Media and Communication with Languages BA module descriptions

Year one

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 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

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, utilising lectures, seminars and workshops over each week 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

Block 3: Mandarin module

Students will take a language module appropriate to their skill level. 

Block 4: New Media: Website Design & 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 

Year two

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: 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. Students are taught key research skills in a mix of lectures and workshops and are required to develop their proposals through guided, self-directed study.

Lecture 18 hours 
Seminar 30 hours 
Tutorial 30 hours 
Workshop 30 hours 
Self-directed study 130 hours 
Assessment 62 hours

Block 3: Mandarin module

Students will take a language module appropriate to their skill level.

Block 4:

Streaming Cultures

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, utilising 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

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, based on workshops with a large input of practical work.

Studio/lab: 90 hours
Self-directed study: 150 hours
Assessment: 60 hours 

Year three

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 with the following delivery pattern.

Tutorial 30 hours 
Workshop 30 hours 
Self-directed study 140 hours 
Assessment 100 hours

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, utilising a mix of lectures and workshops over each week 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

Block 2:

Writing for the Screen

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, to support students in understanding and developing their projects.

Lecture 18 hours 
Tutorial 30 hours 
Studio/lab 60 hours 
Self-directed study 130 hours 
Assessment 62 hours

Paranormal Media

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, utilising 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: Mandarin module

Students will take a language module appropriate to their skill level.

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