Media and Communications BSc

Compulsory

• Culture & Society

  An introduction to the study of classical and contemporary approaches and methods in the study of culture and society via Cultural Studies. The module presents the historical development, key debates and methodological approaches in Cultural Studies. It will provide opportunity for critical reflection in these areas.

• Digital Media Landscapes

  The module introduces students to a range of concepts and issues that underpin the ways in which everyday social life is shaped by the digital technologies. Students will examine the implications of digital media environments for societies and journalism. Focus is placed upon the relationship between states, societies and the media in the digital age.

• Key Ideas in Media

  This module provides an introduction to the main theories, approaches and concepts in media studies. It will introduce you to the critical canon, as well as drawing on case studies to illustrate key topics in media and research. Key Ideas in Media will provide you with a firm conceptual and methodological foundation in communication and media studies focusing on themes of power, identity and culture.

• Multimedia Practice: Foundations

  This module introduce leaners to the development, production and post-production of multimedia productions, and enables students to identify and analyse key concepts that underpin multimedia productions and to develop their own practical work.

• Power, Inequality and Society

  This module unpacks the definition, origins, evolution and trajectory of inequality in society through multiple empirical and theoretical angles. It also examines different manifestations of inequality including gender, income, educational and intersectional dynamics. Finally, it explores social mobility and how the state, charities as well as labour groups work towards redistribution of opportunities and resources.

• Global London

  Through focusing on the concept of ‘Global London’, this module shows you how the social sciences can enable you to better understand their lived social environment. It introduces you to the techniques used by a range of disciplines within social science for gaining and validating knowledge of the social world and equips you with an academic skill base appropriate for university study. 

Compulsory

• Media Genres

  This module will introduce you to the workings of various media genres and how these relate to themes of power, identify and culture and wider societal contexts.

• Researching Your World

  This module provides an advanced understanding of research methodologies, with a particular focus on data analysis. Equipping students with an understanding and appreciation of the important theoretical paradigms that underpin qualitative and quantitative social and communications research traditions. Furnishing students with the tools and skills required to conduct and evaluate their own empirical social and communications research.

Optional

• Body, Media and Society

  In this module we will examine many different aspects of embodiment and bodies in society, with a focus on the role of media in representing, stereotyping, and medicalising different kinds of bodies. 

• Colonialism, Migration and Global Racism

  This module explores the concept, meaning and practices of ‘race’, ethnicity, racialization, and global racisms. It identifies how ‘race’ and racism have evolved over time, and in different contexts - both nationally in the contemporary UK as well as in other parts of the world. 

• Digital Culture

  This module considers the shape of new media technologies such as iPhones – it explores how new developments in media technology have changed the basis of contemporary social life and culture. This module will examine some of the key transformations that are taking place through digital culture.

• Gender, Sexuality and Feminism

  This module will introduce students to core ideas in feminism via the key concepts of gender and sexuality. It will develop students’ understandings of social structures, human cultures, and economic inequalities and political relationships. The course will offer theoretical tools and historical insights into gendered, feminised, and sexualised socio-cultural worlds.

• Global Communication

  Examine the ways in which the globalisation of communication has transformed social, political, and economic relations. The following themes will be addressed in this module: the state, economy, power, globalisation, nationalism, identity, digitisation, culture and consumerism, media markets, public relations and politics, and political economy of communication.

• Popular Culture and Creative Industries

  This module explores how meanings are developed through contemporary cultural representations, practices and processes, with a focus on creativity and the creative industries sector. It examines popular culture and the rise of the creative and cultural sector in late modernity drawing on relevant sociological, media and cultural studies debates and theories. 

• Media Law, Ethics and Regulation

  This module will help you develop an insightful working knowledge and critical appreciation of law and regulation in the practice of professional journalism. You will learn how to craft news reports within appropriate legal and ethical frameworks and navigate the potential conflicts and pressures journalists can be subjected to in their working lives. 

Compulsory

• Advanced Research Skills for Sociology and Communication
• Media and Communications Dissertation OR Major Project

Optional

• Cities, Power and Social Change

  An introduction to urban sociology and will develop the students understanding of urban development, cultures, and representation. The course will offer theoretical tools and provide practical applications for the relationship between space, culture, and social life in contemporary cities.

• Comedy, the Media & Society

  This module provides a serious critical consideration of the role of comedy in contemporary media and society. This role is explored in relation to comedy’s institutional, historical, social and textual conventions. The module also explores comedy as it exists in a broad range of texts and examines the role of comedy in the construction and transmission of social difference and issues of identity.

• Digital Audiences and Identities

  This module provides students with a critical overview of key debates about media audiences and identities. Students will engage with key contemporary debates about media influence and be able to apply theoretical concepts to a range of contemporary sites.

• Digital Media Career Development

  This module will provide students with the opportunity to gain a critical overview of working in the media and cultural industries from direct encounters with creative industry professionals, companies or institutions. It will support students’ understanding of, competence and confidence in working independently in a professional manner appropriate to the media and cultural industries.

• 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. 

• Making the Social

  An introduction to core concepts in social theory. The emphasis is on concepts through which students can relate to the worlds they inhabit and the lives they live, connecting these to a broad canvas: the diversity of social existence and the sweep of human history. The focus is on basic building blocks of social existence.

• Media Empires

  The module explores the role played by the media in the development and maintenance of ‘empires’, and examines how we can understand media ‘empires’ via key concepts such as ‘media/cultural imperialism’, ‘public diplomacy’ and ‘intellectual property rights’.

• Media, Politics & Power in America

  This module seeks to familiarise students with the contemporary issues agenda in American politics. It seeks to demonstrate the ways in which politicians and institutions adapt policy stances and organisational strategies to accommodate changes in the nature, content and direction of political debate.

• 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.

• Social Media and Society

  This module will enable students to critically engage and analyse the historical and current impact of social media on social relations and contemporary culture. It will allow students to develop a critical understanding of social media in the context of broader changes in the media landscape, and how it impacts identity, power and everyday life.