The Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film offers four separate programs of study: Business Communication, Media and Communication Studies, Film Studies, and Popular Culture. A four-year program leading to the BA Honours degree, a 4 Year BA with Major, and a three-year program leading to the BA Pass degree is offered in all four programs. In addition, the Department is involved in programs with community colleges which offer students the opportunity to earn an honours degree in Popular Culture and a college diploma or certificate.
Popular Culture Studies is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that brings together theoretical and analytical perspectives from the humanities and social sciences. These varied approaches inform our understanding of popular culture as expressed through social media, advertising, music, popular cinema, sport, television, video games, as well as non-mass mediated cultural forms like fairs and festivals, food and drink, tourism and travel. We study these expressions of culture within their cultural, economic, political, and social contexts, past and present.
The function of culture is to impose meaning on the world. The study of popular culture - how it works and why it is important - is therefore the study of meaning and meaning making. These meanings are complex, layered, and increasingly mediated. The analysis of meaning structures reveals the values, beliefs, and ideologies of cultures and subcultures. The subfields of Popular Culture Studies examine cultural texts, practices and industries in order to deconstruct their underlying assumptions and decode their meanings. The struggle over meanings and their construction rests at the heart of popular culture and cultural studies.
Alongside cultures and cultural expression we also study cultural change in both contemporary and historical contexts. Culture is first and foremost historically communicated. We believe alongside our interdisciplinary approach the emphasis on cultural change over time provides our students a comprehensive approach to the study of new and evolving popular culture forms, practices and industries.
This approach to the training of our undergraduates provides an excellent preparation for any field of endeavour or study. We develop and advance written and oral communication alongside creative problem-solving and independent research skills. By the time our students complete our undergraduate program they possess life-long learning skills in addition to media and cultural literacy.