Minors

The School of Communication & Information and the Department of Women's and Gender Studies (School of Arts and Sciences) have teamed up to offer an innovative cross-disciplinary minor in Gender and Media. You'll analyze gendered power inequalities in the media as you acquire hands-on, technical media skills. With exciting capstone and internship opportunities, you’ll gain a rich, unique perspective on gender and the media as well as opportunities to critique, contribute to, and improve current media conditions.

The Gender and Media minor will help prepare you for careers in a number of relevant fields: journalism, media studies, film-making, advertising and marketing, public relations, business and management, social services, public policy, the arts, and many others.

For more information, please visit the SAS Student Page and explore the options below.

• Program Information
• Minor requirements
• Declaring the minor
• Courses offered

Program Information

Complementing any major, the Gender and Media minor is a cross-unit, interdisciplinary undergraduate minor offered jointly by SC&I and the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS). The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies is the sole SAS contributor to courses included in the minor. At SC&I, the Department of Journalism and Media Studies is the primary contributor to the minor, offering the majority of course options. Two additional SC&I undergraduate courses, one in the Information Technology and Informatics (ITI) major curriculum and the second in the Digital Communication, Information, and Media (DCIM) minor curriculum are course options for the Gender and Media minor.

You will be introduced to the minor through a foundational course that offers a shared vocabulary for analyzing issues of power and representation within the media. You will then have the choice of taking two electives in media production, as well as two electives in critical media/feminist theory. Finally, you can apply your skills and knowledge of gender and the media in the completion of a project in a capstone course that offers internship, service learning and multi-media project options.

Program-Level Learning Goals

The Gender and Media minor provides a course of study designed for students interested in a combination of theory and practice perspectives on the representation and production of gender in the media.

• Students will apply technical skills as media producers with the ability to add their own critical voices and unique perspectives.
• Students will also demonstrate critical thinking skills that enable them to critique and improve current conditions of media production and consumption.
• Students will articulate, create, examine, inform, and improve systemic and individual power dynamics of the contemporary landscape for gender and media.

Minor requirements

The Gender and Media Minor is 18 credits, including:

• 1 Foundational course
• 2 Practice/Production courses
• 2 Conceptual courses
• 1 Capstone Project course

In the Gender and Media minor, you will take courses from both the School of Communication and Information (SC&I; school number 04) and the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS; school number 01). The minor includes relevant course offerings from the SC&I programs in Journalism and Media Studies (04:567), Information Technology and Informatics (04:547), and Digital Communication, Information and Media (04:189), and from the SAS program in Women's and Gender Studies (01:988).

Students are required to complete six 3-credit courses (with a grade of C or better) in the minor, for a total of 18 credits.

Declaring the Minor

Eligibility for the Minor

All majors are eligible for the Gender and Media minor. We encourage you to make an advising appointment to arrange a plan for completing the full program on schedule.

• SAS students: You are welcome to minor in Gender and Media regardless of your major.
• SEBS student with a SEBS major: You are welcome to minor in Gender and Media.
• SEBS students with a SC&I major:  You must have a SEBS minor.
• All students in other Rutgers colleges (Business, Engineering, Mason Gross, Nursing, etc.): You are welcome to minor in Gender and Media, but discuss your options and requirements with your academic adviser. The declaration form requires the signature of your academic advisor or dean for approval prior to submitting the form to our office.

Declaring the Minor

You can declare the minor after you complete one of the two foundation courses with a grade of C or better:

• 01:988:202 Gender, Culture, and Representation
• 04:567:215 Gender, Race, and Class in the Media

Contact your academic advisor to confirm specific requirements for your academic program.

• SAS students: Log in to SAS myMajor to declare the Gender and Media minor.
• SEBS students: Log in to SEBS myMajor to declare the Gender and Media minor.
• Students in other Rutgers colleges (Business, Engineering, Mason Gross, Nursing, etc.):  Complete the Gender and Media Minor Declaration Form and submit it to the SC&I Student Services Office (SC&I Building, Rm 214).

Certifying the Gender and Media Minor

To be certified as having completed the Gender and Media minor, all Gender and Media courses must be completed with a grade of C or better. Courses with grades below C will not be counted toward the minor. Gender and Media courses cannot be double-counted for the minor and any other major or minor at SC&I or the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies (SAS).

Using Gender and Media Minor Courses Toward Other Requirements

Gender and Media classes fulfill a variety of Core Curriculum requirements for SAS and other schools. Check Degree Navigator to see details.

 Courses Offered in Women's and Gender Studies

• 01:988:200 Gender, Digital Media, and Social Curation (3)

01:988:200 Gender, Digital Media and Social Curation (3)
Brings together analytic frameworks in feminist theory and gender studies with emerging bodies of theory about digital media, socialmedia, and digital humanities. (Pre-req: 01:988:202 or 04:567:215).

01:988:255 Gender, Art, and Society (3)
Women artists, their achievements, and impact. Social and cultural reasons for their neglect in the visual arts and how that neglect is being remedied today. Different ways in which men and women are depicted in art and how those differences relate to culture and society.Please note that this is an online course.

01:988:257 Gender and the Body: Representation and Pornography (3)
Examination of representations of gendered bodies in art, sexuality, gender, politics, and pornography. Examines how to understand who defines what is obscene and why some work is called pornography.

01:988:258 Gender, Race, and Contemporary Art (3)
Intersection of gender and race in contemporary American art. Black and white racial politics in relation to gender and contemporary art in the United States. Special focus on African-American artists.

01:988:259 Homosexuality and Visual Culture (3)
Central role of homosexuality and homoeroticism in visual culture in the distant and recent past as well as the present. Marginalization of homosexual artists, critics, and patrons despite direct participation in cultural production of art and popular culture.

01:988:317 Gender and Consumption (3)
Introduces feminist approaches to consumption through readings that examine the relation of consumption to body, race, nation, and sex work. Prerequisite: 01:988:101 or 201 or 235 or permission of instructor.