Department of Digital Technology and Culture

At the Vancouver campus, the Department of Digital Technology and Culture offers the B.A. in Digital Technology and Culture with an option in Creative Media and Digital Culture, as well as the Game Studies and Design certificate, and the Social Media certificate. Anchored within the field of digital media with emphasis on the intersection of art, technology, and the humanities, the DTC program features a strong interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary focus across various colleges in the WSU system, and emphasizes critical thinking, creativity, and technological expertise. The goal of the program is to offer a broad-based degree that prepares students for the media-rich, technologically complex 21st Century.

The DTC degree offers a program of study in Media Authoring and certificates in Game Studies and Design as well as Social Media. In addition to foundational course work in DTC, students also take classes in Anthropology, Art, English, History, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and other disciplines. Directed studies and internships encourage students to gain real world experience and engage in projects aimed at serving the community, both of which help students with professional career networking and developing a commitment to public service.

Along the way, the DTC program provides an intellectual environment comprised of special events like lectures, residency programs, performances by internationally known artists, and field trips to media arts shows and exhibits, and it offers its students state-of-the-art computer labs and studios in which to work and learn. Class sizes are kept small to assure one-on-one contact with faculty. 

Options in Digital Technology and Culture

Students may also select Digital Technology and Culture as a primary or secondary concentration within the Bachelor of Arts in Humanities or the Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences.

The Primary Concentration option requires the completion of at least 24 semester credit hours of approved DTC course work, including at least 15 upper-division semester credits.

The Secondary Concentration option requires the completion of at least 15 semester credit hours of approved DTC course work, including at least six upper-division semester credits. 

Certificates

The Game Studies and Design Certificate requires 15 semester credit hours of DTC course work, including two foundational courses and three courses that focus in either design or development. The Social Media Certificate, a collaboration between the program and the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, requires 15 semester credit hours, including four foundational courses and one additional course in media authoring.

Student Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate competency with computers for designing, distributing, researching, retrieving, and preserving digital works in various mediums for humane and effective human-computer interactions
• Synthesize media forms for multimedia contexts
• Employ the principles for sophisticated manipulation of various forms of digital media
• Understand the production and assessment of media objects
• Know the basics of information architecture and knowledge management along with ways digital information can be structured for retrieval and archival purposes for different audiences
• Question the way digital media functions in multiple cultural contexts
• Recognize various forms of language processing and their implications for media authoring
• Appreciate the history of technological development, from local to global perspectives, and its implications for a variety of mediums
• Utilize an interdisciplinary perspective in order to understand the basics of social, economic, and education changes brought about by digital media
• Be practiced and capable communicators in all mediums