The Department of Media Studies and Production expands students' knowledge and skills to create, evaluate, and manage media content and organizations. With the urban and global communities as their living laboratories, students draw on their creativity, entrepreneurship, intellectual curiosity, and analytical abilities to navigate digital media in our global society.

Theory and practice are integrated into all areas of study in the major. Media Studies and Production students learn how to produce, evaluate, and manage media content for traditional and emerging media in a variety of genres, including information (news and documentary), music, comedy, sports, drama, and commercial and noncommercial persuasion campaigns. They study institutions that create, distribute, and investigate media products (e.g., production studios, television and radio networks, and audience measurement companies) and learn how to create and operate successful media businesses. Media Studies & Production students learn to think purposefully and critically about media, and examine the media's role in history, culture, and society from many perspectives. They also learn how to act ethically as they interact with the world both in careers in media institutions and as media consuming and producing citizens.

The Media Business & Entrepreneurship Professional Option track introduces students to the practical and ethical ways to start, operate, or participate in enterprises that create, produce, and/or distribute media content. Students who follow this track seek career opportunities as media entrepreneurs, media production freelancers, owners/operators of production companies or recording studios, web site developers, or founders/owners of a station, channel, or network.