Communication & Media Studies

School of Arts & Humanities

Notice

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sonoma State University has transitioned to remote instruction for Spring 2021. Employees are working remotely in almost all departments. Email is the best way to communicate with our faculty and staff. You will find information on both the "Advising" tab and "Faculty & Staff" tab of this COMS webpage for office hours, Zoom links and emails. In addition, please see the SSU COVID-19 site for more information.

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Announcements

Faculty Spotlight: Check out this spotlight on COMS Assistant Professor, Gina Baleria,features Art History Assistant Professor, Letha Ch'ien, on her recent News in Context podcast

Fall 2021 Registration: Registration for the Fall 2021 semester begins on Monday, April 12th. We encourage COMS majors to meet with their advisors prior to their registration time. Advisors will be holding additional office hours the week of April 5th.

Internship Stories: Check out our new feature under "Internships" highlighting personal stories from COMS students and faculty on the value of internships.

Welcome to Communication and Media Studies at Sonoma State University!

We are excited to be planning for our fall semester. In choosing the fall schedule we worked to create a balance of remote and face to face instruction to best support our students.

Faculty, Alumni and Student Spotlights

Please check out our News and Events page to see spotlights on our amazing faculty, alumni and current Coms students.

Communication & Media Studies

Are you considering a career in media? Our department offers media-focused courses, experienced professors and a hands-on learning experience. Our classes cross over a diverse range of topics and skillsets which allow students to be knowledgeable in many aspects of the media industry.

What is Media Studies?

Media Studies explores the history and impact of media on society as well as research theory and methods of media analysis. Our core curriculum is designed to make students smarter, more savvy media consumers as well as more thoughtful and ethical media practitioners.

Tricaster Studio

We also provide our students with a robust curriculum that allows them to develop media skills in a variety of areas, including video production, writing for the media, public relations, broadcasting and digital media. Students have the opportunity to focus on specific skills or developing skills across the media spectrum.

Change of Major

Do you want to become a COMS Major?

COMS is an impacted major. Please request to be notified when applications are available each semester. COMS Change of Major - Request to be Notified

Classroom Picture with Amy G

Careers, Fields & Industries

Where Do SSU COMS Alumni Work?

There are many career paths that a person with a Communication and Media Studies Major can choose. Below are some of the career paths that graduates from Sonoma State University with a major in Communication and Media Studies have followed. Use this as an ideas list, but certainly not all of the careers you might consider:

Print Journalism
Public Relations
Radio Broadcasting

Video Production
Feature Films
Web Design

Television News
Social Media
Web Content Management

Message from Department Chair

Spring is often thought of as a time of fresh hope and new beginnings. That is certainly true this spring, as the Communication and Media Studies Department (along with the rest of the university) is busy planning for life and learning after the pandemic.

We’ve completed work on the fall 2021 schedule. While some courses will remain online in order to help maintain a safe on-campus learning environment during the transition out of Covid, several of our offerings will have live components, including most of our student media outlets and our Freshman Learning Community.

Plans are also moving forward to create a new BA degree in Cinematic Arts and Technology (in addition to our popular degree in Communication Studies). If all goes well, the new degree will be available to pursue in fall of 2022. Once launched, it will be one of only a few “hands on” film production programs in all of northern California.

Related to that, we continue to fine tune our newly-constructed Media Innovation Lab in Salazar Hall. Work on the facility was completed just as the pandemic was beginning, so we’re naturally quite excited for students to finally have a chance to use it!

We may be looking forward, but we’re also spending some time looking back. We love to stay in touch with our fantastic alumni, and will be developing a data base in the months ahead to help us do a better job of that (grads can always reach out to us at coms@sonoma.edu). Finally, we’ve launched planning for a big event in 2022 celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the landmark film, “The Godfather”. Pay close attention to our website in the months ahead as more details are revealed.

So much to look forward to when campus reopens! In the meantime, I want to wish all of you continued good health and safety.

Ed Beebout- Professor/Chair

News & Events

Coms Instructor Brings Some Well-Known Guests to Her Online Course

January 19, 2021

Student Spotlight: Kylie Rose Lawrence

December 14, 2020

Two Communication and Media Studies professors are among the 2020-21 recipients of the prestigious Koret Scholars Award.

October 20, 2020

Spotlight

Citrus Dawn

Congratulations to recent graduate Ryan Harvey. The film he directed for Campus MovieFest in 2019, entitled "Citrus Dawn," has won the BEST COMEDY award at the TERMINUS NATIONAL FESTIVAL. Well done, Ryan!