| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2024-09-01 | - |
| 2025-09-01 | - |
Program Overview
It equips students with critical thinking skills, practical experience through internships, and a wide range of career opportunities in the media and communication industry. The program also emphasizes research through a dissertation project in the final year, offering graduates the foundation for postgraduate study in the field.
Program Outline
Degree Overview:
The BA (Hons) Communication & Media program at Bournemouth University is designed for students who are fascinated by global challenges, media coverage, social issues, and marketing communication. The program aims to equip students with a critical understanding of the role of communication and media in culture and society, covering topics such as journalism, advertising, public relations, marketing, political discourse, the rise of social media and influencers, and efforts to increase awareness of social issues and global challenges. Students will explore communication theories that can be applied across any media platform, including cultural narratives and audience theories. They will have the opportunity to work on live briefs with local charities and gain practical experience through placements at prestigious companies across a range of industries. The program also emphasizes career readiness, with 88% of graduates in employment or further study after 15 months.
Outline:
The BA (Hons) Communication & Media program is a three-year full-time program with a four-week placement or a four-year full-time program with a minimum 30-week placement. A Foundation Year option is available for students who do not meet the entry requirements for the degree course.
Year 1:
- Core Units:
- Adventures in Popular Culture: Explores debates about the value of cultural artifacts within contemporary popular culture and considers theoretical discussions on topics such as gender, race, class, and the environment.
- Introduction to Communication: Theory & Practice: Explores and critically examines major theories of communication processes from different perspectives, engaging with relevant contemporary issues related to the study of communication. Students learn how to communicate effectively in the digital age using industry-standard software.
- Principles of Marketing & Marketing Communications: Shared with the Marketing Communications degree, this unit introduces marketing and branding theory, contextualizing the marketing mix and the techniques of persuasion and research within the media and communications industries.
- Introduction to Journalism: News & Features: Develops professional journalistic skills in news and features, learning to research, interview, and use visual and digital skills. Students develop their own distinct voice and deliver engaging news stories for a range of audiences.
- Introduction to Storytelling: Develops fundamental creative writing skills by learning the styles and conventions of different genres and engaging with the critical reading of scripts, novels, short stories, and poetry. This unit provides a range of skills, including how to perform work as a radio play, how to edit it, and how to support the story with audio effects.
- Media, Culture & Society: Analyzes the role of the media in society by examining the nature, history, structure, social, and cultural roles of print, broadcast, and digital media.
Year 2:
- Core Units:
- Media & Audience Research: Introduces the aims, principles, and techniques of social, media, and marketing research and equips students with the skills needed to conduct primary research.
- Media: Messages & Meanings: Examines how messages are constructed, conveyed, and received over a range of media and by different audiences. Students debate current affairs, analyze media content as critical consumers, and consider how contemporary issues are framed by traditional and social media.
- Digital Communication: Provides a critical overview and practical knowledge of the role played by digital communication in contemporary society, developing digital skills using industry-standard software.
- Journalism in Practice: Strengthens and expands professional journalistic skills, including the creation of visual news features in magazine format, audio podcasts, and how to use contemporary media software, apps, and platforms to widen the scope of writing.
- Option Units (Choose Two):
- Remix Cultures: Building on Adventures in Popular Culture, this unit introduces key concepts that help explore how media texts inevitably draw upon, borrow from, or quote previous texts and practices. Students study a variety of adaptations, remixes, and intertextual popular texts across the media, including literature, cinema, television, music, and graphic novels, learning about genre, authenticity, and the reception of these texts.
- Global Current Affairs: Engages with current debates in international and multimedia journalism while being introduced to major global developments and their impact on news reporting.
- Storytelling For Screen: Develops cinematic literacy through storyboarding ideas, crafting authentic dialogue, and learning to apply sound effects or score to create compelling viewing. Students analyze and critically appraise films and scripts and examine cinematic storytelling from a range of perspectives.
- Brands & Digital Branding: Introduces the building blocks of brands, the theoretical principles of branding, and theoretical applications in diverse situations and contexts.
Optional Placement Year:
Students can choose either a four-week or optional 30-week (minimum) placement, providing the chance to gain experience and make contacts for the future.
Final Year:
- Core Units:
- Dissertation: Students undertake original and independent research to produce a dissertation on a topic or problem of their choice, using a communication, humanities, or social science approach.
- Media Convergence: Develops and hones skills in the creation and promotion of cultural media artifacts on multiple platforms that engage with topics such as intersectionality, inclusivity, and the Sustainability Development Goals, while imitating industry practice to realistic deadlines.
- Option Units (Choose Three):
- Celebrity Culture: Introduces celebrity as a site of cultural and political power and equips students with the skills to evaluate the risks and opportunities that celebrity culture poses for contemporary media as a site for democratic debate.
- Advertising: Discovers how advertising can be used as a strategic marketing communications tool and gains strategic and tactical skills in developing advertising campaigns and the evaluation techniques and measurements used to assess advertising success.
- Gender & Society: Provides an in-depth understanding of key theories and theorists in gender studies, exploring concepts of gender construction and performativity. The unit explores gender in settings including communication, politics, film, TV, music, and social media.
- Public Relations: Introduces the theory and practice of public relations.
- Global Issues: Media, Communication & Crisis: Studies global issues of concern and the complex role of contemporary media in shaping how they are signified, represented, and understood by members of the public.
- Media & Trauma: Explores critical and cultural responses to traumatic experience and death across a range of media or texts from print and broadcast journalism to filmic and literary representation. The unit focuses on how trauma is interpreted, recorded, represented, constructed, and produced across a range of media and in a variety of social, professional, and medical contexts.
- Social Journalism: Provides students with the skills and knowledge required to practice an audience-led, collaborative model of journalism aimed at empowering communities and promoting social change. This is done by utilizing accessible social media platforms.
- Writing, Editing & Publishing: A practical unit that combines the study of publishing processes and practices with creative writing.
- Interactive Digital Storytelling: Examines the evolution of narrative forms in relation to the development of new (digital) media, especially exploring non-linear and interactive narratives and making critical evaluations of theoretical, critical, and creative texts.
- Race, Media & Inequality: Develops a critical understanding of historical and contemporary issues and debates on the dynamics of race, ethnicity, and culture in media and communication practice and political discourse. Students explore the cultural competencies required to articulate the key issues and advance solutions for a specific industry.
- Social Media Management: Teaches students how to critically engage with the principles, frameworks, and theories relevant to social media management. Students formulate a range of different strategic options appropriate to the organization and marketing environment while developing approaches to implementing and managing social media programs across markets, regions, and cultures at strategic and operational levels.
- Visual & Creative Persuasion: Provides an understanding of visual communication strategies and techniques and their role in informing perceptions.
- Media, Sport & Society: Explores the key theories and themes defining sports media and the mediatization of sport. Students critically understand and evaluate the political, economic, and professional forces that shape the production of media-sport and sport more broadly.
Assessment:
Assessment methods and contact hours for each unit of the course can be found in the program specification.
Teaching:
Students are typically taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This includes senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners, and research students. Students also benefit from regular guest lectures from industry.
Careers:
The BA (Hons) Communication & Media program is multidisciplinary, meaning graduates can enter a wide variety of careers after university thanks to the diverse skills they develop.
Typical Starting Job Roles:
- Account Executive
- Assistant Media Executive
- Communications Officer
- Concept Manager
- Digital Account Executive
- Junior Copywriter
- Marketing and Communications Coordinator
- PR Executive
Further Study:
Graduates can further develop their education by studying for a postgraduate degree. Bournemouth University offers a range of Master's degrees.
Research Degrees:
Graduates can choose to undertake an MRes or PhD level research degree.
- Students have opportunities to publish their creative, news, and feature writing across student platforms: Fresher Publishing and Nerve Media.
- The program offers funding opportunities for international experiences, including study abroad, overseas work placements, volunteering, summer schools, and language learning.
- The program has a strong focus on placement opportunities, with a network of employers keen to work with placement students.
- The program provides support for students with disabilities and additional learning needs.
| ----------- | ----------- | | Tuition Fees | From £9,250 to £17,800 | | Fees | All fees are quoted in pounds sterling and are per year. Your tuition fees will be the same for each year of your course. | Find out more about budgeting and living expenses | | Non EU | £17,800 | | National Fees | £9,250 | | International Fees | £17,800 |
