Bath Spa University

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Media Communications

Media Communications explores how the media are produced, distributed and consumed.

For more information about this course please visit the School of Humanities and Cultural Industries website.

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We live in a media saturated and globalising world. Our knowledge of major political, social and cultural happenings in the UK and across the world is usually shaped first by the media. We need therefore to understand and ask fundamental questions about the media, its organisation, representations, audiences and possible impacts and influences.

Course Structure and Content

Media Communications examines media as diverse as film, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the internet, mobile phones and videogames. Our first year modules equip you with the essential critical toolkit for analysing the media and conducting media research. In the second year you will be given the opportunity to explore issues of media power and the everyday, examining for example the influence of media messages and the ways media are embedded in the everyday lives of audiences. In your final year you will be encouraged to consider the new media, such as internet mobile communications and videogames and consider the influence of interactivity, convergence and globalisation on the production, distribution and consumption of contemporary media.

You will select up to five modules each year.

Year 1

• Understanding Media Communication*;
• Introduction to Television;
• Popular Media Culture;
• Before the Net: Media, History and Culture;
• Media Project.

Year 2

• Media Power and Audiences*;
• Music Cultures, Media and Markets;
• Journalism and Citizenship;
• Television, Representation and Gender;
• Stardom and Celebrity;
• Researching the Media and Cultural Industries;
• Get In: Media Communications at Work.

Year 3

• Dissertation*;
• Creative Enterprise Project;
• Scribbling in the Margins: Media Fandom and Participatory Culture;
• Wired Up: Computer and Videogames;
• Popular Music Journalism;
• Feminist Film Criticism;
• Reporting Risk: Media in an Age of Anxiety;
• Enterprise: Creating a Business.

* Compulsory modules.

Teaching Methods and Resources

Lectures set out broad themes and issues from a range of existing media scholarship, while seminars stimulate discussion by encouraging student debate. Individual tutorials provide an opportunity to discuss your work with tutors on a one-to-one basis.

Teaching often incorporates group analysis of material from different aspects of the media such as: the media treatment of the environment, the spread of the Internet, the impact of the new technologies on news production and the role of Reality Television as a form of democratisation in contemporary society.

Assessment Methods

By coursework assessment only, including media journal, applied media study, group presentations, individual presentations, essays and the dissertation. There are no examinations.

More Information

• Media Communication Handbook 2008-2009 (.pdf)

Entry Requirements

220-260 UCAS Tariff points (eg BCD; BB+AS c).

Alternative qualifications welcome.