Department of Media Studies

Welcome to Media Studies at VIU

Media Studies at VIU combines critical analysis of media with technical and creative skills. The 4-year degree puts equal emphasis on the meaning of media and how you can make media that is meaningful to you.

Our experiences of these media in our homes and businesses equip us to design media that engages, empowers, disrupts, and informs. You can explore film and video or music and audio for radio, podcast, web, or games.

Our degree stresses a critical understanding of the economic, social, historical, and contextual landscape in which media is operating and helps you deliver the hard skills required for hands-on careers and entrepreneurism in the field. These components are equally essential and mutually reinforcing. 

Credits required for the Major and Minor have been reduced.

No courses have been cancelled

• Digital Media courses and the Minor or now under one name: Media Studies
• In your registration screen all former Digital Media courses are now under "Media Studies" and MEDI codes.
  For example, DIGI 110 is now MEDI 110.
• MEDI 265 Introduction to Game Studies is now an added 100 level offering as MEDI 165 - Introduction to Game Studies.

For more info contact department chair Joy Gugeler (joy.gugeler@viu.ca)

Voicemails can be left for the Program Chair or any Media Studies faculty member at 250-740-6107

If you have enrolled in DIGI classes, you may receive a message that you are unenrolled or that the course is ending. Look for the same number with the prefix MEDI and enroll in it instead.

Anyone who declared a Minor in Digital Media will now receive a Minor in Media Studies. All previous credits will count toward this degree.

Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 Offerings

Fall 2025

• Online Asynchronous MEDI 220 Web Production 1: Robin Davies (former DIGI 220)
• Online Asynchronous MEDI 165 Introduction to Game Studies:  Karen Skardzius (former MEDI 265) 

Monday

• 8:30-11:30 MEDI 110 Introduction to Media Production:  Richard Boyce (former DIGI 110)
• 11:30-2:30 MEDI 402 Technology and Identity: Joy Gugeler
• 2:30-5:30 MEDI 280 Video Production 1: Richard Boyce (former DIGI 280) 

Tuesday

• 8:30-11:30 MEDI 315 Music, Culture and Technology: Robin Davies
• 11:30-2:30 MEDI 200 Media, Audience, and Society: Deb Pentecost
• 2:30-5:30 MEDI 311 Film About Media: Deb Pentecost 

Wednesday

• 8:30-11:30 MEDI 100 Introduction to Media Studies and Communication: Deb Pentecost
• 11:30-2:30 MEDI 230 Social Media: Joy Gugeler (former DIGI 230)
• 11:30-2:30 INTR 100 Popular Culture and University Writing: Karen Skardzius  (6 credits)
• 2:30-5:30 MEDI 301 Studies in Global Media: Deb Pentecost

Thursday

• 8:30-11:30 MEDI 270 Audio Production 1: Robin Davies (former DIGI 270)
• 11:30-2:30 MEDI 110 Introduction to Media Production: Robin Davies (former DIGI 110)

Friday

• 10:00-1:00 MEDI 110 Introduction to Media Production: Richard Boyce (former DIGI 110)
• 1:00-4:00 MEDI 310 Media Literacy: Karen Skardzius

Spring 2026

• Online Asynchronous MEDI 165 Introduction to Game Studies: Karen Skardzius (former DIGI 265)

Monday