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Over the past decade, nearly three quarters of our Ph.D. graduates in Moving Image Studies have secured faculty roles in academia with over half in tenure track positions.

What does it cost?

Check out our cost calculator or visit student financial services for information on estimated costs.

How long will it take?

68 hours of coursework over four years

Where will I take classes?

Application Deadlines View Admissions Requirements

Deadline for priority consideration: December 1
Final Deadline: February 10
 

Communication Studies – Moving Image Studies, Ph.D.

School of Film, Media & Theatre

[email protected]
404-413-5881

The Ph.D. in Communication Studies with a concentration in Moving Image Studies is specifically designed to provide students with the conceptual and methodological tools to study the complex and vastly expanded moving image environment of the 21st century, where the boundaries separating cinema, television and new media are breaking down. Moving Image Studies is an outgrowth of cinema studies, television studies, new media studies, cultural studies and critical theory. Many of our core seminars are designed to cut across media boundaries (by examining how models, paradigms and methods are problematized and enriched, as we move across specific media); while other seminars are devoted to intensive examination of problems within a specific media formation.

The doctorate in Moving Image Studies is designed to give students a solid foundation in a specific moving image medium (whether cinema, television, or new media), while at the same time give them the preparation and the confidence to research and write about moving images wherever they circulate. The program encourages innovative new work that challenges existing paradigms of media study, that is theoretically rigorous, and that is aware of historical and cultural specificity.

VIEW CATALOG INFORMATION

Program Highlights

Faculty Highlights:

Ph.D. Student Highlights:

  • Tanya Zuk awarded a Provost’s Dissertation Fellowship 2019. Zuk’s dissertation, “Queering Capitalism: Collaborative Authorship as Queer Sensibility,” theorizes that an emerging queer production culture is developing that prioritizes collaborative authorship with audience-participants in the creation of new media texts as a way of queering or othering capitalism.
  • Jenny Gunn awarded a Provost’s Dissertation Fellowship 2018. Gunn’s dissertation, Narcisscinema: Selfie Culture and the Moving Image, advances a critical media theory of the selfie. Focusing on cinema and visual culture in the age of the selfie, it elaborates a theory of narcissism as an aesthetic form.
  • Alumna Lauren Cramer joins the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Dr. Cramer’s research interests include hip-hop, African American popular culture, architectural theory, digital aesthetics and blackness in visual culture.
Program Details

To apply for the Ph.D. in Communication Studies, Concentration in Moving Image Studies, you will need:

  • Statement of purpose
  • Three (3) letters of recommendation
  • CV
  • Writing sample
  • GPA of 3.5 or better
  • Official GRE scores (our recommended minimums are 157 on verbal portion and 145 math, though our applicants’ average scores are higher than that)
  • Transcripts from previous degree-granting universities
  • For international students, minimum TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)  score of 80 (internet-based test) or 550 (paper-based), or a minimum IELTS score of 6.5
  • Application fee
  1. Five hours of core courses (2 hours of Intro to Graduate School and three hours of Film and Media Pedagogy).
  2. Thirty-Three hours in area of concentration.
  3. Nine hours of research tools (approved courses that fall within the general categories of research methodologies).
  4. Twenty-One hours of dissertation research.
  5. A written and oral comprehensive examination.
  6. A successful Prospectus defense.
  7. A successful dissertation.
  8. A successful dissertation defense.

The Ph.D. in Communication Studies with a concentration in Moving Image Studies program goal is to provide students a solid foundation in a specific moving image medium (whether cinema, television or new media), while at the same time give them the preparation and the confidence to research and write about moving images wherever they circulate. The program encourages innovative new work that challenges existing paradigms of media study, that is theoretically rigorous, and that is aware of historical and cultural specificities.

The Moving Image Studies Ph.D. program provides strong mentoring toward professionalization of our doctoral students. Both faculty and students are active participants in our professional organization, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). Our doctoral students regularly present their work at SCMS and at other film-media conferences across the country, such as the Flow Conference, World Picture and MIT’s Media in Transition Conference, etc. In addition, the School of Film, Media & Theatre is home to the Media Commons’ In Media Res, of which all doctoral students have opportunities to work with this online journal.

The city of Atlanta, a major world media center, offers students in the Moving Image Studies program a wealth of opportunities. The High Museum of Art regularly programs cutting-edge series in world cinema, while annually the Georgia State University Department of Latin American Studies mounts a week-long conference which includes a festival of new Latin American cinema. The Moving Image Studies program maintains close ties with CNN and Turner Broadcasting, both of which are invaluable resources for students conducting research in television industries, history or global media flows.

Many of our Ph.D. graduates in Moving Image Studies move onto teaching positions at academic institutions.

Description

Careers

Moving Image Studies Ph.D. graduates have found successful careers in academia and beyond.

Over the past decade, nearly three-quarters of our Ph.D. graduates in Moving Image Studies have secured faculty roles in academia with over half in tenure track positions. Our Ph.D. graduates in Moving Image Studies serve at institutions such as Northeastern University, Ball State University, University of Akron, Ithaca University and the University of Toronto, etc. Please visit this map to learn more about our alumni.

Contacts

Graduate Director
Ly Bolia
[email protected]
404-413-5881

School of Film, Media & Theatre
25 Park Place, Suite 1016
Atlanta, GA 30303

35 Broad St., 4th Floor
Atlanta, GA 30303

The information shared provides an overview of Georgia State’s offerings. For details on admissions requirements, tuition, courses and more, refer to the university catalogs.