Screen Industries and Entertainment BA (Hons)

Program Overview

The BA Screen Industries and Entertainment at the University of Liverpool delves into the global entertainment industry, examining the interconnectedness of screen media and entertainment experiences. With a focus on perspectives from the arts, humanities, and cultural studies, the program prepares students for careers in the entertainment industry or postgraduate studies, fostering critical thinking, analytical skills, and industry knowledge. The program emphasizes inclusivity, global perspectives, and provides opportunities for industry placements and study abroad experiences.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The BA Screen Industries and Entertainment offers students the chance to study screen entertainment media in a rapidly evolving industrial global environment. The program prioritizes perspectives rooted in the arts, humanities, and cultural studies, making it an ideal pathway for students aiming to work in the entertainment industry or pursue postgraduate studies. The program emphasizes the global interconnectedness of screen industries and entertainment experiences, moving beyond Eurocentric approaches. It draws directly on the expertise of the Screen and Film Research Cluster, whose work explicitly engages with issues related to industry, institutions, business, entertainment, and screen media. The program covers a range of screen media, including film, television, streaming, virtual-augmented reality, games, and music, and the industries they operate in. It allows students to engage with multiple facets of global screen industries. The program offers a Year in Industry option, where students spend their third year on a paid placement within an organization in the industry. The School of the Arts and the Department provide support throughout the placement, and a reflexive written account of the experience contributes to the final degree result.

Outline:

Year One:

The module offers examples of screen analysis, cultural analysis, and social scientific communication studies.

• Digital Communication and Social Media (COMM113): This module introduces students to digital communication and social media as an object of study.
It encourages students to think about the role of the internet, digital platforms, and social media apps in culture, society, and democracy. It explores the differences between digital and social media compared to traditional media and examines the potential influence of these tools on society.
• Introduction to Communication and Media Studies A (COMM101): This module introduces students to foundational knowledge in the field of communication and media studies.
Students learn about the historical development of communication practices and media technologies and their relevance to social, political, and economic changes. They also learn about the development of Communication and Media as a broad and diverse academic field. The module familiarizes students with different theoretical perspectives, both historical and contemporary.
• Media Industries and Institutions A (COMM109): This module introduces students to issues and concepts surrounding media and communication industries and institutions.
It covers core and current debates and issues, such as the political economy of media, relations with power and regulation, and processes of globalization, digitalization, and conglomeration. Students learn about creative roles and the practices and lived experiences of professional media workers, including the process of conceiving and developing media texts.

Year Two:

• Compulsory Modules:
• Communication and Media Research I (COMM207):
This module enhances students' understanding of academic research in the field of communication and media studies. It introduces students to the basics of academic research, including the key elements in a research study, the difference between primary and secondary research, and quantitative and qualitative research. Students learn how to write literature reviews and consider ethical considerations when designing a research study.
• Communication and Media Research II (COMM208): This module builds on the previous research methods module, introducing students to specific quantitative and qualitative research methods for studying media texts, audiences, and producers.
These methods include textual analysis, content analysis, thematic analysis, discourse analysis, surveys, interviews, focus groups, ethnography, archival research, and digital research. Students also learn how to formulate research questions, what makes a good dissertation, and how to communicate their research. They are required to prepare research proposals for their final year projects/dissertations.
• Converged Media and Screen Entertainment A (COMM250): This module examines key ideas and arguments in the broader field of media industry studies.
It provides students with a wide-ranging account of how screen industries produce and distribute commercial entertainment within a converged media environment. The module covers the local, national, and global dimensions of screen entertainment with case studies and examples from various geographical contexts. It focuses on film and television but also references games and social media.
• Optional Modules:
• Introduction to Cultural Studies B (COMM254):
This module provides a foundational understanding of key approaches, methods, and theoretical perspectives in the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies. It explores the historical development of cultural studies and its links with related fields, such as anthropology, sociology, and everyday life studies. The module is organized around core thematic areas of focus, including contemporary visual cultures, urban cultural studies and the spatial humanities, and critical reflection on "future cultures."
• PUBLIC RELATIONS, MEDIA AND DIGITAL SOCIETY (COMM240): This module explores theoretical perspectives on Public Relations, including critical perspectives on its role in media and digital society and the professional practice of promotional writing.
Students develop an understanding of what it means to be a creative professional in the PR industries by learning to organize their time effectively, produce work to specific briefs, and ensure attention to detail in the delivery of projects.
• Digital Media and Data B (COMM245): This module is of particular interest to students interested in data and how it is collected and used in modern society, the politics and policy questions around social media, and the interactions between media, platforms, and citizens.
It introduces students to the study of online media and platforms, with a particular focus on "big" social trace data. Students engage with key online political communication policy questions.
• Feminist Media Studies (COMM206): This module introduces students to feminist media studies.
Students become familiar with key concepts and debates relating to gender and its interaction with media and cultural practices. The module refers to a wide range of media, such as television, journalism, and digital platforms, to bring to life the character of gender relations in contemporary media cultures, as well as in historical perspective. Students consider the power relations that characterize media production environments, the gendered nature of representations, and the political contestation of these by feminist activists. The module adopts an intersectional approach, ensuring that gender is considered alongside other identity markers, such as race, class, disability, and sexuality. It explores how documentary represents the "real world" and notions of "truth," ethics, and audience engagement. The module also focuses on how documentary form and content can be analyzed.
• GLOBAL HOLLYWOOD B: FROM FILM ART TO MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT (COMM203): This module examines the transformation of Hollywood cinema from a distinct mode of film practice to a complex and multifaceted global media enterprise.
It explores the emergence of the blockbuster film culture, the conglomeration of the film industry, the rise of franchise entertainment, the links to independent film production, Hollywood's relationship to television, and other developments.
• AI and Digital Media (COMM258): In this module, students learn about Artificial Intelligence algorithms that influence the development of digital media systems and content.
Students critically address key questions around the social, political, and economic consequences of online platforms' use of AI systems and how they are or could be regulated.
• IMMERSIVE MEDIA AND VIRTUAL WORLDS B (COMM211): This module explores the histories, theories, and industries related to the production of immersive experiences, digital technologies, and virtual realities and worlds.
It focuses on video games and cinema.
• Professional and Career Development (SOTA260): This module aims to prepare students for a smooth transition into a work placement year and, more broadly, to develop lifelong skills, attitudes, and behaviors and support students in their continuing professional development.
This will help students lead flexible, fulfilling careers working as a professional in their field, and enable them to contribute meaningfully to society. Working in a fully functioning record label, students develop "real-world" employability skills focused on music marketing, promotion, and distribution, culminating in the release of an album to be launched at the end of the semester.
• WORKING IN MUSIC INDUSTRY (MUSI252): This module introduces students to the various roles and jobs within the music industry.
It considers the key jobs and roles involved in converting imaginative ideas into commodities for sale in music markets. It explores a wide range of genres, including Kung Fu comedies and Chinese independent arthouse cinema. Students learn about the historical development of cinema in the region and how landmarks in the history of twentieth-century China are represented in filmic texts.
• Music in Everyday Life (MUSI291): This module is suitable for anyone interested in the role of music in everyday life.
Students develop a practical understanding of music's ability to support individual and social functions, engage in current debates in the research literature, and explore new directions to advance research in this field. The module is interdisciplinary, drawing on perspectives such as music, psychology, and sociology.

Year Three:

• Optional Modules:
• Stardom and Media Celebrity (COMM303):
This module examines the significant contemporary media phenomenon of stardom and celebrity. It investigates fame and public identity across a range of media contexts, platforms, and public spheres, including film, television, social and digital media, music, and advertising. Students analyze the way in which stardom and celebrity is constructed by producers, consumers, and users through film texts, marketing discourses, multimedia platforms, national/transnational contexts, and specific historical circumstances.
• DISSERTATION (COMM401): A dissertation is a self-contained piece of original research.
It is a chance for students to study a topic that interests them in depth, guided by a member of the Department's academic staff who will act as a supervisor for their research.
• Final Year Project (COMM335): This module provides students with the opportunity to work on a final year project.
The nature of the project is negotiated between the students and their supervisors. It might include working on live academic research projects, working on live projects in collaboration with academic staff and external partners, or working on practical outputs related to a specified (research) task.
• Games and Algorithmic Culture (COMM309): This module investigates how videogames are responding and contributing to the current technological and cultural changes in the use of AI, data mining, procedurally generated content, metrics, and automation.
It explores how these new social, cultural, and aesthetic trends of game culture are framed around a broader algorithmic culture that pervades our contemporary technics of digital production and distribution.
• QUEER FILM, VIDEO AND DOCUMENTARY (COMM305): This module explores the different ways in which "queers," specifically lesbian, gay, and transgender people, have been represented in moving images, produced their own films, videos, and documentaries, and shaped reception practices, politics, and moving image cultures specific to them.
• ISSUES IN 'CULT' TELEVISION (COMM300): This module focuses on debates about the nature, cultural television practices, and significance of "cult" television.
Students critique the idea of "cult" from textual, industry, and audience perspectives, as well as considering its relationships with the rise of "quality" TV forms in the US and UK and with fan studies.
• VIRAL VIDEO (COMM342): This module offers students a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical production skills enabling the design, production, and marketing of "viral videos."
Students develop their own creative practice and take a highly active role in designing, presenting, and producing their own videos, and promoting them through video-sharing and social media networks.
• ISSUES IN PHOTOGRAPHY (COMM323): This module investigates both early and contemporary photography, examining the role photography plays in remembering private and public events, particularly those that test the limits of visual representation.
It unpacks contemporary debates among photographers, journalists, and art historians on topics such as photographing suffering and the relationship between photography, affect, and emotions.
• Introduction to Strategic Communication (COMM312): This module offers students an introduction to the study of strategic communication, seen as an interdisciplinary field of research and professional practice.
Students familiarize themselves with key concepts for critical understanding and analysis of how organizations communicate strategically in social contexts.
• Screen Industries and Sports (COMM326): This module examines the complex and multifaceted relationship between screen media and sports, focusing primarily on the ways in which the screen industries engage with sports as a commercial product that reaches audiences globally through a proliferation of legacy and digital media.
• Entertainment Media and Screen History (COMM328): This module explores entertainment (specifically film and television) as an "unofficial" source of historical knowledge.
It considers what is required to make history entertaining and what this suggests about the kinds of stories that are enjoyable to consume compared to those that are omitted and silenced. Focusing on six of Shakespeare's plays, it examines how they've been transformed, through theatrical production and cinematic adaptation, by actors and directors who bring them to life in performance but also change and challenge, sometimes quite radically, their meaning and interpretation as encountered on the page.
• NOIR: LITERATURE, FILM, ART (ENGL321): This module examines the range of writing, film, and art within the genre of Noir.
It engages with the relationships between literary and non-literary, particularly visual, media as well as examining Noir's social, political, intellectual, and historical contexts. It provides a context in which students can engage in systematic comparisons between European, Latin American, and East Asian experiences and representations of social and political trauma. Working individually and in teams, students manage the label's various departments as well as oversee the production, marketing, sales, and distribution of an album to be released at the end of the academic year.
• MUSIC POLICY (MUSI352): The module explores the relationship between music and government policy from different perspectives and through a series of case studies.
These studies illustrate a broad range of policies and their relevance for diverse music genres and styles, and different types of governments with contrasting political roles and relationships to cultural forms and practices.
• THE FILM MUSIC OF JOHN WILLIAMS (MUSI370): This module examines the film-music output of the composer John Williams.
It considers the historical development of John Williams' compositional style, in the context of Hollywood convention and the evolution of the "blockbuster."
• Work Placement Year (SOTA600): This is an opportunity to spend the third year of your studies working as part of your degree program.
The placement year is not just about gaining work experience, it is also about deepening your academic understanding in your subject. Exploring both historical and contemporary case studies, it introduces students to different types of propaganda, such as political speeches, television commercials, and sponsored content on social media, and different types of propagandist, from the emperors of Ancient Rome to the multinational corporations of the twenty-first century.

Assessment:

The program uses a range of assessment methods, including coursework projects, essays, blogs, reports, literature reviews, writing exercises, presentations, online tests, and unseen examinations.

Teaching:

The program uses a variety of teaching methods, including weekly lectures, seminar discussions, screening sessions, presentations, opportunities for group work, and guest speakers. Some modules also make use of specialist equipment or software. Dissertation and work placement modules involve more independent study, but always under the careful individual supervision of a member of academic staff.

Careers:

Graduates of the program have gone on to careers in broadcasting and journalism, social media, advertising and marketing, corporate communications and public relations, arts administration, political campaigning, management, government and the civil service, and teaching in universities, colleges, and schools.

Other:

The program is designed to equip students with the essential knowledge and experience required to work with film and television makers and the entertainment industry. The program is research-connected, with a focus on active learning and authentic assessment. The program is also committed to inclusivity and providing a curriculum that is accessible to all students. The program offers a range of global opportunities, including study placements at partner universities worldwide, a Year in China, and a Year in Industry. Students can also combine the program with language modules or short courses. The program is available to study as part of the XJTLU 2+2 program, which allows students to spend two years at the University of Liverpool campus and receive two degrees: one from XJTLU and one from the University of Liverpool.

Full-time place, per year UK fees (applies to Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland) £9,250 Year in industry fee £1,850 Year abroad fee £1,385 International fees Full-time place, per year £22,400 Year in industry fee £1,850 Fees shown are for the academic year 2024/25. Please note that the Year Abroad fee also applies to the Year in China. Tuition fees cover the cost of your teaching and assessment, operating facilities such as libraries, IT equipment, and access to academic and personal support.