Overview

About the course

This well-established postgraduate course is taught as an intensive year-long programme and offers students an interdisciplinary approach to the study of new media and communications practices.

It aims to explore:

• How does the media shape culture and society?
• What role does the media play in people's lives?
• Is the media creating a global culture?
• Are audiences now producers?
• Do social networking sites influence personal communication?
• Are young people disconnected from traditional politics?

The Media and Communications course focuses on the rapid changes in global media and communications and their social and cultural consequences within an international context.

Students have the opportunity to meet professionals working in the broadcast, advertising and marketing industries who visit us on campus and through organised field trips.

The Master’s course combines theoretical and empirical study of the media including issues of media audiences together with the study of developments in information and communication technologies.

The department scored highly in the 2008 RAE exercise with a rating that made it the top department of its size in the UK. We have a long tradition of research in Sociology and Communications and all of our staff are research active.

Aims

• The course will meet the needs of advanced students with backgrounds in media, sociology and other relevant disciplines.
• The course is also perfectly suited for professionals in the communications/broadcast industry seeking to gain a more sociologically informed understanding of those industries.

Course content

The MSc consists of both compulsory and optional modules, a typical selection can be found below. Modules can vary from year to year, but these offer a good idea of what we teach.

Compulsory modules

Dissertation in Media and Communications

You complete a dissertation of approximately 15,000 words over the summer period in consultation with a supervisor. You are encouraged to conduct primary research in an area relevant to the course in preparation for the dissertation.

Issues and Controversies in Media and Communications

Main topics of study: media ethics, media and moral panics, media power, media effects.

Qualitative Methods in Social and Cultural Research

Main topics of study: conceptual and practical issues in qualitative research design; interview research; research in and on the Internet; media analysis: research in practice; approaches to qualitative data analysis; planning and writing a dissertation.

Making Web Cultures

Making Web Cultures explores the development of internet communications, including social media and networks, the impact of online sharing and collaboration, and the challenges of surveillance and privacy.

The Creative Industries

This module explores the significance of creative industries and how they operate in various spheres of social life. The module focuses on how the notion of ‘creativity’ has emerged in the economy and society, its ideological significance, and the positive and negative consequences it has brought for society.

Particular topics addressed are the rise of the creative class, the symbolic economy, immaterial labour, gentrification of cities, and advertising and branding.

Media Audiences

Main topics of study: theoretical approaches to media audiences, gender and genre: cross-national and 'subversive' audiences; domestic technologies; media power and 'minority' readings; media production and audiences; television audiences and contemporary public issues (news and politics, health and illness, sexual violence); media effects/ influence debates; 'active' audience theory.

Principles of Media Research

Main topics include introducing and designing focus group studies; using critical discourse analysis; conducting research interviews; media content analysis and research ethics and safety.

Media, Body and Society

Main topics include early theories of the mediated body; modernity and the body: postmodernity, deconstruction and media bodies; superheroes, steroids and ‘masculine’ media; beauty, eating and ‘feminine’ media; laughter, ridicule and the body; ‘race’, ethnicity and sport; ‘deformity’, medicine and media; embodying mental illness; representing disability; zombies, consciousness and social death

Read more about the structure of postgraduate degrees at Brunel and what you will learn on the course.

Typical dissertations

Examples of recent student dissertations include:

• 'How is authority established in virtual communities?'
• 'TV Consumption, Identity and Lifestyle: A study of the Chinese Community in Los Angeles'
• 'The construction of femininity in Sex and the City'
• 'Media bias and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict'
• 'Constructing a female cyberspace? A case study of Chinese women and the web'
• 'Ethnography of a newsroom in Ghana'
• 'New media and news gathering'.

Employability

Careers and your future

Students of this Master's course typically go on to further advanced academic research or to pursue careers within the media industries (e.g. Press and Communications Officer; Head of Information). Past students have worked in developing countries for NGO’s or as technology consultants.

Entry criteria 2019/20

• A 2:2 (or above) UK Honours degree, or equivalent internationally recognised qualification, in a Media/Communications-related subject (Media; Communications; Cultural Studies; Politics) preferably in the field of Sociology 
• Applicants with other qualifications, or equivalent professional qualifications,  with considerable relevant work experience will be considered on an individual basis. 

Entry criteria are subject to review and change each academic year.

International and EU entry requirements

Teaching and learning

Taught modules of the MSc Media and Communications are delivered via traditional lecture/seminar format along with other workshops and set activities. Students may be required to keep diaries of media consumption, contribute to online blogs and engage in critical analysis of visual media.

Assessment and feedback

Assessment is by a mixture of essays, report writing, blog entries and online group work. Students also complete a 15,000 word dissertation.

Special features

• This postgraduate course is taught by leading academics in Sociology and Communications. Throughout our research we aim to tackle core theoretical questions and also engage with the international community and relevant groups of practitioners in industry, government and the wider public.
• Where possible we invite professionals who are working in the media and broadcast industry (advertising and marketing; television documentary and different PR organisations) to come and talk to our MSc students and offer careers advice. We also invite students to attend the Department's academic research seminar programme and organised social events.
• We offer additional bespoke workshops and lectures to enhance students' employability skills, including ‘pitching yourself to employers’.
• All students can benefit from our programme of workshops and informal ‘drop in’ sessions on information literacy to enhance academic writing skills.

Facts and figures

Recent research projects within the department at Brunel include: mass media coverage of young people and politics; free speech and the public sphere; file-sharing and live streaming; health and science communication; public involvement in health policy; multiculturalism and institutional racism; the anti-globalisation movement, the media and 'new wars'.

Fees and funding

Fees for 2019/20 entry

UK/EU students: £9,100 full-time

International students: £16,850 full-time

Some courses incur additional course related costs. You can also check our on-campus accommodation costs for more information on living expenses.

Read about funding opportunities available to postgraduate students

UK/EU students can opt to pay in six equal monthly instalments: the first instalment is payable on enrolment and the remaining five by Direct Debit or credit/debit card.

Overseas students can opt to pay in two instalments: 60% on enrolment, and 40% in January for students who commence their course in September (or the remaining 40% in March for selected courses that start in January).