English Language and Media BA(Hons)

International equivalencies

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Why study with us?

• Brighton is a vibrant, creative city, with a growing creative digital industry.

• Our talented academic team has a strong commitment to teaching excellence and draw upon their practitioner and research interests, along with industry experience, in their teaching. 

• You will develop practical, hands-on skills in media production and choose from a wide variety of options, enabling you to create a course tailored to your ambitions and interests.

• You'll gain vital transferable skills including personal organisation, independent research, team working, communication and presentation that you can use throughout your career.

• The course is delivered through lectures, seminars and workshops with a fully equipped television studio for practical work.

• In English language you will cover the breadth of the subject such as its use in the construction of texts, its historical and global development, how it helps construct identities and how it contributes to power relations.

• This degree provides good grounding for many different industries including film and television production, publishing and journalism, but equally provides a solid foundation for further study or research.

Year 1

In year 1, you will be introduced key conceptual areas in media studies through the study of popular contemporary forms in film, television and the print media in both non-digital and digital platforms. Your first year also provides you with an essential introduction to the study of English language at degree level. The core English language modules will enable you to develop the meta language to describe language features and their use in different genres. You will also explore the historical perspective of the development of the English language.

Modules

• Media Communication and Representation
• Digital Storytelling: Theory and Practice
• Structure and Grammar of English
• Text Design: Genre and Style
• Perspectives on the History of the English Language
• Popular Television

Year 2

In year 2, you study the history and theory of film, and examine the history, nature and impact of digital media in society. The second year also provides an essential grounding in understanding language in society and how it varies according to both context and the user. The focus of several second year modules is also on enabling independent study and research in preparation for the skills required in your final year dissertation or creative project.

Modules

• Cinema and Society
• Power and Persuasion
• Digital Media and Culture
• Researching English Language Use

Options*

• Science Fiction
• Videogames Cultures
• British Television Drama
• Memory, History and Trauma Onscreen
• Television Studio Production
• Contested Stories: The Politics of Narrative
• Studying Travel Writing
• British Literature and Twentieth Century History
• Queer Writing
• Literature and Art History
• Regional Englishes
• Introduction to Journalism
• Creative Writing
• Documentary Film Making: Theory and Practice
• French, German or Spanish (Reflective Language Learning Module)
• Intercultural Awareness module
• Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Media in Practice
• American Literature 1850–1945
• Literature in Practice
• Photography: From Painting with Light to Zeroes and Ones
• Science Fiction: Screens, Texts, Theories

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability

Final year

In year 3 you have one core module, the dissertation or creative project, and you can select four options from English language and media subject areas..

Modules

• Dissertation OR Creative Project

Options*

• World Englishes
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• Media Ethics and Conflict
• Children’s Screen Cultures
• The Cultural Politics of Screening Race
• Framing Women
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• Language Teaching and Learning
• Creative Writing project
• From Script to Screen
• Women’s Writing and Feminist Theory
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts
• Television News Production
• Post-war American Literature
• Postcolonial Literatures
• Adaptations
• Contemporary British Narrative Cinema
• Community Placement: Theory in Practice
• Film and Screen Journalism
• Language, Culture and Ideology
• Language of Gender and Sexuality
• (Re)Viewing Shakespeare
• Apocalypse, Dystopia, Utopia
• Victorian Sexualities
• Writing the Contemporary
• Russian Literature
• Literature and Philosophy
• European Literatures and Film
• Culture Wars: Revisiting the Great Divide
• Images of War
• Autobiography and the Screen
• Screening Comedy
• French, German or Spanish (Cultural Project Module)
• Intercultural Awareness Module

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability

Watch students talking about their experiences of the Community Placement module. 

Staff profile 

Vy Rajapillai Course leader

Vy Rajapillai lectures in media and English language. Her research interest is in the area of identity construction and second-generation immigrants. She is involved in a collaborative project with Queen Mary University, titled ‘Consuming conflict: second generation Sri Lankan immigrant identities’.

Student views

Beth Marshall-Sabey

"I loved having the opportunity to push myself both academically and creatively. Not only did I develop a passion for the theory and practice of filmmaking, I was encouraged to critically analyse a vast range of media texts in ways that I would have never previously considered. Media is a heavily influential and powerful tool in creating, reinforcing and maintaining social, political, and historical structures and I am incredibly thankful that I am now able to pick apart such texts and challenge their underlying meanings in everyday situations."

Film by graduate Beth Marshall-Sabey who won the 2013 David Thomas Award for the most promising graduating filmmaker. As part of the award she had the opportunity of an internship with Progress Film Company, where she made this short documentary Sunny.

Student work

Our student filmmakers have the opportunity to show their work on Brighton's popular Big Beach screen over the summer months. 

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus and Brighton and Sussex Medical School map