Media (Joint Honours) BA (Hons)

In addition to the modules listed below you will also study modules from your chosen joint subject each year.

First year

• Core Concepts in Media and Communication – introduces key theoretical models of analysis as well as the social/cultural contexts in which contemporary media operate and exert influence
• Media Cultures and Everyday Life – examines the notion of ‘culture’, a range of mediatised practices, cultural institutions and media/cultural industries

Second year

• Researching Media and Communication – explores the main research and analytic traditions in media and cultural studies
• Media Discourse – investigates the ways that media texts function within contemporary culture
• Media, Gender and Identity – considers the role the media plays in our understanding of ourselves and others as individuals and as social beings
• Television Studies – examines the television industry, including the relationship between television schedules and the programmes that fill them
• Public Relations – introduces you to different types of public relations, the industry structures, and the tools used by practitioners to engage with audiences
• New Media 1: Design and Production – explores core theories and skills for graphic design and web design and development

• Streaming Cultures – explores the ways in which the largest online TV platforms use the identity politics of race, gender, class, sexuality and national belonging to develop original serial television content

• Race and Media  – explores why and how race is played out in media and cultural content

• Global Subcultures  – introduces, develops and showcases key examples from current global subculture research        

• Game Studies – introduces students to the interdisciplinary academic field of video game studies

Third year

You will select a combination of modules from:

• Dissertation – allows you to specialise in an extended area of study for the whole year and produce a detailed written study about a media issue or work on your own individual film project
• Global Advertising Practices – looks at the social, cultural, historical and institutional contexts in which advertisements are produced and consumed
• Writing for the Screen – offers you the opportunity to receive professional practical guidance from an industry practitioner on techniques of creative scriptwriting for television and film
• New Media 2: Creative Project– enables you to extend your understanding of the technologies and techniques involved in new media production
• International Public Relations – explores key academic debates and issues in public relations from a global perspective and helps you learn the skills required to secure a first public relations role
• Audiences and Fandom – looks at audiences across different genres and media
• Paranormal Media – applies a range of existing, key debates and methodologies to the growing popular genre of Paranormal Media
• Future Media – explores the importance of cybernetics for understanding key contemporary concepts such as communication, information, feedback and networks
• Sport and the Media – examines the interdependent relationship between sport and the media focusing on political economy, identity formation and the role of audiences in the communication process
• Sports Journalism – this module enables you to develop the skills required to be a sports journalist (available for Journalism and Media joint-honours students only)

• Gender and Television Fictions – examines how women have contributed to the production of television drama and sitcom 

• Global Dissent – focuses on a highly visible (mediated) phenomenon, namely the re-emergence of global social/protest movements

The course is taught by established academics and creative industry practitioners.

You will be taught through a series of one or two-hour lectures seminars, screenings and two-hour tutor supported workshops. There are also regular visiting lecturers from both industry and academic research fields.

Your precise timetable will depend on the optional modules you choose to take, however, you will normally attend around 12–16 hours of timetabled taught sessions (lectures and tutorials) each week, and we expect you to undertake at least 24 further hours of independent study to complete project work and research. Assessed work includes essays, analytical portfolios, scripts, news articles, online work, mini research tasks, presentations and practical projects.

Academic expertise

Creative and professional options are taught by experienced former and current practitioners from the fields of public relations, web development, journalism and lobbying. All have excellent industry contacts and are keen to help students with their career ambitions.

Recent staff publications include Dr Paul Smith’s The Politics of Television Policy: The Introduction of Digital Television in Great Britain, Dr Helen Wood’s Talking with Television, Professor Tim O’ Sullivan’s The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph (with Alan Burton) and Dr Stuart Price’s Brute Reality: Power, Discourse, and the Mediation of War, Margaret Montgomerie’s Screen Fictions and Discourses of Disability: Dodgy Discourse and the Moral Low Ground Continuum and Dr Scott Davidson’s Going Grey: The Mediation of Politics in an Ageing Society.

All staff are active researchers and recent articles in academic journals include Simon Mills ‘Cultural Anxiety 2.0’ in Media, Culture and Society (with Dave Everitt) and Andrew Tolson’s co-authored article ‘Belligerent Broadcasting and Makeover Television: Professional Incivility in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’ in the International Journal of Cultural Studies.

• Film Studies (Joint Honours) BA (Hons)
• Drama (Joint Honours) BA (Hons)
• English Language (Joint Honours) BA (Hons)
• Journalism (Joint Honours) BA (Hons)