Media and Communication Module Details
First year | Second year | Third year
Study routes
Students taking the Media & Communication degree can choose to take one optional module per year in another programme such as Film Studies or Journalism. Students cannot switch between programmes and must specify their choice at the start of the first year.
First year
Block 1: Media: Identities and Representations
This module considers the role the media play in our understanding of cultural identities. It examines the social and textual construction of intersecting identities (gender, sexuality; class; race; age, ethnicity and ability) through the analysis of specific media examples drawn from advertising, television, film and social media.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, utilising lectures, seminars and workshops over each week.
Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours
Block 2: Media Industries
A key theme of this module is the increasing globalization of the contemporary media and communication industries. The module will therefore also examine the key characteristics of the global trade in media content, as well as the general interplay between the local and the global in the making of communications policy.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, made up of lectures, seminars and tutorial sessions over each week.
Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours
Block 3: Media, Culture and Society
Introduces students to the broad range of key concepts, debates, and skills necessary to undertake further study in Media and Communication. It will consider a range of approaches to the study of media, culture, and society, particularly focusing on the identification and interrogation of key theoretical models of analysis, and socio-cultural contexts in which contemporary media operate on a domestic and global scale.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, in a mix of weekly lectures, seminars, tutorials and workshops.
Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours
OR you can select to study one route module from the list below:
- Film Studies: Disney, Warner Bros and the Film Studio
- Journalism: Understanding Journalism
- Creative Writing: Writers Salon
- English Literature: Introduction to Drama: Shakespeare
- History: Global Cities
- Drama: Shifting Stages
Block 4: New Media: Website Design and Coding
Delivered mainly in the form of computer workshops and designed to develop skills and an approach of innovative and exploration, students will be working creatively and practically using advanced software and multimedia techniques. Practical work will be set against a background of an understanding of theoretical context, and there will be an emphasis on students undertaking work which has a creative approach.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time. Teaching takes the form of lab sessions throughout each week.
Studio/lab: 90 hours
Self-directed study: 150 hours
Assessment: 60 hours
Second year
Block 1: Digital Cultures
Introduces the academic study of digital cultures, focusing on videogames and associated phenomena such as social media and live-streaming. This module will give students some background, as well as methodologies, to reflect critically on recent changes in media, technology, and society.
This is a block delivery module made up of lectures, seminars and tutorials which run over seven weeks of teaching time.
Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours
Block 2:
Provides an overview of the cultural significance of online television streaming platforms. Its structure coalesces around Netflix as key platform driving the industry and traces the historic origins of the emergence and current cultural dominance of streaming television.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, with a mix of lectures, seminars and tutorials over each week.
Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours
OR
- New Media: Creative Project
This module is predominantly practical and enables students to become familiar with the ways in which they may apply their understanding of this new field by proposing, prototyping and carrying through to successful delivery of a significant piece of work utilising new media.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:
Studio/lab: 90 hours
Self-directed study: 150 hours
Assessment: 60 hours
Block 3:
Introduce, develop and showcase key examples from current global subculture research. This principle aim is to showcase current research in this area while factoring in the notion of global digital subcultural networks and the diffusion of subcultural norms, values and practices across the world.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time. It is delivered in a mix of weekly lectures, seminars and tutorials.
Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours
OR
- Public Relations and Strategic Communication
This module introduces to students the concepts and debates that underpin both the practice and the academic discipline of public relations. Students will be introduced to the different strands of public relations, the industry structures and the tools used by practitioners to engage with their audiences.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:
Tutorial 30 hours
Workshop: 20 hours
Self-directed study: 150 hours
Assessment: 100 hours
OR continue with the route selected in the first year:
- Film Studies: Screen Archives
- Journalism: Beyond News
- Creative Writing: Story Craft
- English Literature: Digital Humanities
- History: Humans and the Natural World
- Drama: Theatre Revolutions
Block 4: Researching Media and Communication
The purpose of this module is to introduce students to key theories and approaches to researching media and communication and provide the practical skills needed to undertake the major independent research project offered in their final year – the core/compulsory Dissertation.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time with the following delivery pattern:
Lecture: 18 hours
Seminar: 30 hours
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 30 hours
Self-directed study: 130 hours
Assessment: 62 hours
Third year
Block 1:
- Global Communications and Strategic Advertising Management
This module will interrogate the basic marketing concepts and promotional strategies associated with advertising as a commercial and creative practice, introduced from an academic perspective and informed by critical theory, and delivered through assignments that bring together a mix of practical and theoretical enquiry.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time in a mix of weekly tutorials and workshops.
Tutorial 30 hours
Workshop 30 hours
Self-directed study 140 hours
Assessment 100 hours
OR
- Media Discourse: Global Events
Devoted to the study of a highly visible phenomenon - the persistent mediated appearance of global social/protest movements. The module will address the growth and impact of these eruptions, paying particular attention to the use of traditional and social media forms to represent the goals of the protestors, and the process of individual and collective identification that accompanies this process.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, with a mix of lectures and workshops over each week.
Lecture 18 hours
Seminar 30 hours
Tutorial 30 hours
Workshop 30 hours
Self-directed study 130 hours
Assessment 62 hours
Block 2:
Offers students the opportunity to receive professional training and practical guidance from industry practitioners on techniques of creative scriptwriting for television and film. The module will begin by outlining the fundamentals of good storytelling and of successful script presentation before providing a comprehensive survey of different modes and methods of scriptwriting across both television and film.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, using a mix of lectures, seminars and extended workshops, as well as smaller tutorials over each week.
Lecture 18 hours
Tutorial 30 hours
Studio/lab 60 hours
Self-directed study 130 hours
Assessment 62 hours
OR
Applies a range of existing, key debates and methodologies within media and communication to the growing, popular genre of Paranormal Media. Students will critically examine a competing range of histories of production, policy, content and develop discussion/scholarship skills regarding key established theoretical debates around rational scepticism versus irrationality/ambiguity, and internet discourse/representations of the paranormal.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, with a mix of lectures, seminars and tutorials each week.
Lecture 18 hours
Seminar 30 hours
Tutorial 30 hours
Self-directed study 130 hours
Assessment 62 hours
Block 3:
Examines the interdependent relationship between sport and the media. Against the background of the increasingly globalized media and sports industries, the module focuses on three broad areas: the political economy of media and sport, the relationship between sport, media and identity formations based on gender, race and nation, and the consumption of sport and the role of audiences in the communication process.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, utilising lectures, seminars and tutorials over each week.
Lecture 18 hours
Seminar 30 hours
Tutorial 30 hours
Workshop 30 hours
Self-directed study 130 hours
Assessment 62 hours
OR
What have women/those who identify as women contributed to the production of television drama and sitcom? This module explores British feminine-gendered fiction from the 1960s to the contemporary period. Taking an historical approach, this module contextualises key shifts to women’s positioning on both sides of the television screen in relation to broader cultural, economic, social and industrial change.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, with a mix of lectures, seminars, tutorials and workshops over each week.
Lecture 18 hours
Seminar 30 hours
Tutorial 30 hours
Workshop 30 hours
Self-directed study 130 hours
Assessment 62 hours
OR continue with the study route selected in the first and second year:
- Film Studies: British Cinema
- Journalism: Music, Film and Entertainment Journalism
- Creative Writing: Creative Misbehaviour
- English Literature: World Englishes
- History: The World on Display
- Drama: Performance, Identity and Society
Block 4: Dissertation
The dissertation offers students the opportunity to define and explore in some depth a topic of their own choice. They will also develop the skill of managing their own project as well as competence in the extended application of the methodologies of their own subject discipline.
This is a block delivery module, which runs over seven weeks of teaching time, and is self-directed, with developmental workshops and tutorials.
Tutorial: 30 hours
Workshop: 20 hours
Self-directed study: 150 hours
Assessment: 100 hours