BA Media & Communications practice options

Animation

You'll work individually or collaborate in a group to conceive, write, develop, and produce an animated short film in 2D using stop motion or digital software. You'll be supported at every stage of the process by a lecturer and a technical adviser. There will be the opportunity to work together with other students to create the accompanying soundtrack.

Creative Writing

You’ll become a storyteller. You will create an original story and vivid characters, and will then develop their concept into an original short film, short TV drama, radio play or prose short story. Regular pitching exercises will develop your presentational and marketing skills. You will be encouraged to think reflectively and analytically about life, the people around us, and ourselves.

Illustration

You'll produce a portfolio of illustrative artworks. This body of work will be in response to a series of illustration briefs, set by the lecturers, who are all practising illustrators. You'll have had the opportunity to work with analogue and digital techniques using industry-standard software. The emphasis will be on the concept and realisation of inventive, original artwork that will involve research, experimentation and design roughs, before arriving at the solution that is personal to you.

Interactive Media

You'll use the fullest possible range of image-making and contemporary practices to research, design and prototype your ideas and create sample coded pages of your interactive pieces. Your final work will allow you to develop more personal themes, and create content, both written and image-based, to communicate these ideas. With the help of a tutor and technical adviser, you'll continue to learn the techniques of design, image-editing, typography and web technologies and languages that help add real interactivity to your content

Journalism

Writing news and features for use online or in print. You'll learn how to integrate visual material, text and interactive features in an online or print environment. You'll critique your own work and the work of others, and integrate the insights learned in the whole of your degree into the production of thoughtful, compelling journalism.

Photography

You'll explore the aesthetic and conceptual impact of image-making. After working on structured set projects designed to help you to identify your own visual style, you'll be fully supported to develop a self-directed body of work and situate your practice within wider visual culture.

Radio

You'll produce your own storytelling in sound and radio as an art-form and expression of professional journalism. Using digital equipment and editing software, you'll have the opportunity to develop your own research, ideas and writing through the genres of documentary and drama with the completion of a short programme. You'll also learn how to produce live radio programmes as a group in our networked studio and newsroom complex.

Television and Film

At the centre of all good filmmaking is the story. You'll be taught how to find your voice, about the importance of the idea, the value of teamwork and how to develop a project. You'll be challenged to think in new ways as content creators. You'll learn how to pitch an idea, write treatments, produce press packs through a range of master classes and practical workshops given by industry professionals. It's an immersive experience that will give you a robust and transferable skill set, allowing you to apply to any area of the media industry you wish to enter.

Media Campaigning and Social Activism

You'll explore the use of media technologies and strategies in bringing about social change. You'll consider historical and current examples of media campaigning and learn the broad outlines of what makes for effective advocacy. You'll evaluate how specific media forms can help generate social change, whether it is in the fields of climate change, democracy, anti-racism, gender, the far right and authoritarianism or other urgent issues.