The department is made up of the Theatre Arts and Mass communications Departments:

Theatre Arts

History

In more than two decades that the Department of Theatre Arts has existed, Media Arts courses - such as Broadcasting, Writing and Producing for the Media, Introduction to Communication Arts and Media Drama , which represent a sizeable proportion of the curriculum of a full-fledged Mass Communication programme have been taught. In the last ten years, there has been very serious pressure on the Department to mount a programme in Mass Communication. These requests and enquiries have come from Media houses, etc.

Aims

The Theatre Arts programme is designed to offer students a board based education in the performing arts with possibility of specialising in one or two of its areas during the last two years of study.

Mass Communications

History

The Theatre Arts Programme , University of Benin , Benin City came into existence in 1978. At its inception Theatre Arts was a unit of the Creative Arts Department . It attained autonomous status in 1982 following the University Senate approval of a Faculty status in the previous year for the entire creative arts discipline.

In 1987 the Faculty of Creative Arts was merged with the Faculty of Arts , the Theatre Arts programme has since retainedits departmental status in the Faculty of Arts . Basically , the programme is expected to provie skilled manpower for the ever-growing entertainement industry as academics.

Aims and Objectives

The Bachelor of Arts degree programme in Mass Communication is designed with the specific aims :

• Providing competent manpower for Newspaper companies, Radio and Television houses, Arts Councils and other print oriented industries. This need has become more pronounced in the light of the broadcast deregulation policy of government as well as private investments in the newspaper industry.
• Providing an avenue for the Information sector of the Nigerian Society to benefit from proper training in the area of information acquisition and dissemination as well as relevant training in Public Relations.
• Providing an opportunity for working people without requisite knowledge base to study and improve their skills in the area of Mass Communication.