Communication, Media and Culture

Designing a successful website requires specialist skills, knowledge and creativity. In this module, you’ll examine issues of design, layout, usability and accessibility, and find out how to create a site that’s both attractive and easy to navigate. You’ll be introduced to the fundamental practical elements of web design, including HTML and CSS, and create a site of your own design using established software. No previous experience of web design is needed.

How do individuals relate and interact with each other in organisations? Do we lose a sense of our identity within corporations, or find ourselves through a sense of belonging to an organisation with a strong culture? In this module, you’ll analyse the importance of communication and cultural practices within organisations from both an individual and company perspective. You will examine organisations from a multi-disciplinary perspective with a view to appreciating the challenges of the modern workplace. You will acquire interpretive tools through which you can understand the complex dynamics within the media, creative, and cultural industries in which you are likely to work in the future.

What makes a story newsworthy? How can we spot fake news? In this module, you’ll explore key issues including questions of balance and bias, the style and format of TV news and the global news environment, including CNN and Al-Jazeera. You’ll link theoretical issues to practice through the analysis of TV news items, before working in a team to write, film and edit your own news bulletin.

In this module, you’ll explore the relationship between language, culture and globalisation. You’ll gain key analytical skills as you observe how language operates in local and global contexts. You’ll look at language through a sociolinguistic approach - considering the relationship between language and society and how they affect each other. You’ll explore how English rose to become an international language, spoken in countries all over the world. You’ll explore a range of topics, including: 

• language and gender
• language and politics
• language and standardisation 
• globalisation discourses
• linguistic imperialism (when we impose our language on speakers of another language).

In this module, you’ll get to grips with intercultural identity (connections between cultures) and intracultural identity (connections between people of the same culture). You’ll gain core ethnographic knowledge for your degree, meaning you’ll gain a strong awareness of how to study people and their cultures. You’ll dig into the philosophical foundations of critical theory. You’ll also gain strong self-awareness, as you analyse your own cultural traditions and norms. You’ll explore the dimensions of your own identity, and develop sensitivity to seeing the world as others see it.

What does it mean to say ‘woman’? Are binary conceptions of gender unhelpful? This module challenges you to question your ‘common sense’ understanding of terms such as gender and sexuality, and to think about how such terms are used in contemporary culture. You’ll draw on insights from many disciplines, including:

• gender studies
• critical theory
• queer theory
• feminist criticism.

In this module, you undertake individual or group work on an appropriate topic. You’ll work on a clearly defined topic or undertake a work placement or project under supervision and with approval from the module leader. The independent study gives you the chance to reflect critically work-related learning project or explore connections between themes and questions you’ve encountered in other modules.

This is your opportunity to work or study in another country, so you can experience a different culture from the UK. You’ll be able to apply and test your knowledge and skills in new contexts that will significantly develop your employability profile.

Choosing this module will allow you to exhibit the development of self-management and working or studying in unfamiliar contexts, alongside practising cross-cultural communication and interpersonal skills.

You will receive support and guidance to help you find a place in an available higher education partner institution, or to find a work placement for your year abroad. This year abroad module lasts for one academic year and is taken after the conclusion of your second year of study, once you’ve completed all your level 5 studies. Your year abroad is not credit-bearing.

The opportunity can be approached in 2 different ways. Please see your options below: 

You can attend a non-UK higher education institution for a full academic year. You’ll be able to choose modules in your own subject or in a subject you consider would benefit your overall course of study. You may choose to deepen your knowledge of your degree subject or enhance it by developing complementary skills.

By studying in an international university you’ll progress your interpersonal skills through cross-cultural communication with fellow students and tutors, building lasting relationships. Also you’ll further develop your study skills as you focus on your selected areas of interest to you - while developing and progressing an international study experience that will add significance to your CV.
 

Undertake a work placement or work-related project based on your interests and existing skills. You will create an initial learning contract that shows clearly how your proposed placement or project will link with your academic and/or professional aims.

This pathway helps you to have full control over what your work-related learning looks like. You will advance your skills in a practical setting, gain first-hand experience in a work environment, and begin to create your professional network. Also, taking initiative of your learning in such a way will mean that you will stand out when you apply for jobs after graduation.

What does ‘identity’ mean in a market-driven society? To what extent do we live our lives through brands? And what happens to the values of not-for-profit organisations when they adopt branding techniques developed for businesses? 

These are the types of questions you’ll encounter in this module, which looks at how organisations manage their public images. You’ll examine the practices that support brand image, including advertising, PR and sponsorship, discussing their practical effectiveness and their social implications. You’ll also look at how globalisation has affected branded communication, and at the impacts of developments such as e-commerce and social media. Through this module you’ll develop knowledge that’s relevant in the workplace, but also leads towards a critical understanding of one of the forces that shapes our lives.

In this module, you’ll learn about citizen journalism and civic engagement in online contexts. You’ll study the growth of participatory journalism and its changing relationship with the mainstream press. You’ll consider the role of citizen journalism in democratic processes and look at how it can encourage people to become more socially active and informed. As well as engaging with these questions, you’ll develop your skills in information-gathering, interviewing and writing as you work on your own, original piece of op-ed or investigative journalism in the form of a blog or podcast. 

You'll analyse visual media like: 

• film
• television 
• digital media
• adverts 
• pop videos

This will include cultural sites such as counter-culture, celebrity culture and consumer culture. You’ll investigate the creation of visual media text and how this contributes to their meaning. Taking in the wider cultures and contexts of production. Each week you'll approach a different theoretical area and/or genre such as hegemony, gender, or Reality TV. You'll combine theoretical and industrial perspectives, considering: media markets, audiences, genres and technologies. 

You'll engage with a range of theories that attempt to explain how media texts can reproduce cultural assumptions. And ways in which visual, textual conventions make meaning. You'll gain an understanding of how media texts construct meaning from individual, cultural and institutional perspectives. You'll develop textual analysis approaches. You'll also understand aspects of the technologies of meaning production.

This module allows you to engage in depth with compelling current issues in Communication, Media and Culture studies. You’ll take part in student-led discussions and seminar sessions, and develop your portfolio for the research part of this course. You’ll prepare a seminar presentation, giving you the chance to hone your skills in reviewing and evaluating a set of readings and in communicating your findings.

We all like to think that we’re unique, with our own personality and identity, beliefs and ideas. But are we really all so different, or are we subject to a variety of cultural and social pressures that determine who we are? 

Examining a range of objects and artefacts that you have chosen, you’ll consider new and challenging ways of thinking about your place in culture, and about how culture places itself in you. In this honours level module we’ll investigate how we’re all subject to culture.

What is the influence of social and cultural practices on our actions? In this module you will examine your relationship with several elements of culture, both as an individual and as a member of society. You will analyse how cultural factors influence values, identities, and the sense of self, including how these manifest in our daily lives and in our interactions with others. You will have the opportunity to explore many themes and theories. You will discuss topics like:

• gender 
• race 
• subculture
• disability
• religion
• surveillance
• ancient Greek practices of self-mastery.

You’ll examine the intersection of ethnicity, media representation and how media is produced, received and consumed - thinking critically about the notion of ethnicity and its many manifestations in the media. You’ll explore the long-standing association with othering practices across social, national, cultural and geographical contexts and how images of ethnicity in the media are characterised by a tendency to either marginalise and criminalise, or exoticize and romanticise ethnically-coded subjects. You'll draw from the insights of different disciplinary fields, including;

• ethnic and race studies
• media studies
• cultural studies
• critical theory. 

Focussing on approaches and theories which explore both historical and contemporary understandings of ethnicity, providing you with the tools to analyse the different meanings and functions of ethnic identities in a variety of media contexts. You’ll also develop practical skills by engaging in creative audiovisual media production.
 

In this module, you undertake individual or group work on an appropriate topic. You’ll work on a clearly defined topic, under supervision and with approval from the module leader. The independent study gives you the chance to reflect critically on your learning, and to make connections between themes and questions you’ve encountered in other modules.