Media and Cultural Studies BA Honours

Course content

What will you study on the BA Media and Cultural Studies?

This degree has been designed to combine media theory, knowledge of specific industry practices and hands on, practical skills.

Your first year will focus on helping you to develop your skills in key areas of media analysis and media production. You will explore a range of texts drawn from a variety of media within popular culture and you will be encouraged to ask critical questions about the meaning and implications of these texts, and the role of the media industries that produce them. These insights will then form the foundation of your own media production projects as you learn practical skills in areas like camera work, radio or news production, digital media or campaigning.

In your second year you will explore the issues and debates that surround new and social media, as well as choose from a range of exciting optional modules or a work placement preparation module. A crucial aspect of this year is the opportunity to build on your practical skills by undertaking advanced training in one specialist area of media production, as well as undertaking comprehensive training in research techniques to prepare you for your independent project in the third year.

You will be able to choose from an even wider range of optional modules in your third year that will test your skills in analysis, communication and creative writing or your capacity to lead, develop and manage social and political campaigns. This final year is where we encourage you to shine by developing and completing your own independent project, which will form the foundation on your industry portfolio and/or further academic study.

Modules

This module will enable you to demonstrate, in the execution of a complex and large-scale project, high level academic and/or practical skills, relevant to your field of study and professional interests. It will test your confidence in your intellectual abilities and capacity to organise your time through an emphasis on self-directed learning and independent research. You will identify and apply relevant critical frameworks drawn from the programme and relevant to your professional interests. You will demonstrate independent thinking in the application and development of theoretical/practical projects.

This module will build on skills developed in the Media and Participation module, particularly in relation to the critical evaluation and analysis of transgressive texts, and your ability to reflect on the role of both institutions and audiences in shaping the reception of these texts. The module will introduce the media production outside the realm of mainstream, commercial media and enable you to situate these texts within the context of theories of transgression, exploitation and the production of cultural value. Situating transgressive culture within the wider framework of social, cultural and political debate will also be explored.

This module will enable you to understand social change and the role of the media, communications and community organising in bringing it about. It will introduce you to a range of different theories of social change and the history of those ideas in practice and allow you to carry out campaigns using the range of skills you have developed across degrees programmes in a manner appropriate to an assessed activity on a degree programme. You will build your confidence in dealing with the public, press and authority figures, gain experience working in a small public facing, interdependent group and develop the skills necessary to be effective in that situation.

This module aims to introduce key arguments and debates concerning subjectivity, consumer culture and the media, and develop your knowledge and understanding of the ways in which identity has changed as a result of the development of global consumer culture. It will also develop advanced skills in ethnographic research methods.

This module aims to build on previous Year 2 modules by giving you the ability to analyse a range of texts from different professional contexts and identify the ways in which power relations between participants operate. In doing so, you will engage with theoretical ideas about language, gender, power and identity at work. Through the use of examples from different professional contexts for example advertising, law and business, you will gain an extensive knowledge of the social and pragmatic details of professional genres and registers. Building on work carried out in the Communication Techniques module, this module also aims to give you a greater awareness of and skill at participating within particular professional speech events through interactive role play exercises based on interviews and meetings.

This module aim to develop a critical appreciation of the importance of information gathering and dissemination practices in contemporary society. It will develop detailed understanding of the extent and nature of processes and practices of media manipulation and the role of such manipulation in shaping public debate, and will develop understanding of information production as an organisational practice.

This module will provide you with a sound critical understanding of media regulation. You will consider, both positive forms of regulation designed to facilitate the production of media, and negative forms of regulation aimed at proscribing certain kinds of working practices and prohibiting the production, circulation and consumption of questionable media content. You will explore both the established regulatory frameworks surrounding traditional media, as well as, exploring the multiple ways in which Governments, both national and international, organisations and individuals have responded to new media technologies.

This module will enable you to develop a critical understanding of the relationship between individuals, media and the urban environment by considering a variety of media forms-from the hopeful hype of tourist guides to the errant strategies of novelists from outdoor advertising to digital communication networks. You will gain an understanding of the urban spaces we live in as complex assemblages of ideas, technologies and representational forms.

This module explores the theory and practice of international and digital communication management. You will gain the knowledge and understanding of the development and status of public relations in various parts of the world - among emerging as well as developed markets - and to develop advanced skills in the delivery and critical evaluation of public relations practices in international contexts.

This module aims to introduce the major ethical issues, regulatory frameworks and political debates concerning the advertising and public relations PR industries, and develop your knowledge and understanding of the social, cultural and political impact of promotional practices in specific contexts. You will also develop advanced skills - drawing on the methods and critical vocabularies introduced in Years 1 and 2, in analysing and evaluating the social, cultural and political effects of promotional practices.

You can find more information about this course in the programme specification. Optional modules are usually available at levels 5 and 6, although optional modules are not offered on every course. Where optional modules are available, you will be asked to make your choice during the previous academic year. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.