Communication Studies

MC51002A
Media History and Politics
(4 credits, Autumn)
You consider the historical development of the British media, their role in the development of modern Britain, and changes in the content and structure of the media in relation to social and political change. You also examine, in an historical context, some key debates about the relationship of the media to society.

MC51005A
Culture and Cultural Studies
(4 credits, Spring)
You are introduced to the debates surrounding the term ‘culture’, including questions of ‘high’ and ‘mass’ culture and the development of British cultural studies. You study the ‘moment’ of cultural studies and the ways in which ideas of ‘resistance’ and hegemony developed out of work on subcultures. You also explore understandings of culture based on experiences of gender, age and race and you begin to examine audience-based approaches to cultural activity.

MC51006B
Key Debates in Media Studies
(4 credits, Spring)
This course focuses on important debates concerning media power and mediated identity, and examines the different traditions and disciplines that have contributed to media analysis in this area. It looks at the roles played by ideology, politics and audiences in the making of meaning, and requires you to take a critical perspective in the analysis of specific media texts and media events.

MC51007A
Representation and Textual Analysis
(4 credits, Autumn)
Focuses on the formal address of media texts in order to examine the ways in which they make meaning. Issues concerning narrative, realism, stars and image, fiction and documentary are examined with the aim of developing skills in the analysis of a range of media texts.

MC52003B
Communications, Psychology and Experience
(4 credits, Autumn)
This course examines the place of ‘experience’ in thinking about our self-formation. It extends the usefulness of the concept of subjectivity for exploring certain themes and issues. These might include: personality and the
rise of celebrity culture, the psychologisation of everyday life, emotional branding and promotional culture, mental health and the media, make-over culture, and how to begin to understand the complex relationships between sexuality, class, race and gender in relation to the performative force of communication practices such as magazines, film and television.

MC52005B
Culture, Society and the Individual
(4 credits, Spring)
This course focuses on the formation of subjectivity in the context of huge social and political change and the growth of individualisation. In particular it examines the consequences of individualisation: what kind of ‘subjects’ are we now becoming? How does the ethos of individualisation operate in the context of globalisation? What does the term ‘precarious lives’ mean? What are the unequal consequences of individualisation for women, for young people, for ethnic minorities? Who are the winners and the losers of the ‘network society’? The course moves between sociology and cultural and media studies, providing plenty of opportunity to examine case studies in more depth and to engage with new research in these areas.

MC52014A
Intellectual Foundations of Social Theory
(4 credits, Autumn)
Investigates central issues in social theory as they relate to questions of media, communication and culture. The course provides a theoretical map on which to locate some of the key issues confronted in media, communication and cultural studies. Each session addresses a specific cultural or media-related phenomenon that is connected to the sociological topic under discussion. We therefore investigate a range of issues, including ‘McDonaldisation’, branding, reality television, contemporary music, celebrity and spectacle, and the formation of the nation state.

MC50001A
Media Production – Journalism
(4 credits, Summer)
This course introduces the practice of contemporary journalism. You gain experience in information gathering, analysis and communication in print journalism and a wide range of professional areas. You also learn about creative and critical expression within the conventions of journalism. [Taught to Study Abroad students only]

MC50002A
Introduction to Screen Drama Production
(4 credits, Summer)
You develop your understanding of the interrelationship of audio-visual elements in the construction of screen narrative. You gain proficiency in the application of technologies and working practices relevant to single camera DV drama shooting and post production. You further develop your organisational, problem solving and collaborative skills appropriate to screen drama production. As part of a small group, you experience the creative development and production of a 1-3 minute cinematic-led drama. [Taught to Study Abroad students only]

MC50003A
Writing for Film, TV and Radio (fiction)
(4 credits, Summer)
This practical course develops your skills in creating, rewriting and editing short screenplays and radio plays. You examine key topics including creativity theory, story, characterisation, dialogue, structure and theme and are guided through the process of developing an idea into a 10-minute screenplay or radio play. Workshop sessions focus on how to give and take constructive editorial suggestions. [Taught to Study Abroad students only]

MC53003A
Political Economy of the Mass Media
(4 credits, Spring)
This course looks at different perspectives on the relationship between ideological and economic power, with reference to mass media. It compares culturalist interpretations with studies emphasising the role of the state, media ownership, advertising and market structures as forms of media control. We examine media representations in relation to debates over the construction and mediation of meaning and audiences’ response to these.

MC53021B
Structure of Contemporary Political Communication
(4 credits, Spring)
This course examines contemporary political communication through the mass media, in its national and international contexts. Lectures explore the history of political communication, looking at questions of media ownership and regulation, party political and election broadcasts, news bias and the agenda-setting role of the media. These issues are illustrated by examples from the British, American and international political systems. Themes covered include: public opinion and the public sphere, controlling and managing news agendas, political marketing, spin, propaganda and persuasion, war and the media, celebrity politics and e-democracy.

MC53023B
Media Audiences and Media Geographies
(4 credits, Spring)
This course reviews interdisciplinary perspectives on the study of media audiences and on the role of the media in constructing the postmodern geography of our world. The first section takes a macro perspective and offers a brief view of contemporary models and approaches to the study of media audiences, media effects, media powers and patterns of cultural consumption. The second section addresses questions concerning the specificity of different media and their micro-contexts and conditions of consumption. The third section examines the role
of communications media in constructing the geography of our postmodern electronics landscapes.

MC53031A
Media, Ethnicity and Nation
(4 credits, Spring)
This examines how ‘ethnicities’ and ‘nations’ are constructed within the media. Our aim is to analyse how the media construct ‘ethnicity’ and ‘nations’ over time; to reflect on the role of the media in shaping nations and ethnicities; and to explore the ways in which formations of ethnicity and nationhood affect practices. The course introduces key concepts in Black Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies, including: colonial discourse, colonial fantasy, othering, hybridity and diaspora. We look at the intersection between race, ethnicity and other social relations, including gender, sexuality and class.

MC53036B
Public Culture and Everyday Life
(4 credits, Autumn)
Familiarises you with a range of influential cultural theorists whose work allows fuller understanding of current forms of cultural practice, across the arts, in writing and fiction, as well as in popular culture, and whose work also enlarges our understanding of key social and political issues of the day. By looking in detail at key thematics in the work of writers including Adorno, Benjamin, Gilroy, Bourdieu, Jameson, Butler, Hall and Bhabha, the course encourages an approach which considers the importance of theory in understanding everyday life, social and cultural change, processes of sexual differentiation, processes of racialisation and aspects of visual culture.

MC53038A
Music as Communication and Creative Practice
(4 credits, Autumn)
Focusing on music and sounds as forms of communication, this course emphasises how musical meanings are conveyed and understood, and how this is mediated through the cultures and technologies of production, recording and consumption. We consider how music communicates mood and meaning, not only through associated imagery and lyrical content, but as sound. We think about the processes that link production, circulation and consumption, as well as exploring the ways that music connects with individual and collective identities.

MC53039A
Embodiment and Experience
(4 credits, Autumn)
Examines the place of the ‘body’ in contemporary social and cultural theory, taking a number of case studies as examples. In recent years across a range of academic disciplines, from sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and psychology there has been a move away from approaching the body as a pre-given biological entity, to explore the ways in which cultural signs and codes mediate our relationships to our bodies. This work has emerged for example in relation to debates about cyberspace, eating disorders, transexuality, health and illness,
the emotions, and new forms of spirituality. This course reviews these debates to explore the extent to which we need to talk about embodiment rather than the body in any fixed way.

MC53045A
Cinema and Society
(4 credits, Spring)
This course looks at the rise of visual culture from the inception of cinema to the present. Beginning with the historic screening of Lumière’s Arrival of a Train in 1895, and ending with a study of the place of popular film today, we explore the ways in which the moving image has affected consciousness. We study theorists such as Epstein, Benjamin, Kracauer, Eisenstein and Bazin. Inquiry into technologies of sound, sex, and race guides us through a look at cinema in our everchanging situation. The screening of a classic film each week aids our understanding of film history and aesthetics.

MC53046A
Media, Law and Ethics
(4 credits, Autumn)
This course provides the knowledge and skills needed to avoid transgressing defamation, contempt and other media laws in the UK, the USA and Australia. It gives you an ability to apply principles of ethical conduct in all fields of the media; a critical understanding of the cultural, social and political context of media law-making and professional regulation; and a critical appreciation of alternative methods of media law and factors contributing to self-regulation by media practitioners.

MC53048A
Media Rituals
(4 credits, Autumn)
Explores how the media operate as a focus of ritual action, symbolic hierarchies, and symbolic conflict, introducing a range of theoretical perspectives and applying them to specific themes from public life. Begins with a general introduction to debates on the media’s social impacts. Key theoretical concepts are then outlined: sacred and profane, symbolic power, ritual, boundary, and liminality. Specific themes relating to the media’s contribution to public life and public space are explored: celebrity and ordinariness; fandom and media pilgrimages; media events and public ritual; mediated self-disclosure (from talk shows to the Webcam); ‘reality’ television and everyday surveillance; and the media and symbolic protest (total six lectures).

MC53049A
Screen Cultures
(4 credits, Spring)
Screens are now a dominant presence and interface in culture. First, public space is characterised by screens of information, advertising and surveillance. Second, the spectacular scale of the cinematic screen is giving way to the micro screens of a personalised and mobile lifestyle. Third, the discrete identity of media objects is increasingly lost to a convergence within the computer terminal. This course explores our relationship to these transformations, the ways in which our bodies are re-positioned by screens, our modes of expression and communication are affected, and our experience of time and space is reworked.
New course: subject to validation.