Overview

If you enjoy following and responding to the important issues of the day or wish to pursue a media-based career, this course engages with contemporary developments and debate in media, communication and culture.

Our course was one of the first in the postgraduate field of communication, culture and media in the UK. Our teaching is underpinned by meaningful, research-based and real-life projects, collaborating with our current network of international partners from countries including Finland, Australia, Japan and America (subject to availability).

Course information

"There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” So said the African American writer, poet and civil rights activist Audre Lorde.

On this course, we will provide you with the opportunity to explore the feelings and emotional responses created by contemporary media and culture; together we will discover new ways of making sense of and creatively interpreting our 21st century world.

Intercultural collaboration is placed at the heart of this programme to help us effectively shape new ways of understanding our complex mediated world. We encourage you to collaborate effectively, with the ability to work in transnational contexts, to acknowledge cross-cultural difference and to welcome its personal and group-level benefits.

Internationalisation starts in the classroom – with its diverse UK, EU and international student community. It continues with meaningful, research and experience-based projects, the relevance and influence of which spans the globe – from Australia to Thailand, America to France, and China to Finland – and engages international expert opinion from leading scholars and practitioners.

Our course is more than simply research-led, theory-based or practice-inspired; each module caters to new developments in media as a discipline, combining a distinct approach to creation, criticism and curation and places you at the forefront of contemporary thinking. We cover all aspects of media, communications and cultural studies, from digital media, transnational identities, screen and moving image, new workplace practices, academic research in a digital context, media distribution, international film markets and genres, and contemporary experiences of health, wealth and happiness.

The course critically explores these topics, addressing important issues of the day and responding creatively to media events as they occur. We will work with you to encourage you to think about how we can apply the most relevant concepts that represent the state of the field and produce new accounts that address the complexity of contemporary media forms.

Working at a higher degree level, there is the opportunity to work across cultures as media experts, creative, professional communicators and researchers in the arts and cultural industries. You will have opportunities to participate in experience-based learning with three separate opportunities to participate in outward-facing exercises (subject to availability) – anything from running your own film festival to starting your own company - providing the chance to get real-life evidence of event management and project management, valuable in any profession.