Media, Industry and Innovation BA(Hons)

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Year 1

Modules

Core modules

• Business, Creative/Digital Industries and Innovation

  On this module you will develop a sense of commercial awareness, including key entrepreneurial skills and knowledge required to engage with innovation in the creative and digital industries. You will work as a part of a team to recognise trends and opportunities and then develop your ideas into a business plan. You will reflect on your ideas, considering issues around collaboration, innovation, sustainability and intellectual property.

• Radical Campaigns and Creative Industries

  This module introduces the campaign tactics that creative groups and activists have used to influence media platforms and fight for social change. You'll consider historical and contemporary perspectives of these strategies and how they have disrupted advertising, performance, television, music, art and social media. You'll explore questions surrounding the political economy of the culture industries, activist practice and the politics of protest, and develop an understanding of both the mainstream creative and promotional industries and the radical interventions that led to cultural and material shifts.

• Understanding Audiences: Theory and Context

  In this module you will examine the role and characteristics of media consumption in the C21st and the relationship that exists between audiences, texts and technologies of production, distribution and reception. You will encounter a range of theories and research methods through study of a range of real-world media organisations and their respective audiences, and as a practical exercise, will design a cross-media campaign for a targeted audience demographic.

• Critical Approaches to Media 1

  This module will introduce you to a range of critical academic approaches to media. It tackles the most cutting-edge topics in media studies and introduces canonical approaches used in their analysis. An introduction to these approaches will enable you to understand the workings of media audiences, industries and texts. The module will focus on media experiences that are relevant to your everyday life, ensuring that as well as academic development, the module will give you the tools to analyse your own engagement with, and consumption of, the media.

• Critical Approaches to Media 2

  This module introduces key media studies theories and concepts and applies them to the analysis of real-world issues. You will develop skills and techniques to critique media representations, showing the importance of media analysis in everyday life. By analysing media technologies, you will engage with the most innovative media content, forms and practices of the day. By questioning mediation, the module will bring to life the role of media in society and enable you to critique the media in terms of culture, politics, innovation and environment.

Options*

• Video Production 1

  This module will equip you with the essential skills and practical experience required to create short-form non-fictional audio-visual content, suitable in form to contemporary web-based - as well as more traditional - delivery platforms and audiences. It covers all three stages of video production: pre-production research and planning, production and post-production, including editing. It will introduce the fundamentals of video and sound-recording techniques as well as give you the skills required for successfully engaging with contributors/participants.

• Photographic Practice 1

  In this module you will explore the role and use of photography in visual media. You will engage with various aspects of the language and production of promotional and editorial photography. You will respond to set briefs and create your own website that includes an online portfolio as well as learn the core skills in which to consider, articulate and document reflections on your practice.

• Community Media for Social Action – Decolonising media

  Tools, spaces and processes of community communications form the basis of inquiry into community media and social action. You will engage with theories of empowerment and voice as well as engaging in introductory practices of community media for social action. Your outputs from the practice component will be presented in class before being archived on the student learning space. You will also learn to reflect critically on your experiences and the processes of contextualised content generation through online communicative learning.

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

Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through Student View.

Year 2 

Modules

• Research Methods for Live Projects
• Digital Media Enterprise and Innovation
• Media Project Management
• Media Placement

Options*

• Brands and Public Relations
• Social Media for Activists and Community Groups
• Specialist Journalism
• Community Radio
• Photographic Practice 2
• Media Ethics and Professional Practice
• Video Production 2

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

Placements 

In your second year you will complete a four week placement in an external organisation. You will receive guidance to help you focus your search from a dedicated placement team. Placements are for around four weeks and are academically assessed.

Along with the live project in your third year, the placement will allow you to:

• apply your learning to real life situations and challenges
• make confident and informed decision about the direction of your media career
• get an insight in to how businesses and organisations function
• develop existing skills and discover new ones
• explore career options
• make professional contacts
• create an effective CV and digital media presence
• build confidence and organisational skills.

Our media students have been on placement with organisations including:

• Ricochet
• Creative Assembly
• BBC Good Food and Olive Magazine
• Absolute Radio
• Brighton and Hove Green Party
• Lowkey Films
• Drop4Drop
• Integrity Music Europe
• YDN Radio
• Life Water
• Electric Square
• ITV Potato
• Renewable World
• Deluxe
• ILOVEDUST
• Bauer Media
• Brighton Dome
• Brighton Fringe.

Final year 

In your final year your entire final semester will be dedicated to the ten-week live project. You will develop an innovative media idea, and run and evaluate the project in partnership with an external organisation of your choosing.

Modules

• Sustainability and Innovation in Digital Culture
• Digital Media Marketing and Innovation
• Live Project

Options*

• Music Innovation: Design and Development
• Media Policy and Law
• Community Project
• Television Production

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

Facilities 

• Digital and analogue stills equipment, including DSLRs and a range of lenses plus an offsite darkroom 
• Video recording equipment, from Canon DSLRs to Blackmagic cameras, in a dedicated TV studio 
• Audio recording kit and facilities, including bookable sound/radio booths 
• Dedicated video editing suites including Mac and PC computers with specialist software.

Meet the team

Tom Ottway, course leader

Tom is an experienced lecturer, researcher, and media theorist and practice specialist with over 25 years’ experience of working with students and teachers worldwide.

Tom's research interests include film theory and production, creative media practice and sound design and sound art.

Read Tom's full profile.

Find out about other teaching staff on the course:

Olu Jenzen, Paula Hearsum, Paul Ryan, Theo Koulouris, Irmi Karl, Peter Day, Julia Winckler, Lance Dann, Martin de Saulles and Iestyn George.

Podcast: listen to a podcast with Senior Lecturer Iestyn George where he talks about his work in journalism and marketing, why he believes media is the most important subject to study at university and the future of magazines.

Course fees

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2023–24.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate and postgraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• About the university’s fees by checking our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

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