Digital Media: Storytelling and Production MA

Program Overview

The Digital Media: Storytelling and Production MA helps you build your knowledge and skills in digital media storytelling formats and production skills. You’ll become competent in a range of platforms and formats and then be able to specialise in an area of your choice. The course is primarily practice based.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The Digital Media: Storytelling and Production MA is a one-year, full-time program designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to excel in digital media storytelling formats and production. The program aims to develop students' competency across a range of platforms and formats, allowing them to specialize in an area of their choice. The program focuses on practical application, with students working on media production and storytelling platforms such as audio and video, digital publishing, and online multimedia. They will engage with formats including video documentaries and podcasts, digital and print magazines, online sites, apps, and social media content. Students interested in immersive and interactive new media technologies and experimental, non-linear approaches to narrative and content can create interactive video and audio pieces utilizing virtual and augmented reality. The program also incorporates critical exploration of current developments and debates in the creative industries, enabling students to evaluate and contextualize their practice within the professional environment. This practice-focused, research-informed course prepares students for entry or advancement in the digital media production and publishing industries.

Outline:

The program is structured around core modules and optional modules.

Core Modules:

• Interactive and Immersive Storytelling: This module provides a theoretical and historical overview of digital and immersive non-fiction narratives, covering the evolution of factual storytelling since the early 2000s across various platforms.
It analyzes theories of agency, user experience, interactivity, interface, and non-linear narrative structures through case studies, class debates, and in-depth analysis. By the end of the module, students will have a solid understanding of the current breadth of digital and immersive narratives, be aware of current and future trends in the field, and be prepared to pitch an interactive idea to the class.
• Major Project: This module supports students in creating an extended digital media project and a related industry treatment, showcasing their skills for professional use.
Projects can take the form of traditional linear media (audio, video, or online narratives) or explore non-linear approaches using interactive and immersive media technologies. The project builds upon knowledge, skills, and critical/analytic perspectives gained throughout the year and requires research, context analysis, and an industry treatment presented in a pitch.
• Media Storytelling: This module combines theory and practice, focusing on traditional linear media storytelling.
It critically examines work designed for specific media platforms and across multiple platforms simultaneously. Students are introduced to and develop a critical understanding of classic narrative theory and its application by media producers and creatives. They analyze a range of media stories, evaluating their effectiveness in engaging different audiences and their social and cultural impact. Students are encouraged to apply theoretical knowledge to their own media story ideas, developing a long-form feature and ideas for different media treatments.
• Multimedia News Reporting: This module teaches professional skills in researching, writing, and producing multimedia journalism.
The module includes all-day newsdays within the newsroom and broadcast suite, where students practice professional news gathering, live reporting, and news production. It also includes instruction in voice coaching, trips to court and City Hall, and video presentation skills, which are requirements for BJTC accreditation for all students.

Optional Modules:

• Digital Magazine Publishing: This module explores digital tools used to build and design compelling interactive content.
Students work in editorial teams to produce content for a new digital magazine edition, content-driven app, or CMS-based website. They select the best tools for the output and receive instruction in the design of interactive magazine digital editions, app development, and website creation.
• Digital Marketing: This module examines the role of Digital Marketing within the eMarketing context.
It provides advanced knowledge of using web-based technologies to develop, run, and manage digital marketing campaigns. Students build their understanding and use research-led and practice-informed approaches to predict future trends and develop an analytical approach to digital marketing.
• Documentary: Storytelling for Impact: This module develops practical production skills in documentary radio and television.
It requires a more considered approach to the subject than broadcast news, offering time for research and in-depth exploration of the topic.
• Interactive and Immersive Media Production Skills: This module develops skills in cutting-edge interactive and immersive media production technologies.
Students are introduced to a range of interactive and immersive storytelling platforms, research and explore different approaches to interactive video creation, geo-located audio, audio-visual interaction, and other online and interactive multimedia work. They are also introduced to extended reality technologies and have the opportunity to analyze and experiment with 360 content, immersive audio, AR projects, and VR experiences. The module focuses on developing students' own interactive or immersive production projects, teaching them how to implement their ideas and design them for a specific target audience. Students learn to have a voice while creating desired working conditions and become aware of their values. Successful teamwork requires understanding oneself and one's contributions, a culture of respect and safety, a shared decision-making methodology, and accountability agreements. The module encourages students to become more aware of their personality traits and desired professional environments. This hands-on, fun, experiential, co-created, and transformative module provides soft skills that benefit students throughout their lives.
• Media Law, Ethics and Regulation: This module explores factors influencing journalistic practices in Britain and globally.
It includes a detailed discussion of media law theory and contexts, ethical issues, regulation, and voluntary codes of conduct for journalists. It also addresses public affairs at local and national government levels.
• Podcast Production: This module covers the different facets of podcast making, exploring genres (journalistic/investigative, personal storytelling, fictional narrative, sports, comedy, interest groups) and production techniques for specific formats.
Students learn about idea incubation, pitching, marketing, and monetization.
• Self-Representation and Digital Practice: This module explores the use of different media practices for personal storytelling about lived experiences.
It examines the roots of participatory media, considers different approaches to personal storytelling, explores established practices, identifies emerging practices, and enables students to create their own digital story. It addresses ethical dilemmas within participatory media practices, the impact of social media, the rise of influencers and "me media," and the opportunities for diverse media representations of identity. The module combines theoretical and practical work, developing an advanced understanding of a specialized area of contemporary media practice and utilizing it to create stories about oneself and one's experiences.
• Start-up Incubator and Digital Entrepreneurship: This module introduces digital entrepreneurship, building an understanding of start-ups, SMEs, and micro businesses and exploring their development, establishment, and financing.
It focuses on the critical evaluation of technical methodologies and entrepreneurship within the creative industries. The module teaches research methods and transferable skills needed to realize business ideas and plans, using readings, research, critical theory, and successful case studies to help students develop their own business ideas. While providing a theoretical and critical base, the module also builds practical skills through assessments focused on business plans and e-commerce digital solutions. It employs practical exercises, personal examination, and critical media analysis to increase awareness and critical engagement with issues surrounding the reporting of diversity in society. It fosters critical engagement with visual media and trains students to develop a self-reflective approach to devising, developing, and delivering individual and team work necessary to address these issues through the production of an investigative short piece for TV and a short documentary film.

Assessment:

The program utilizes a variety of assessment methods, including:

• Practical: Presentations, podcasts, blogs
• Coursework: Essays, in-class tests, portfolios, dissertation

Teaching:

Teaching methods across all postgraduate courses focus on active student learning through lectures, seminars, workshops, problem-based and blended learning, and practical application where appropriate. Learning typically falls into two broad categories:

• Scheduled hours: Lectures, seminars, practical classes, workshops, supervised time in a studio
• Independent study: Non-scheduled time for independent study, including preparation for scheduled sessions, dissertation/final project research, follow-up work, wider reading or practice, completion of assessment tasks, or revision

Careers:

The Digital Media: Storytelling and Production MA prepares students for a variety of roles in present and future industries, including:

• Entrepreneurial content creators
• Mobile and platform producers
• Photo and video journalists
• Interactive factual narrators
• Social marketers
• Project managers

Other:

• The University of Westminster is ranked top 15 among UK institutions for Communication and Media Studies in the QS World University Rankings 2023.
• The program benefits from its location in London, a key global center for the creative media business.
Students have opportunities to hear from industry guest speakers and access internships, professional experience, and graduate employment.
• The program is supported by industry-standard resources, including media production kits, up-to-date multimedia production studios, cameras, recorders, software for traditional audio/video and online work, and innovative AR and VR projects.
• The program has close links to the creative media production sector, allowing students to work on live industry briefs, pitch ideas to professionals, and experience talks and presentations by industry guests.
• Students have access to industry-standard facilities such as newsrooms, TV and radio studios, and the Emerging Media Space, which includes microprocessor devices, wearable technology, interactive environments, location-aware devices, and applications.
• The program is designed to reflect emerging storytelling modes across a spectrum of traditional and new platforms, providing students with a wide range of storytelling skills to become experts in the market.
• The program offers a clear progression for students with a first degree in a non-media area who wish to develop their skills in media storytelling and production.
It also provides the necessary tools for those with industry experience or seeking a career change to develop and extend existing skills, leading to new careers or enhanced qualifications.
• The program is taught by internationally renowned researchers working at the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI).
The Harrow Campus is located in north-west London, just 20 minutes from the city center by train.

• UK tuition fee: £9,500 (Price per academic year)
• Alumni Discount: See details
This opportunity is available if you have a personal tuition fee liability of £2,000 or more and if you are self-funded or funded by the Student Loans Company.