Media Studies BA(Hons)

International equivalencies

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

Why study with us? 

• Brighton is an ideal place to study professional media of all kinds: it is a centre of creativity, a magnet for media companies and freelancing professionals and home to an annual digital media festival.
  
  
• You'll be looking at social responsibility and community engagement, visual media, traditional and new media. You'll examine the evolving relationship between media and culture in contemporary societies and gain the skills to  influence them.
  
  
• By combining media, film and cultural theories as well as practices, the course will give you a real understanding of the relationship between information and communication technologies, industries and society on a national and international level.
  
  
• You will have the opportunity to realise your intellectual and creative potential under the guidance of tutors whose experience in research, scholarship, creative and professional media practice will shape and support your development.
  
  
• Practice-based modules might include lectures, screenings, visits to exhibits and lab based work. Community work modules involve considerable time spent outside the university, interacting with local community groups. A number of modules include short field trips and field work experience.
  
  
• Organisations which have provided placements include Google UK, film companies Working Title, Kudos and Mosaic Films, Warner Music International, Marks and Spencer and movie magazine Empire.
  
  
• Your industry placement will give you the ability to make confident and informed decisions when you consider your future media career.

Year 1 

This year lays the foundations for your study, introducing ways of understanding and theorising the media and the social, cultural, economic, political and technological changes associated with their development. 

Modules

• Media Culture and Change
• Producing and Consuming Social Media
• Critical Approaches to Media

Options*

• Media in the Networked Society
• Video Production 1
• Photographic Practice 1
• Business, Creative Industries and Innovation
• Creative Industries and Promotional Cultures
• Understanding Audiences: Theory and Context
• Film Language and History 
• Understanding Television
• The Soundtrack of Media
• Media and Popular Culture
• Social Action and Community Media

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

Year 2 

In year 2 you will focus on an industry placement and research methods and methodology. The industry placement will give you invaluable insight into how media works in the real world and the opportunity to relate this practice to the theory you have been studying.

Familiarity with research methods and methodology will equip you with the knowledge and skills to execute independent research as part of your final-year studies. 

Modules

• Research Methods and Methodology
• Media Placement

Options*

• Video Production 2
• Photographic Practice 2
• Social Media Applications in Activism, Business and Life
• Language, Media and Power
• Digital Media Enterprise and Innovation
• Brands and Branding
• Visual Media Culture
• Media Project Management
• Media and Public Relations
• Journalism
• Community Media
• Film Studies
• Popular Music
• Mobile Media Cultures 

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

Final year

In your final year you will produce a dissertation or production-based dissertation, under the guidance of an experienced supervisor. You will research this major project independently, giving you the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to draw together the knowledge you have gained over the course in a sustained piece of writing or the production of an artefact and critical reflection.

Modules

• Dissertation

Options*

• Marketing
• National and Global Media Studies
• Media Policy: The Politics and Economics of the Media Industries
• Mediating Science and Technology
• Critical Approaches to the Videogame
• Celebrity Media
• Transmedia Cultures
• Sustainability and Innovation in Digital Culture
• Digital Media Marketing and Innovation
• Political Communication in a Digital Age
• Communication for Development
• Community Project
• Genre and Film 

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

Facilities 

• Computer facilities with specialist software
• Selection of digital and analogue cameras, including DSLRs and lenses
• Tripods, studio lights and flashguns
• Offsite dark room
• Apple Mac computer suite
• Selection of video recording equipment including tape-based camcorders with tripods, Canon XM2 cameras with tripods and Sony VX200 cameras
• Sound kits with portable sound mixers, microphone and boom poles
• Video editing suite
• Extensive library facilities, which can be accessed online 24/7
• Computer pool rooms

Staff profiles 

Dr Olu Jenzen Course leader

Olu Jenzen leads the Media Studies BA(Hons) at Brighton. She teaches across the Media Studies curriculum, examining the role of popular culture in relation to how we construct our ‘selves’ and our worlds, including pop culture and heritage, pop culture and activism, the popular paranormal and representations of gender and sexuality in popular culture. All her teaching involves examples that we encounter on a daily basis, such as watching TV, reading newspapers and using social media. In 2013 she was awarded the Excellence in Facilitating and Empowering Learning Award. 

Find out about our other teaching staff:

Paula Hearsum, Aristea Fotopoulou, Theo Koulouris, Irmi Karl, Peter Day, Julia Winckler, Patricia Prietro Blanco, Julie Doyle, Lance Dann, Doug Lyon, Ryan Burns, Frauke Behrendt, Maria Short, Martin de Saulles, Lestyn George, Paul Ryan. 

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Moulsecoomb campus map