In Comparative Media Studies, we investigate and engage in the world’s complex media environment. We research multiple media forms and technologies, from books, pamphlets, and silent films to social media, virtual reality, and globally-networked games. We study the emerging media practices of states, corporations, social movements, fan communities, and everyday people. Embracing MIT’s motto of mens et manus, we design and create media through practice-based research labs. We examine media within the contexts of varied cultures, societies and social structures, and we critique and design media to empower communities. Above all, we are committed to an ethically and critically engaged approach to the study and production of media.
Research Themes
Our research groups, using a lab model, produce diverse projects. But collectively they work within themes of equity, critical design, and open collaboration.
Thursday, Dec. 2: “Poetic Justice: Art at the same scale society has the capacity to destroy”
Ekene Ijeoma will share how Poetic Justice has been developing a series of generative sound and video portraits of linguistic and ethnic diversity in US cities, Black thought and expression in the US, liberty and equality across multiple countries, and Black lives lost to COVID-19 in the US.
Conference Save the Date: Bearing Witness, Seeking Justice
October 6-8, 2022, join a forum for diverse constituencies to express their views and to showcase findings on videography as a creative tool in the quest for social justice.
Featured
Video: Memorial Colloquium in Honor of Jing Wang
At this Colloquium, we publicly honored our beloved colleague’s life and work, featuring brief talks by some of those who knew her best.
Video: Sulafa Zidani, “Messy on the Inside: Internet Memes as Mapping Tools of Everyday Life”
The power of memes cannot be fully understood without considering their role in the complex relationship between technology, space, and politics.
