Why it matters: New cinema studies program in Alberta aims to elevate conversation

For the first time in years, an Alberta university is growing its arts offerings instead of shrinking them.

The University of Lethbridge has introduced a new Bachelor of Cinema and Media Studies, a program that stands out in a province where fine arts education has been steadily eroded since 2013.

The new U of L degree takes filmmaking into a deeper academic space, combining hands‑on production with theory and media analysis, and framing cinema as something more than job training. It’s about understanding how modern media shapes culture, politics, and public conversation.

Board of Governors teaching chair Professor Aaron Taylor says while students will learn camera skills, they are also being trained for more intellectual depth.

“Folks that are looking at being entrepreneurs, managers, getting into media distribution, learning how to articulate scholarly and historical ideas online,” he explains. “Staking up a kind of smart presence on things like Vimeo and YouTube.”

Students will still learn basic production.

Ryan Harper‑Brown is a new media instructor and teaching fellow, at the U of L.

“Students will need to take a few courses in basic video production… so they have some experience shooting a documentary or a short film,” he says.

 Those skills support analysis and content creation, including video essays.

But while students will learn how to create cinematic content, the program is not meant to be film school.

Taylor says it is more about researching and understanding, “to better understand how media works, how to employ it in responsible, ethical, politically oriented ways.”

He says that kind of training matters right now.

“Predominantly what we want are thinkers, readers, philosophers, producers, distributors, folks interested in policy, writers, folks interested in communicators,” he adds.

In light of how quickly media has become part of everyday life, Taylor says it is high time to elevate the conversation and post‑secondary schools have a responsibility to teach students how to handle that influence. 

“We need desperately to retrain people how to think, how to read, how to write about the very media technologies that are… inflecting every part of their lives,” he says.

Taylor argues this kind of training is tied to citizenship and public conversation.

“If we don’t do that, we’re already seeing signs of what happens when people are handling and engaging with media in a completely mindless way.”

While the degree is not designed to necessarily directly feed into Alberta’s burgeoning film industry, the timing does not hurt.

Harper‑Brown says growing demand means students need skills that transfer directly to working sets.

“There is a need to have a bunch of people who have the skills that they can get hired to work on a set and know what they’re doing,” he says.

Taylor adds that the industry extends beyond television and film.

 “We already have a large history of our students and alumni go on to gain stable and consistent and well‑paid work in media productions… and Alberta’s also flourishing games industry as well.”

Taylor says with media production exploding, he would like to see more support for arts and arts-based training.  

“A provincial government that is not behind fully… endorsing not just the media arts, but arts in general, is just losing the plot,” he says.

Taylor adds the timing reflects a need for local storytelling as well.

“The political timing of this program also couldn’t be better in that pointing students… to decolonize their imaginations, to think about what it means to be Canadian citizens, Albertan citizens, Lethbridge citizens, and to engage with their kind of local communities and to tell their stories,” he explains.

Across Alberta, universities already offer degrees in film studies and media studies, including programs at the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta, but each lean more toward theory than required production.

The University of Lethbridge says its new Bachelor of Arts in Cinema and Media Studies is built to combine both, aiming to prepare students for the range of screen and digital industries growing in the province.

Applications for admission are anticipated to open in February for the fall 2026 term. For more information, visit the program page.