Political Communication MSc

Compulsory

• Dissertation
  The module aims to translate the knowledge, understanding and skills taught in the Researching Social and Political Sciences module into a substantial piece of independent theory-based research on an aspect of (historical or contemporary) political communication.
• Elections & Campaigns
  The module aims to analyze the development of election campaigning methods, the measurement, and effectiveness of election campaigns and understand how electoral context impacts the planning and effectiveness of campaigns
• PP5629 - Political and Strategic Communication

  The module aims to develop students' ability to apply strategic thinking to campaign planning while providing a strong theoretical understanding of political and strategic communication across various contexts. Students will also learn to trace changes and continuities in communication technologies and practices over time.

• Political Satire & Comedy
  This module provides students with a sophisticated and critical knowledge and understanding of the relationships between politics, satire and comedy. These relationships are explored in relation to their institutional, historical and social contexts and their textual conventions.
• Politics & Digital Cultures
  The module, in exploring the relationship between politics and digital cultures, aims to develop students’ critical knowledge and understanding of the interplay between the two. It does so by interrogating how different political actors use digital cultures and how such cultures hold actors up to scrutiny, ridicule or praise.
• PP5619 - Researching Social & Political Sciences

  This module aims to promote critical understanding of different approaches to the conduct of research in the social and political sciences. It will provide a critical overview of some key methods appropriate to the field of researching social and political sciences that are suitable for student dissertations, engage students in practical experience in the design and conduct of research projects using different research methods, provide a critical grounding in qualitative methods relevant to research in diverse areas of social and political research, and equip students with the necessary background to read and critically evaluate research in these fields and to carry out their own research.

Optional

• CO5606 - 21st Century Media-Bodies

  This module provides students with a sophisticated, critical knowledge and understanding of the relationships between media, bodies and culture. These relationships are explored in relation to their institutional, historical and social contexts and their material and textual emergence. The module explores the relationship between bodies and media in a broad range of contexts (e.g. through a consideration of identity, lived experience, representation, participation and audiences). The module educates students in the application of diverse theories and methods and equips them with appropriate knowledge, understanding and analytical skills needed to examine the relationships between media, bodies and culture. The module provides students with the tools to analyse the role of power relations in shaping media bodes and modes of resistance to these.

• JR5xxA - AI for Journalists, Campaigners and Activists

  Since 2022, the integration of AI generative and assistive into newsrooms, campaigns and activism has accelerated. The module aims to prepare students for the changing nature of news, campaigning and activism as professionals increasingly appropriate and adapt AI to the workplace. It does so through a mix of theory and practical workshops. Theoretical engagement seeks to develop students’ critical reflexivity about rapid changes, how AI systems are reconfiguring the human-machine relationship and the implications for working practices. The practical dimensions expose students to a series of case studies and to working with some of the key tools and techniques used to identify AI-generated images, check the veracity of outputs and identify gaps in news or campaigning materials.

• CO5xxA - Digital Media, Social Movements and Change

  The module aims to provide students with an in-depth and critical understanding of how social movements occur, succeed, or fail in bringing social and/or political change. By focusing on empirical cases, students will study the use of old and new media tools, the role of leaders and collective identity formation during the social movements, as well as governmental and international response to these developments. The students will develop strategic thinking through critically analysing the organisation, mobilisation and coordination of the old and contemporary movements in the digital age.

• Fake News, Images and Websites

  The module aims to provide postgraduate students with a critical knowledge and understanding of how different disciplines have sought to make sense of political hoaxes, fake news or images and disinformation in as well as the contexts in which they flourish and are challenged. 

• PP5630 - International Organisations

  The module aims to introduce students to approaches to studying international organisations from theoretical and empirical perspectives. The module will enable students to apply and evaluate the theoretical approaches for understanding international organisations and the role they play and will familiarise students with a range of international organisations. The module will also enable students to assess the advantages and limitations of international organisations in influencing public policies.

• News, Features and Review
• CO5604 - Media Production as Activism

  This module will enable students to develop a broad range of practical skills by using creative practice to respond to, critique and challenge social issues. It will foreground the role of the media in bringing together theory and practice, and in mobilising practitioners and communities around social and political issues. Through a range of local, national and international examples, both past and present, the module will enable students to understand the role of the media as a site of struggle and as a form of creative resistance. Students will develop a high-level knowledge of key concepts such as ‘cultural identity’, ‘resistance’ and ‘radical hope’ and how they connect with the theory and practice of media activism. The module will engage with postcolonial scholarship on media and activism and postcolonial activist media practice. The limitations and possibilities of media as a site of resistance will be evaluated.

• Media, Social Movements and Change

  The module provides students with an understanding of how social movements occur, succeed, or fail in bringing social and/or political change. By focusing on empirical cases, students will study the use of old and new media tools, the role of leaders and collective identity formation during the social movements, as well as governmental and international responses to these developments.

• JR5617 - Multi-platform Storytelling

  Through this module, you will develop advanced skills in researching, designing, and page layout, video, photography, audio, and scriptwriting for multimedia storytelling. By the end of the module, you will be able to construct visual stories in various contexts and audiences using photographs, audio podcasts, video clips, magazine design and page layout, and webcasting.