Media Studies BA(Hons)

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.

Jasmin Boorman, Media Studies BA(Hons) student, talks about why she chose her course at Brighton and the wide variety of modules that have helped her find her niche in TV production.

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

Core modules

• 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*

• Digital Media, Data and Society

  This module will introduce you to the study of digital media technologies, cultural and social change, and encourages a reflective approach to your own experience of using the media. You will explore the increasing number of networked devices and internet connectivity alongside the explosion of data collected, analysed and used. You will critically examine the role of data and networked media in shaping social interactions of a private and public nature, and implications for individuals and communities at home and globally.

• 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.

• 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.

• Creative Industries and Promotional Cultures

  This module will introduce you to the creative and promotional industries such as advertising, public relations, marketing and branding. It offers a historical overview of and contemporary perspectives on their development and change. You will engage critically with questions surrounding the political economy of the cultural industries, new consumer practices and the politics of consumption, and will develop an understanding of a range of mainstream practices as well as critical interventions in the language and dynamics of promotional cultures.

• 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.

• Understanding Television

  This module will develop your critical understanding of television as a social and cultural form by placing emphasis upon developing your understanding of television through both an introduction of key moments of its history, and by developing theoretical frameworks, which will enable you to approach an understanding of television as a particular social pleasure.

• Media and Popular Culture

  This module will introduce you to the concept of popular culture through the perspectives of media studies. You will critically engage with, explore and critique a range of popular cultural forms and practices. You will explore a range of current as well as historical examples of film, TV, music, and online popular culture through analysis of both the conditions of production - the entertainment industry - and audiences’ engagement with these texts.

• Community Media for Social Action

  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.

• Global Political Communication

  This module will introduce you to key concepts and thinkers in political communication and will enable you to critically explore the relationship between national, international and global political communication, as well as questions of media representation, forms of governance and democracy thus situating journalism practice in its critical context.

• Producing and Consuming Social Media

  This module explores your critical understanding of consuming and producing social media in  personal and professional settings.

*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 our applicant portal.

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 Practices 2
• Social Media Applications in Activism, Business and Life
• Media and Political Engagement in the Post Truth Era
• Community Radio
• Brands and Branding
• Visual Media Cultures
• Media Project Management
• Media and Public Relations
• Journalism
• Film Studies
• Popular Music
• Mobile Media Cultures
• Media Ethics
• Videogames Cultures
• Cooking, Dining and the Screen
• Memory, History and Trauma Onscreen
• Philosophy on Screen

*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

• Media Dissertation

Options*

• Audiovisual Professional Practice
• 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
• Sustainability and Innovation in Digital Culture
• Digital Media Marketing and Innovation
• Critical issues in Political Communication
• Communication for International Development
• Community Project
• Genre and Film 
• Inclusive Media Practice
• Framing Women: The ‘female’ in popular screen culture
• The Cultural Politics of Screening Race
• Screen Comedy
• Children’s Screen Cultures
• Screening the Unreal: Science fiction, horror, fantasy
• British Television Drama
• Exploring Animation
• Television Production

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

Final year work by Willis Annison – the project saw five amateur dancers working in partnership with Willis to produce images that counteract homogenising representations of emotions.

Facilities 

• Selection of digital and analogue stills equipment/facilities, including DSLRs and a range of lenses plus offsite darkroom
• Selection of video recording equipment, from Canon DSLRs to Blackmagic cameras in dedicated TV studio
• Various audio recording kit and facilities, including bookable sound/radio booths
• A range of Mac and PC computer facilities with specialist software including bookable dedicated video editing suites
• Extensive library facilities, which can be accessed online 24/7
• Computer pool rooms.

Meet the team

Dr Theodore Koulouris, course leader 

Theodore Koulouris leads the Media Studies degree programme in our School of Media. He teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum, specialising in media and literary theory, media ethics, the politics of mourning, political communication, and national and European politics. His teaching benefits from his ability to link theory with practice by continuously highlighting to students the relevance and urgency of media studies to developments in the arts, politics, the economy and, in general, to contemporary culture. An internationally known specialist in the work of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, his overall output addresses the reception of the classics in post-1850s British culture, feminism and feminist activism in the digital era, and the intersections of classical literature and contemporary politics. Since 2012, he has been twice nominated by his students for the Excellence in Facilitating and Empowering Learning Award.

Read Theo's full academic profile. 

Paula Hearsum, Aristea Fotopoulou, Irmi Karl, Peter Day, Julia Winckler, Patricia Prietro Blanco, Julien Doyle, Lance Dann, Ryan Burns, Frauke Behrendt, Maria Short, Martin de Saulles, Iestyn George and Paul Ryan.

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.

International requirements

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

Course fees

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2019–20.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Local area

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Moulsecoomb campus map