MA in Film and Media Studies

The Master’s Program in Film and Media Studies at Columbia takes up the evolution of cinema as an art, an institution, an object of philosophical study, and an international socio-cultural phenomenon. Recently renamed to emphasize both motion picture film and the newest of new media, the program facilitates exploration from the one to the other and back. It is designed to consider current theoretical approaches and to look historiographically at trends such as the transition from motion picture film to digital media.

MA in Film and Media Studies students elect to concentrate in either the Cinema/Media or Emergent Media streams within the program, and can choose electives both from the School of the Arts and from Columbia University Arts and Sciences departments. They do so, furthermore, in a world capital of film and television culture, where they are afforded the advantages of research in New York area film and television archives and libraries: New York Public Library, The Paley Center for Media, and have held internships at Museum of the Moving Image, Museum of Modern Art, and Film Society of Lincoln Center. 

A few Teaching Assistantships are available. Student Service positions employ students as Programming Assistants and Research Assistants.