BA (Hons) Digital Media and Communications

Program Overview

This degree program offers a comprehensive exploration of media communications, from fundamental concepts to practical skills in film production, journalism, and digital media. It prepares students for a wide range of careers in the digital media, publishing, and communications industries. The program emphasizes professional development through internships and networking opportunities, ensuring students are equipped with the knowledge and experience to succeed in the field.

Program Outline

Outline:

Level 4

• Introduction to Media Communications (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module introduces students to the fields of media and communications studies, covering media texts, producers, and audiences.
• Journalism, Law and Ethics (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module introduces students to key laws impacting on journalists, including defamation, privacy, and Contempt of Court.
• Introduction to Film Criticism (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module introduces students to the art of film criticism through an analysis of film texts and how to critique films in an engaging and informed manner.
• Global Media and Society (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module considers the relationship between the media and their social context.
• Genre, Style and Stars (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module builds on skills developed at Level 4.
It introduces students to the study of film and television using theoretical perspectives from the discipline and from wider cultural and critical areas.
• Sound and Image Storytelling (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module supports students to develop practical audio and video skills.
• Visual Communication (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module provides students with computing and communication skills which will form a basis for future study in Media.
• Research Methods in Media Communications (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module teaches relevant research principles and skills in media and communications including choosing a research topic, formulating research questions, conducting a literature review, develop a research plan as well as select and apply appropriate methodologies from textual analysis to interviews, among others.
• Video Feature (15 Credits, Optional): This module is designed to give students understanding and skills to make effective videos.
• New Media Branding (15 Credits, Optional): The module is designed to teach graphic design and branding skills that facilitate the understanding of professional visual identities.
• Employability Skills (15 Credits, Optional): This module aims to help students bridge gaps between their specialist academic studies and the world of graduate employment.
• How Journalism Changed the World: from Watergate to Social Media and Fake News (15 Credits, Optional): This module will examine how journalism has emerged as a force for positive social change though use of research tools and major investigations, using historic and recent case histories.
• Mobile Media Design (15 Credits, Compulsory): The module is designed to teach skills in research, planning, and design of apps for mobile devices using current UI design software.
• Magazine Design (15 Credits, Compulsory): There is more to magazine design than learning a software package.
• Social Media and Critical Practice (15 Credits, Optional): In this module students gain insights into the practical use and theoretical understanding of social media.

Level 6

• Advertising (15 Credits, Optional): This module will interrogate advertising and ways it constructs desire for specific products.
• Corporate Communications (15 Credits, Optional): Essential for those wishing to work in the field of media and communications, Corporate Communications offers students a wide-ranging education in the ways that companies utilise the media to manage their reputation.
• Representation and Identity in Contemporary Media (15 Credits, Optional): Using different theories of political communication, students examine the subject of media representation, mediatization and the politics of cultural identities in the twenty-first century.
• Professional Practice Publishing Project (30 Credits, Compulsory): This module is designed to help students develop the skills needed for the working in a professional media publishing environment.
• Music, Celebrity and Media (15 Credits, Compulsory): This module looks at emergent forms of media, particularly the influence of digital technologies on traditional forms of media, such as film and journalism.
• Creating a PR Campaign (15 Credits, Compulsory): The module introduces students to specialist fields within the communications industry.
• Web Design for Media Professionals (30 Credits, Compulsory): Students develop their knowledge and understanding through a series of lectures, online presentations and problem-solving exercises, gradually building their design skills within the framework of portfolio assessments.

Careers:

• Digital Media:
• advertising
• marketing
• film
• interactive media
• radio
• television
• Publishing:
• book publishing
• web publishing
• education publishing
• journals and periodical publishing
• B2B publishing
• newspaper and magazine publishing
• social media publishing

Other:

• The course is affiliated to the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), one of Britain's top organisations for PR professionals giving students valuable internship and networking opportunities.
• In the 2022 National Student Survey (NSS), our media degrees achieved an overall satisfaction rating of 82%.
85% of students reported that lecturers were good at explaining things and 82% of students (above the sector average) appreciated the chance to bring information and ideas together from different topics.

| Category | Information | |---|---| | UK Students(Full time) | £9250 for the 2024/2025 academic year | | EU Students(Full time) | £15500 for the 2024/2025 academic year | | International Students(Full time) | £15500 for the 2024/2025 academic year | | Payment | Tuition fees are charged annually. The fees quoted above are for the specified year(s) only. Fees may be higher in future years, for both new and continuing students. |