2015/16 Taught Postgraduate Programme Catalogue

MA Communication and Media (Part-Time)

Total credits: 180

Entry requirements:

- First Degree: BA Honours, Upper Second or equivalent in any subject.
- An IELTS Band Score of 6.5, with 7.0 preferred and with not less than 6.0 in any skill area or
Internet Based TOEFL 94 overall (with not less than 21 in Listening, 23 in Reading, 23 in Speaking and 24 in Writing)

Applicants with an IELTS score of 6.0 may be eligible for entry provided they successfully complete the University’s InterComm Pre-sessional English Language course.
Information about the course can be found on the Language Centre pages of the University website.

School/Unit responsible for the parenting of students and programme:

Institute of Communications Studies

Examination board through which the programme will be considered:

Institute of Communications Studies Examination Board

Relevant QAA Subject Benchmark Groups:

3.1 Communications, culture and society
3.1.1. An understanding of the roles of communication systems, modes of representations and systems of meaning in the ordering of societies;
3.1.2. An awareness of the economic forces which frame the media, cultural and creative industries, and the role of such industries in specific areas of contemporary political and cultural life;
3.1.4. An understanding of the roles of cultural practices and cultural institutions in society;
3.1.6. An understanding of the role of technology in terms of media production, access and use;
3.1.7. An understanding of the ways in which participatory access to the central sites of public culture and communication is distributed along axes of social division such as disability, class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and sexuality;
3.1.8. An understanding of the dynamics of public and everyday discourses in the shaping of culture and society;
3.1.9. An understanding of the ways in which different social groups may make use of cultural texts and products in the construction of social and cultural realities, cultural maps and frames of reference.

3.2 Histories
3.2.1. An understanding of the development of media and cultural forms in a local, regional, national, international or global context;
3.2.2. an understanding of the social, cultural and political histories from which different media and cultural institutions, modes of communication, practices and structures have emerged;
3.2.6. An understanding of the history of communication and media technologies and a recognition of the different ways in which the history of and current developments in media and communication can be understood in relation to technological change;

3.3 Processes and practices
3.3.1. An understanding of the processes linking production, circulation and consumption;
3.3.6. A knowledge of the legal, ethical and regulatory frameworks which affect media and cultural production, circulation, and consumption;
3.3.8. An understanding of the material conditions of media and cultural consumption, and of the cultural contexts in which people appropriate, use and make sense of media and cultural products;
3.3.9. An awareness of how media products might be understood within broader concepts of culture.

3.5 Culture and identity
3.5.1. An appreciation of the complexity of the term 'culture' and an understanding of how it has developed;
3.5.2. An understanding of the ways in which identities are constructed and contested through engagements with culture;
3.5.3. An understanding of how disability, class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, sexuality, and other social divisions play key roles in terms of both access to the media and modes of representation in media texts;
3.5.4. An insight into the different modes of global, international, national and local cultural experience and their interaction in particular instances;
3.5.6. An understanding of the relationship between discourse, culture and identity.

Programme specification:

As a whole, the MA engages with a quite high proposal of the components of the QAA Communication, media, film and cultural studies Subject Benchmarks (2002). Due to its broad range of disciplines, from which the programme seeks to recruit students, it is of paramount importance that the module diet and assessment addresses generic issues from the study of communications, media and culture.

The appropriate cross section of the components of benchmarks are utilised to provide a learning environment that is suitable for recruiting students of mixed background. Some of these students hold degrees in relevant disciplines such as History or Sociology, and some from as wide ranging as Business, English or Computers. Moreover, a good proportion of students have some professional media related experience.

The generic aims of the programme are to provide a multidisciplinary approach to various aspects of media and communications and in particular the selected areas from the Media Culture and Communication Studies Subject Benchmarks.

Year1 - View timetable

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]

Compulsory modules:

Candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules:

Optional modules:

Year2 - View timetable

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]

Compulsory modules:

Candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules:

Optional modules:

Candidates will be required to study 60 credits from the following optional modules:

Part Time students take one optional module per semester.

Last updated: 11/09/2015

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