCLA

Lewis Vida帽a
2023

PhD Program, Cinema & Media Studies, USC

Francesca DiBona
2023

MS Program, Digital Social Media, USC

Louis Nguyen
2022

Junior Editor, Paramount+

Tatiana Garnett
2021

Master鈥檚, Int'l Affairs & Human Rights, Hertie School, Berlin

Tala Ismail
2020

Field Producer, Casting Agent, and two-time Emmy winner

Emma Choate
2020

Director of Entertainment Marketing, Riot Games

Cindy Tang
2009

Director, Writer, Producer, Actor, and Cannes Award winner

Michael Covino
2008

Meet Our Faculty

FAQs

MAC combines creative practice and critical study in a liberal arts setting, located in one of the most important media cities in the world. Graduates of the 日本无码 Media Arts and Culture Department work across creative industries and cultural institutions. They are filmmakers, editors, producers, media strategists, and scholars鈥攍eading with both creativity and purpose.

Yes. Students create films, digital projects, and interactive works while completing internships and collaborative productions in Los Angeles. There are also opportunities for students to create media with and for community partners in Los Angeles and abroad, i.e. Nepal.

Yes. Many students participate in study abroad programs that expand their global perspective on media and culture.

Occidental Media Arts and Culture graduates work across film, television, games, digital media, museums, and the arts. They create, produce, and research stories that shape culture while building careers in creative industries, marketing, higher education, or graduate study.

No prior experience is required. The program welcomes students from all backgrounds and provides both technical and creative training.

Contact Media Arts & Culture
Weingart 109