An examination of the rights, freedoms,and obligations of the media and of practising journalists. The course deals with such issues as the grounds and limits of freedom of expression, moral responsibilities respecting truth, balance, and objectivity; ethical and business pressures in media; obligations to the public, the audience, sources, colleagues, employers, and oneself. The course includes case studies and discussion of ongoing media activity. Same as Toronto Metropolitan University Graduate Communication & Culture 969.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): J. Obar
2026
W
gs/cmct 6002M
Research Methodologies
Students in the core courses are required to attend a workshop on research methods in communication and cultural studies. These sessions are designed to complement the theoretical materials presented in the core seminars and will provide an overview of the range of research methods in communication and cultural studies. The course introduces students to a wide range of methods and approaches, including research design (qualitative and quantitative), survey research, content analysis, textual analysis, discourse analysis, historiography, legal and documentary research, ethnographic techniques, cultural studies approaches, and others.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2026
W
gs/cmct 6002N
Research Methodologies
Students in the core courses are required to attend a workshop on research methods in communication and cultural studies. These sessions are designed to complement the theoretical materials presented in the core seminars and will provide an overview of the range of research methods in communication and cultural studies. The course introduces students to a wide range of methods and approaches, including research design (qualitative and quantitative), survey research, content analysis, textual analysis, discourse analysis, historiography, legal and documentary research, ethnographic techniques, cultural studies approaches, and others.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
F
gs/cmct 6004A
Communication & Culture: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Introduces a critical approach to the three symbiotic areas of the program at the graduate level: media and culture; politics and policy, and technology in practice: applied perspectives. The course explores each area in modules that concentrate on four aspects: history; philosophy; theory; and principle concepts or issues, with one week dedicated to each aspect in each area.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): J. Nagy
2025
F
gs/cmct 6004B
Communication & Culture: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Introduces a critical approach to the three symbiotic areas of the program at the graduate level: media and culture; politics and policy, and technology in practice: applied perspectives. The course explores each area in modules that concentrate on four aspects: history; philosophy; theory; and principle concepts or issues, with one week dedicated to each aspect in each area.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
S1
gs/cmct 6005A
Masters Research Specialization and Practice
This combination lecture/seminar course consolidates graduate coursework and bridges the transition to independent critical research. It assists and evaluates the student in developing professional skills including: peer review, grant-writing, formal presentations, conference and publications submission which may include applied research in submissions to government or organizational policy papers, and public forums or hearings on communication and culture.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Bailey
2025
S1
gs/cmct 6005B
Masters Research Specialization and Practice
This combination lecture/seminar course consolidates graduate coursework and bridges the transition to independent critical research. It assists and evaluates the student in developing professional skills including: peer review, grant-writing, formal presentations, conference and publications submission which may include applied research in submissions to government or organizational policy papers, and public forums or hearings on communication and culture.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2026
W
gs/cmct 6104M
Reading Television
Fundamental to contemporary cultural studies is the recognition that the meaning, form and value of cultural products, such as situation comedies, soap operas, and advertisements, cannot be separated from the social context in which they are produced and received. The course will explore such questions as: What are the genre conventions? How do different individuals and communities use and value television products? To what extent do television products promote resistance and change and to what extent do they preserve the status quo? Students will apply several frameworks to selected products in order to analyse how the product works in relation to individuals and communities. Same as Toronto Metropolitan University Graduate Communication & Culture 925.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
F
gs/cmct 6110A
Visual Culture
The course will begin by exploring the ways in which we have been taught how to analyse and understand images, and how to produce and reproduce them. The course aims, however, to move beyond analysis of specific texts in order to historicize and understand the larger cultural meanings that have been assigned to the visual. We will attempt to come to terms with what W.J.T. Mitchell has called the pictorial turn in all its complexity. The course includes works by philosophers and cultural theorists as well as poets, painters, novelists, videographers, filmmakers, and cyberneticists.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2026
W
gs/cmct 6113M
Contemporary Topics in Social Theory
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): M. Nijhawan
2025
F
gs/cmct 6114A
Communication, Culture and the City
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
F
gs/cmct 6119A
Sound Studies
This course introduces graduate students to the interdisciplinary field of sound studies. Topics include ideas of the soundscape, broadcast sound, interior and exterior sound, musical sound, sound and difference. The course covers historical and contemporary sound studies.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): D. Cecchetto
2026
W
gs/cmct 6133M
History of Things: Objects, Representation, and Display
This course explores critical debates and interdisciplinary research methods employed in the study of material objects. It draws on case studies and theoretical work on material culture, display, and representation to consider the influence of the 'material turn' on contemporary scholarship and on historical and curatorial practices.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): J. Hadlaw
2026
W
gs/cmct 6136M
The Making of Asian Studies: Critical Perspectives
This course offers a historical examination of the multiple, overlapping processes through which Asian identities and regions were constituted. It will also examine new directions in Asian studies in an era of intensified global flows, transnationalism, and the presence of Asian diaspora in Canada and elsewhere.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): L. Hae
2025
F
gs/cmct 6137A
Postcoloniality
The course investigates Postcolonialism as a field within Cultural Studies. Emphasizing socio- and politico-cultural analyses, themes such as colonial discourse, orientalism, hybridity, resistance, subalternity, indigeneity, Eurocentrism, cultural imperialism, language, race, sexuality, gender, and subjectivity are examined through a range of interdisciplinary and conceptual perspectives. Texts containing influential theoretical arguments are the primary focus, with some works from the Arts also featured.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
F
gs/cmct 6138A
Remediations: Media and environment in the digital age
This course engages with current questions in the field of media and environment, providing a broad overview of key schools of thought and historical approaches to environmental communication and media. Topics covered include: environmental impacts of digital media and media industries; environmental soundscapes and environmental sensing; Indigenous cosmologies; and mediating environmental justice.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Roburn
2025
F
gs/cmct 6300A
The Political Economy of Culture and Communication
This course reflects the theoretical perspective that communication systems and cultural practices shape and are shaped by the social distribution of power in all societies. It examines the role of the state, the market and civil society in the production and distribution of cultural products and the implications of their relationships for society.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): R. Latham
2025
S1
gs/cmct 6301A
Issues in Communication and Cultural Policy
This course focuses on specific issues that are shaping communication and cultural policy, including the emergence of the information highway, globalization and convergence.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
F
gs/cmct 6322A
Armed Conflict, Peace and the Media
This seminar analyzes the production of news and entertainment during periods of armed conflict from the First World War until the present. Students will focus on relationships between industry and governments in debating issues of media control and civil rights.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2026
W
gs/cmct 6335M
Selected Topics in Politics and Policy
The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the Instructor. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Politics and Policy.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Driver
2026
W
gs/cmct 6335N
Selected Topics in Politics and Policy
The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the Instructor. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Politics and Policy.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2026
W
gs/cmct 6336M
Politics of Aesthetics
The Politics of Aesthetics develops an aesthetic framework from political and philosophical thinkers who have an aesthetic theory as part of their philosophy. These include Hegel, Kant, Heidegger, Vattimo, Badiou, Rancière and Zabala. The course is presented in blended(BLEN) format that includes in-class, on-line and print EE components: seminar presentation, seminar participation, interactive on-line discussion forum, one minute film, plus paper abstract and essay. The aim is for the student to be able to interact proficiently and seamlessly both online and in person to meet the requirements of a networked world.
Instructional Format: HYFX
Instructor(s): S. Bell
2026
W
gs/cmct 6500M
Advanced Communication Technology
This course is an exploration of the major current issues for communication and culture raised by contemporary and emerging communication technologies and their applications. It builds on the more basic materials covered in Communication & Culture: Understanding Communication Technologies.
Accelerating Technicity examines the concept of technology in select works of Heidegger, Marcuse, Deleuze, Simondon, Stiegler, Hayles, Virilio and Acclerationism. Using these theorists the course will grapple with Heidegger's two conflicting tendencies in technology: the dominant tendency of instrumental technology (the danger inherent in technology) and second, the tendency toward poeisis (the revealing and saving potential inherent in technology).
Instructional Format: BLEN
Instructor(s): S. Bell
2025
S1
gs/cmct 6535A
Selected Topics in Technology in Practice
The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the Instructor. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Technology in Practice.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2026
W
gs/cmct 6535M
Selected Topics in Technology in Practice
The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the Instructor. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Technology in Practice.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): R. Shivener
2026
W
gs/cmct 6535N
Selected Topics in Technology in Practice
The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the Instructor. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Technology in Practice.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
F
gs/cmct 6537A
Digital Games and Learning
This course examines play as it is currently developed and popularly imagined in commercial computer- and consoled-based games in order to more closely examine what is learned in those immersive environments and ask how they might more productively be harnessed for educative ends
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): K. Thumlert
2026
W
gs/cmct 6539M
Technological Mediations in Visual Culture
This course examines the interconnectedness of representation and visual culture in contemporary wired society. Students critically explore and assess the influence and shaping of technological mediations in visual culture investigating theory, culture, globalization and education.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): S. Singh
2025
F
gs/cmct 6909A
Field Placements
Master's students will be able to receive credit by undertaking field placements in appropriate institutions. Same as Toronto Metropolitan University Graduate Communication & Culture 993 and 093.
Instructional Format: FDEX
2025
SU
gs/cmct 6909A
Field Placements
Master's students will be able to receive credit by undertaking field placements in appropriate institutions. Same as Toronto Metropolitan University Graduate Communication & Culture 993 and 093.
Instructional Format: FDEX
2025
SU
gs/cmct 6909B
Field Placements
Master's students will be able to receive credit by undertaking field placements in appropriate institutions. Same as Toronto Metropolitan University Graduate Communication & Culture 993 and 093.
Instructional Format: FDEX
2026
W
gs/cmct 6909M
Field Placements
Master's students will be able to receive credit by undertaking field placements in appropriate institutions. Same as Toronto Metropolitan University Graduate Communication & Culture 993 and 093.
Instructional Format: FDEX
2025
SU
gs/cmct 6911A
Directed Readings (Master's Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2025
F
gs/cmct 6911A
Directed Readings (Master's Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2026
W
gs/cmct 6911M
Directed Readings (Master's Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2026
W
gs/cmct 6922M
Selected Topics in Research Methods
Develops knowledge and skills of selected advanced research methods topics. The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the specialty of the course director. Corequisite: CC8902 (CMCT 6002 3.0) or CC9900 (CMCT 7200 3.0)
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): M. Li
2025
F
gs/cmct 7000A
Perspectives in Communication and Cultural Studies
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): R. Heynen
2025
F
gs/cmct 7000B
Perspectives in Communication and Cultural Studies
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
S1
gs/cmct 7005A
PhD Field Seminar: Disciplinary Practices
Facilitates independent doctoral research by developing skills of disciplinary rigour in relation to individual research interests. It provides guidance in the advancement of field and area specialties in preparation for comprehensive qualifying exams, dissertation proposal, and ethics review process. It includes theories and practices of critical pedagogy and praxis, academic and professional publication, and other elements of professional research.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): M. Terry
2025
S1
gs/cmct 7005B
PhD Field Seminar: Disciplinary Practices
Facilitates independent doctoral research by developing skills of disciplinary rigour in relation to individual research interests. It provides guidance in the advancement of field and area specialties in preparation for comprehensive qualifying exams, dissertation proposal, and ethics review process. It includes theories and practices of critical pedagogy and praxis, academic and professional publication, and other elements of professional research.
Instructional Format: SEMR
2025
F
gs/cmct 7011A
Directed Readings (Ph.D. Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2025
SU
gs/cmct 7011A
Directed Readings (Ph.D. Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2026
W
gs/cmct 7011M
Directed Readings (Ph.D. Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2025
F
gs/cmct 7012A
Directed Readings (Ph.D. Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2026
W
gs/cmct 7012M
Directed Readings (Ph.D. Level)
Instructional Format: DIRD
2025
F
gs/cmct 7125A
Cinema and Media Studies: Key Concepts
The course will explore key concepts, texts and debates in the field of contemporary cinema and media studies. While maintaining a focus on the intellectual and material histories of cinema studies and media studies as disciplines (and their recent convergence), including epistemological and ontological frameworks, methodological approaches, and institutional and technological supports, the course will emphasize recent developments in cinema and media studies. Three broad areas of study will structure the course: cinema and cultural theory; national and transnational cinema; cinema and technologies of the image.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): M. Bunch
2026
W
gs/cmct 7200M
Advanced Research Methodologies
The principal aim of this course is to cultivate in students a critical research sensibility that addresses questions of communication and culture and their intersection, with research being defined as an engaged process of enquiry and discovery that leads to the production of social knowledge.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Instructor(s): A. MacLennan
2026
W
gs/cmct 7200N
Advanced Research Methodologies
The principal aim of this course is to cultivate in students a critical research sensibility that addresses questions of communication and culture and their intersection, with research being defined as an engaged process of enquiry and discovery that leads to the production of social knowledge.
Instructional Format: SEMR
Learn More
The York & Toronto Metropolitan University Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture at York is an exciting environment to pursue innovative, socially engaging, career-ready education.