Communication, Media and Culture

Communication, Culture and Organisations (compulsory for single honours; alternative compulsory for combined honours)

How do companies brand themselves and their employees? 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 within organisations from both an individual and company perspective. You’ll examine corporate identity and culture with a view to appreciating the complexity of the modern workplace. And, equipped with an understanding of the issues that can cause misunderstandings and conflict, you’ll seek out ways to promote and facilitate better intra-organisational communication.

Persuasive Communication (compulsory for single honours; alternative compulsory for combined honours)

How can the skills in persuasive speaking (rhetorics) help us understand and solve cultural problems? In this module, you’ll gain invaluable speaking and writing skills for your future career. You’ll also understand key rhetorical practices and how they affect society. You’ll explore the rhetorical tools likely to produce social change. You’ll put these to use, crafting persuasive messages that are:

• clear
• attractive
• well-crafted
• ethical.

You’ll become a skilled writer and speaker, able to take into account your audience, message and genre as you craft persuasive language.  

Audiences, Users and Producers (compulsory for single honours; alternative compulsory for combined honours)

In this module, you’ll look at the role of the audience in mass communication, and how understanding of this has shaped approaches to research. You’ll examine conceptualisations of the media audience, from early reception studies to more recent constructionist approaches. You’ll consider cultural functions of the media in the contemporary world and the increasingly creative and participative role of the audience in the digital age. As you develop your understanding of theory and method in audience research, you’ll be able to apply this to your own research.

Research Methods (compulsory for single and combined honours)

In this module, you’ll develop your skills in research methods so that you are ready to carry out small-scale research projects at university and in the world of work. You’ll design and use various data collection methods, such as questionnaires and interviews, and gain practical experience of data analysis techniques (both quantitative and qualitative). You’ll look at important methodological issues such as sampling, reliability, validity and ethics. You’ll also learn how to carry out a literature review, a key skill for undertaking a dissertation in your final year.

Design for Online Communication

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.

Making News

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 produce your own news bulletin.

Language, Culture and Globalisation

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).

Critical Media Literacies

How far have the media made you? Does society shape the media or vice versa? Why are people enthralled by horror films? From considering sexual identities in Fleabag to the sociology of sci-fi, you’ll examine how and why you respond to certain texts, and explore the relationship between the media, culture and the consumer. In taught sessions, you’ll discuss key critical ideas and theories, and apply them in your analysis of various media texts.

Intercultural Communication

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.

Culture, Gender and Sexuality

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.

Writing Technologies

From handwriting to hypertext, how has the technology of writing affected individuals and human society? In this module we explore the profound cultural changes brought about by writing and print. You’ll examine the importance of writing technologies from philosophical, historical, cultural and political perspectives, and consider the work of theorists from Socrates to Marshall McLuhan and Jacques Derrida.

Independent Study in Communication, Media and Culture

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.

Dissertation

In this module, you undertake independent research on a topic in Communication, Media and Culture that particularly fascinates you. You’ll have the support of an expert supervisor who will help you define a key issue and develop it into a dissertation.

Branded Communication: Collectivity and Identity

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.

Citizen Journalism and Civic Engagement

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. 

Interdisciplinary Dissertation

For your dissertation, you’ll carry out research on a topic that fascinates you. The topic will be interdisciplinary, meaning that it will be relevant to Communications, Media and Culture and to your other subject. This allows you to be creative in your thinking, making original or exciting connections between your different subject areas. 

Whatever the topic, you’ll gain in-depth knowledge of it. You’ll develop excellent project management skills as you define your research area, plan your research and manage your own schedule. You’ll also acquire great research skills to take forward into your career.

Special Topics in Communication, Media and Culture

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.

Subject to Culture: Individuality and Identity

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 and your group have chosen, you’ll consider new and challenging ways of thinking about your place in culture, and about how culture places itself in you. From masks to mind-viruses, from plagues to prisons, from cyborgs to subversive sexualities, in this double honours level module we’ll investigate how we’re all subject to culture.