Overview
Taught by leading academics in the fields of politics, media and communication, in the Political Communication MSc, you will study communication strategies of political actors whilst acquiring practical skills for designing political campaigns, crafting communication strategies, identifying fake news, and writing news and features.
Interdisciplinary curriculum and international coverage: Communication has always been integral to politics and politics to communication but the interplay between them is changing dramatically in the social media age. New forms of politics emerge in spaces as far afield as the Arab Spring, Trump’s America, Brexit Britain. Modi’s India and Post-Covid China. Such developments challenge at a global and national level the taken-for-granted assumptions about what is political and how we communicate it. In the Political Communication MSc, you will learn how politicians, journalists and activists utilise verbal/written rhetorics, visuals, symbols or symbolic acts to communicate the current political developments. The academic component of the degree aims to critically examine current developments but also locates them historically and within an internationalised curriculum.
Wide range of career options: The degree will also prepare you to design and pitch your own communication campaigns and work in areas as diverse as political campaigning, broadcasting, social media, public relations and crisis communication, public affairs, marketing, political satire, and journalism. The new interdisciplinary degree is unique in offering a strong practical strand of modules that aim to upskill you within a theoretically robust degree.
Academic and practical training: You will also have the opportunity to take practical modules where you will learn how to write news or acquiring technical competencies to analyse deep-fakes in an age where facial recognition, AI, deep fakes and micro-behavioural targeting are creating new possibilities and challenges. Theory-practical modules, on the other hand, offer the potential to upskill you in different types of writing, analysing skills and presentational elements. The academic component is grounded in a flagship module in political communication which locates current developments historically, theoretically and critically as well as nationally and internationally. You will not only study conventional political communication topics on elections, but also learn about digital cultures, strategic communication, political satire, digitally supported social movements and fake news.
"At an Open Day, I met some superb minds who encouraged me to come to Brunel. I felt comfortable, even though I would be more than 40 years older than most new students" - Dr John Matlin .
"At an Open Day, I met some superb minds who encouraged me to come to Brunel. I felt comfortable, even though I would be more than 40 years older than most new students" - Dr John Matlin .
Course content
You will learn the theoretical roots underpinning political communication at a national and international level, and learn about the different forms of political communication;
- Traditional forms i.e. election campaigns, propaganda and PR, as well as what methods are used, how to analyse the effectiveness of a campaign and the importance of context to drawing up a communication strategy
- How different cultural forms including political satire, blogs and memes create and disrupt politics
You will also learn about seismic changes in the communication landscape and the new ethical issues arising from bots, AI and facial recognition technologies, and deep fakes.
Compulsory
- DissertationThe module aims to translate the knowledge, understanding and skills taught in the Researching Social and Political Sciences module into a substantial piece of independent theory-based research on an aspect of (historical or contemporary) political communication.
- Elections & CampaignsThe module aims to analyze the development of election campaigning methods, the measurement, and effectiveness of election campaigns and understand how electoral context impacts the planning and effectiveness of campaigns
- Political Communication
In the political communication module, you will learn how politicians, journalists, and activists across the world utilise verbal/written rhetoric, visuals, symbols, or symbolic acts to communicate current political developments. You will also explore and discuss recent developments in the political communication field, such as post-truth and propaganda in the digital age. The module also provides you with the opportunity to develop your key teamwork and practical skills in a group presentation, where you will analyse communication strategies of a political actor(s).
- Political Satire & ComedyThis module provides students with a sophisticated and critical knowledge and understanding of the relationships between politics, satire and comedy. These relationships are explored in relation to their institutional, historical and social contexts and their textual conventions.
- Politics & Digital CulturesThe module, in exploring the relationship between politics and digital cultures, aims to develop students’ critical knowledge and understanding of the interplay between the two. It does so by interrogating how different political actors use digital cultures and how such cultures hold actors up to scrutiny, ridicule or praise.
- Researching Social & Political SciencesThis module aims to provide a critical overview of some key methods appropriate to the field of researching political communications and suitable for Student dissertations. They will learn different approaches to the conduct of empirical research using case studies.
Optional
- Journalism and Contemporary Politics
This module sets out to provide students with advanced knowledge and a critical understanding of how journalism shapes and is shaped by contemporary politics worldwide. It aims to cultivate the ability to critically appraise power relations, ethical sensibilities, and crises as they develop around current issues such as internal and external conflict and unrest, migrations, climate change, and poverty.
- Fake News, Images and Websites
The module aims to provide postgraduate students with a critical knowledge and understanding of how different disciplines have sought to make sense of political hoaxes, fake news or images and disinformation in as well as the contexts in which they flourish and are challenged.
- News, Features and Review
- Media, Social Movements and Change
The module provides students with an understanding of how social movements occur, succeed, or fail in bringing social and/or political change. By focusing on empirical cases, students will study the use of old and new media tools, the role of leaders and collective identity formation during the social movements, as well as governmental and international responses to these developments.
- Stategic Communication
This course can be studied undefined undefined, starting in undefined.
Please note that all modules are subject to change.
Read more about the structure of postgraduate degrees at Brunel
Careers and your future
The degree upskills those taking it with a range of critical, technical and communicative skills in demand with
- campaigning organisations (e.g. NGOs and advocacy, protest groups and movements, parties and members of parliament) looking for people who can strategise and shape content for clearly targeted audiences
- cultural industries keen to recruit graduates able to produce traditional or digital forms content in political satire, PR or marketing
- businesses, news outlets or communication organisations that need people training in analysing images, videos and audio content for manipulation
UK entry requirements
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A 2:2 (or above) UK Honours degree, or equivalent internationally recognised qualification, in any Social Science, Arts and Humanities or Business related subjects
Other subjects and qualifications with relevant industry experience including journalism, politics and political public relations are considered on a case-by-case basis
EU and International entry requirements
English language requirements
- IELTS: 6.5 (min 6 in all areas)
- Pearson: 59 (59 in all subscores)
- BrunELT: 63% (min 58% in all areas)
- TOEFL: 90 (min 20 in all)
You can find out more about the qualifications we accept on our English Language Requirements page.
Should you wish to take a pre-sessional English course to improve your English prior to starting your degree course, you must sit the test at an approved SELT provider for the same reason. We offer our own BrunELT English test and have pre-sessional English language courses for students who do not meet requirements or who wish to improve their English. You can find out more information on English courses and test options through our Brunel Language Centre.
Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants. This information is for guidance only and each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Entry requirements are subject to review, and may change.
Fees and funding
2024/25 entry
UK
£12,650 full-time
£6,325 part-time
International
£21,260 full-time
£10,630 part-time
More information on any additional course-related costs.
Fees quoted are per year and are subject to an annual increase.
See our fees and funding page for full details of postgraduate scholarships available to Brunel applicants.
Scholarships and bursaries
Teaching and learning
You'll be taught by world leading experts in your field of study, and have the opportunity to interact with fellow students on London’s leading campus University.
Your programme will consist of various learning and studying activities, including lectures, seminars and discussions. On each taught module students will have in person lectures, seminars or workshops for two-to-three hours per week on average during the teaching terms. There will also be supervision sessions for the dissertation, as well as regular opportunities to seek guidance during module lecturers’ feedback and consultation hours. Additionally, students can seek support in individual meetings with their personal tutors, both on campus and online. There will also be regular cohort meetings and student society events, at both programme and departmental level. Field trips and excursions to support students’ learning will be organised throughout the year.
All lectures, seminars, cohort meetings and other social activities will occur in person on the Brunel campus. It is expected that students will regularly attend these events, as sustained engagement with a learning community is a central dimension of the Brunel experience. Online provision of some activities will be made available when it is appropriate to the learning outcomes of your programme.
Students are strongly advised to purchase core texts from module reading lists, although copies are also available via Brunel Library.
Access to a laptop or desktop PC is required for joining online activities, completing coursework and digital exams, and a minimum specification can be found here.
We have computers available across campus for your use and laptop loan schemes to support you through your studies. You can find out more here.
The course is delivered through a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops, practical classes, one-to-one tutorials and engagement with the Virtual Learning environment. It also draws on a range of teaching and strategies including:
- Activity-based strategies that allow you to engage in individual or group learning opportunities through project planning (e.g. Elections & Campaigns) and product creation (e.g. Political Comedy & Satire)
- Direct-instruction strategies including lectures, guided reading and seminar, discussions/debates (e.g. Political Communication); Socratic dialogue (e.g. International Media Ethics and Fake news, images and websites)
- ICT-based strategies where you'll learn to use software to analyse content and detect manipulated content (e.g. Fake news, images and websites)
- Independent learning strategies include independent reading and independent study on all the modules but particularly on the dissertation and the Political Communication module.
- Thinking-Skills Strategies include the analysis of bias/stereotyping, the use of case studies and concept definition/formulation (Political Communication, International Media Ethics, Politics & Digital Cultures).
Assessment and feedback
Assessments are combination of individual or group written assignments, presentations and exams and which vary between modules. You will also be required to submit a dissertation on a topic of your choosing.