Year 1

Compulsory modules

Producing and Editing Text for Publication

Do you aim to be an excellent writer? Do you want to capture your readers’ attention, switch easily between genres, and write well for different audiences?

In this module, you’ll sharpen the tools you need for really good writing. You’ll learn the practical skills of authoring and editing needed to produce effective texts. Most importantly, you’ll put your skills into practice, creating a portfolio of written work in various genres, as well as editing other people’s writing.

Investigating Communication, Media, and Culture

In this module, you’ll gain the skills you need to become an independent learner and researcher. You’ll develop your ability in:

 identifying typical research practices
 interpreting the evidence produced by original research
 critically evaluating the arguments in which research is presented.

You’ll also develop the skills in argumentation that you’ll need to explain your understanding, and ability to present your evaluation in writing.
Understanding Communication

In this module, you’ll learn three approaches to the study of communication - process, semiotic and cultural. You’ll study elements of human communication and how theoretical models of communication can be applied to the real world. You’ll consider such issues as:

 cultural differences in communication
 how meaning is created
 the role of the ‘self’ in communication
 how we learn to communicate.

You’ll work as part of a small group to answer quizzes, produce a handout, understand concepts relevant to the study of communication and make a presentation.

Understanding Culture

What do we mean when we talk about ‘culture’? How do human ideas, customs and behaviours become a way of life? In this module, we’ll investigate the key theories and concepts of culture. You’ll gain invaluable critical skills as you reflect on different aspects of culture. And you’ll explore the impact of modern culture on individuals and society today.

You’ll explore cultural artefacts. And we’ll discuss three key themes: identity, power and representation.

Understanding Digital Cultures

Are you interested in exploring how digital technologies are shaping our everyday lives within commercial, educational, social and entertainment contexts? In this module, you’ll explore the impact changing digital cultures have on our institutions, communication practices and consumption habits. You’ll examine aspects of digital cultures through some of the objects and practices that you yourself engage with. You’ll be given opportunities to reflect on issues of identity, relationships, privacy, truth, and power through researching aspects of your own digital life and experiences.


Understanding Media

The mass media are of profound importance to all of us living in today's instantaneous, globally connected, advertising-saturated societies. But what are the media? And how do they affect us? In this module you’ll examine key concepts and concerns in the study of the media. Analysing a wide range of contemporary examples, you’ll explore the ways in which the media are used for communication, consumption and control. From Derren Brown to Fleabag, from The Times to The Matrix, you’ll employ a range of theories and probes to learn more about the impact and significance of the media.

Optional modules

Theory of Knowledge

What does it mean to know something? Is knowledge different from mere belief? And is knowledge actually possible?

In this module, you’ll get to know the great thinkers of the past, and explore what they say about knowledge. You’ll explore the minds of:

 Plato
 Descartes
 Hume
 Locke
 Berkeley

You also focus on key debates about knowledge today. You’ll gain fantastic analytical skills as you consider:

 the meaning of perception
 if we can know something through hearsay
 if we can know the world beyond our minds
 if there can be a scientific account of knowledge.

Language Acquisition

From baby talk to babbling, how do we acquire language from a young age? In this module, you’ll get to grips with language acquisition and its core areas, including how infants process language, and how we may learn more than one language. You’ll dive into debates on language acquisition and development. You’ll also gain core analytical skills, as you use linguistic evidence to advance theories of language acquisition and development.

Creative Writing (Introduction)

In this module, you’ll enhance your power and ability as a creative writer. You’ll attend workshops where you’ll learn through reading, writing, discussion and feedback. You’ll practise your own writing, explore the interplay of creativity and craft, and analyse how you work as a writer. You’ll join other students in exploring key approaches in poetry and prose, through:

 practical writing exercises
 discussing each other’s work
 critically analysing the work of published writers
 exploring key writing practices.

You’ll produce a portfolio of original creative writing, as well as a study of the aims and processes of your creative work. You’ll develop excellent writing habits, and the ability to reflect on your own writing practices. You’ll also understand the literary and cultural context of your own writing.

Year 2

Compulsory modules

Communication, Culture and Organisations

How do individuals relate and interact with each other in organisations? Do we lose a sense of our identity within corporations, or find ourselves through a sense of belonging to an organisation with a strong culture? In this module, you’ll analyse the importance of communication and cultural practices within organisations from both an individual and company perspective. You will examine organisations from a multi-disciplinary perspective with a view to appreciating the challenges of the modern workplace. You will acquire interpretive tools through which you can understand the complex dynamics within the media, creative, and cultural industries in which you are likely to work in the future.

Digital Media and Youth Identities

You'll investigate the role of digital media in young people's identity practices across a range of practices and platforms. You'll look at changing ways in which commercial, political and social identities are researched and understood online. This includes how selfhood is expressed and communicated, perceptions of private and public identity, and issues of engagement and exclusion by gender, age, class and geopolitics. You’ll also consider adult perceptions and representations of digital worlds and their youthful inhabitants, and how far these match youth experiences.

Persuasive Communication

How can the skills in persuasive speaking (rhetorics) help us understand and solve cultural problems? In this module, you’ll gain invaluable speaking and writing skills for your future career. You’ll also understand key rhetorical practices and how they affect society. You’ll explore the rhetorical tools likely to produce social change. You’ll put these to use, crafting persuasive messages that are:

 clear
 attractive
 well-crafted
 ethical.

You’ll become a skilled writer and speaker, able to take into account your audience, message and genre as you craft persuasive language.

Audiences, Users and Producers

On this module you’ll look at the role of the audience in mass communication, and how understanding of this shapes approaches to research. You’ll examine conceptualisations of media audiences from early media panics to contemporary ideas about users and 'prod-users 'online. In workshops you’ll consider a range of approaches to audience research, from 'creative play' methods to ways of understanding the audience in the digital age. As you develop your understanding of theory and method in audience research, you’ll be able to apply this to your own research.

Research Methods

In this module, you’ll develop your skills in research methods so that you are ready to carry out small-scale research projects at university and in the world of work. You’ll design and use various data collection methods, such as questionnaires and interviews, and gain practical experience of data analysis techniques (both quantitative and qualitative). You’ll look at important methodological issues such as sampling, reliability, validity and ethics. You’ll also learn how to carry out a literature review, a key skill for undertaking a dissertation in your final year.

Optional modules

Design for Online Communication

Designing a successful website requires specialist skills, knowledge and creativity. In this module, you’ll examine issues of design, layout, usability and accessibility, and find out how to create a site that’s both attractive and easy to navigate. You’ll be introduced to the fundamental practical elements of web design, including HTML and CSS, and create a site of your own design using established software. No previous experience of web design is needed.

Making News

What makes a story newsworthy? How can we spot fake news? In this module, you’ll explore key issues including questions of balance and bias, the style and format of TV news and the global news environment, including CNN and Al-Jazeera. You’ll link theoretical issues to practice through the analysis of TV news items, before working in a team to write, film and edit your own news bulletin.

Language, Culture and Globalisation

In this module, you’ll explore the relationship between language, culture and globalisation. You’ll gain key analytical skills as you observe how language operates in local and global contexts. You’ll look at language through a sociolinguistic approach - considering the relationship between language and society and how they affect each other. You’ll explore how English rose to become an international language, spoken in countries all over the world. You’ll explore a range of topics, including:

 language and gender
 language and politics
 language and standardisation
 globalisation discourses
 linguistic imperialism (when we impose our language on speakers of another language).

Intercultural Communication

In this module, you’ll get to grips with intercultural identity (connections between cultures) and intracultural identity (connections between people of the same culture). You’ll gain core ethnographic knowledge for your degree, meaning you’ll gain a strong awareness of how to study people and their cultures. You’ll dig into the philosophical foundations of critical theory. You’ll also gain strong self-awareness, as you analyse your own cultural traditions and norms. You’ll explore the dimensions of your own identity, and develop sensitivity to seeing the world as others see it.

Culture, Gender and Sexuality

What does it mean to say ‘woman’? Are binary conceptions of gender unhelpful? This module challenges you to question your ‘common sense’ understanding of terms such as gender and sexuality, and to think about how such terms are used in contemporary culture. You’ll draw on insights from many disciplines, including:

 gender studies
 critical theory
 queer theory
 feminist criticism.

Independent Study in Communication, Media and Culture

In this module, you undertake individual or group work on an appropriate topic. You’ll work on a clearly defined topic, under supervision and with approval from the module leader. The independent study gives you the chance to reflect critically on your learning, and to make connections between themes and questions you’ve encountered in other modules.

Year 3

Compulsory modules

Dissertation

In this module, you undertake independent research on a topic in Communication, Media and Culture that particularly fascinates you. You’ll have the support of an expert supervisor who will help you define a key issue and develop it into a dissertation.

Optional modules

Branded Communication: Collectivity and Identity

What does ‘identity’ mean in a market-driven society? To what extent do we live our lives through brands? And what happens to the values of not-for-profit organisations when they adopt branding techniques developed for businesses?

These are the types of questions you’ll encounter in this module, which looks at how organisations manage their public images. You’ll examine the practices that support brand image, including advertising, PR and sponsorship, discussing their practical effectiveness and their social implications. You’ll also look at how globalisation has affected branded communication, and at the impacts of developments such as e-commerce and social media. Through this module you’ll develop knowledge that’s relevant in the workplace, but also leads towards a critical understanding of one of the forces that shapes our lives.

Citizen Journalism and Civic Engagement

In this module, you’ll learn about citizen journalism and civic engagement in online contexts. You’ll study the growth of participatory journalism and its changing relationship with the mainstream press. You’ll consider the role of citizen journalism in democratic processes and look at how it can encourage people to become more socially active and informed. As well as engaging with these questions, you’ll develop your skills in information-gathering, interviewing and writing as you work on your own, original piece of op-ed or investigative journalism in the form of a blog or podcast.

Critical Media Literacies

You'll analyse visual media like:

 film
 television
 digital media
 adverts
 pop videos

This will include cultural sites such as counter-culture, celebrity culture and consumer culture. You’ll investigate the creation of visual media text and how this contributes to their meaning. Taking in the wider cultures and contexts of production. Each week you'll approach a different theoretical area and/or genre such as hegemony, gender, or Reality TV. You'll combine theoretical and industrial perspectives, considering: media markets, audiences, genres and technologies.

You'll engage with a range of theories that attempt to explain how media texts can reproduce cultural assumptions. And ways in which visual, textual conventions make meaning. You'll gain an understanding of how media texts construct meaning from individual, cultural and institutional perspectives. You'll develop textual analysis approaches. You'll also understand aspects of the technologies of meaning production.

Death of the Author and Birth of the Citizen Writer

You'll explore the changing nature of authorship and writing. By starting with Roland Barthes' declaration about the 'death of the author' and Foucault's question 'what is an author?'

You'll examine the role of the professional writer in the 18th century to the citizen journalist of the 21st century. You'll delve into the idea of the author being in constant flux.

This will lead you to ask questions like:

 Do we still 'need' authors?'
 Who are the authors now?'

Media and Propaganda: from War to Fake News

This module explores controversial social and political narratives in the media. Social and political groups have used the power of words and images to influence people for centuries - and still do today. You’ll examine propaganda from major twentieth century wars. You’ll analyse the modern media - and the powerful individuals who influence it. And you’ll examine how people harness social media today, to drive change.

Special Topics in Communication, Media and Culture

This module allows you to engage in depth with compelling current issues in Communication, Media and Culture studies. You’ll take part in student-led discussions and seminar sessions, and develop your portfolio for the research part of this course. You’ll prepare a seminar presentation, giving you the chance to hone your skills in reviewing and evaluating a set of readings and in communicating your findings.

Subject to Culture 1: Individuality and Identity

We all like to think that we’re unique, with our own personality and identity, beliefs and ideas. But are we really all so different, or are we subject to a variety of cultural and social pressures that determine who we are?

Examining a range of objects and artefacts that you have chosen, you’ll consider new and challenging ways of thinking about your place in culture, and about how culture places itself in you. In this honours level module we’ll investigate how we’re all subject to culture.

Subject to Culture 2: Selfhood and Subjectivity

What is the influence of social and cultural practices on our actions? In this module you will examine your relationship with several elements of culture, both as an individual and as a member of society. You will analyse how cultural factors influence values, identities, and the sense of self, including how these manifest in our daily lives and in our interactions with others. You will have the opportunity to explore many themes and theories. You will discuss topics like:

 gender
 race
 subculture
 disability
 religion
 surveillance
 ancient Greek practices of self-mastery

Independent Study in Communication, Media and Culture

In this module, you undertake individual or group work on an appropriate topic. You’ll work on a clearly defined topic, under supervision and with approval from the module leader. The independent study gives you the chance to reflect critically on your learning, and to make connections between themes and questions you’ve encountered in other modules.