Music Business and Media BA(Hons)

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Why study with us? 

• You will graduate ready to take on a wide variety of roles across the music industry, from PR to A&R.
• The subject matter is a fascinating and ever-evolving mix – you will examine how the music and media industries intersect, investigating the social, cultural, economic, political and technological changes associated with their development.
• Our dedicated placements team organise excellent work placements and you’ll work on live industry projects.
• A variety of modules mean you can choose a path through your degree that suits your interests and expertise.
• Brighton is a fast-growing creative media hub and home to a thriving music scene.
• The course team are experts in their field who are passionate about sharing their knowledge with a new generation of media and music professionals.

Year 1

In your first year you will study methods of understanding and theorising the media and music industries. You will also examine the social, cultural, economic, political and technological changes associated with their development.

Modules

Core modules

• The Music Business

  This module introduces the character of the music industries and the activities associated with the music business, including recording, publishing, live performance, marketing and management. You'll explore and analyse popular music as both a cultural and industrial form., alongside considering popular music within the context of media industries, examining relationships between production, distribution and consumption.

• Popular Music: Histories and Contexts

  The module introduces the cultural contexts of popular music genres, styles, issues and debates – enabling you to place popular music within key historical developments. You'll explore the key formal debates of popular music studies and how they relate to popular music studies research.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Film, Language and History

  This module introduces how  the formal language of cinema (cinematography, editing, sound, shot composition, etc.) contributes to establishing a film’s narrative. You'll explore the history of mainstream Western cinema, through reference to the key technical, institutional and economic developments of the medium.

*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

In your second year of your Music Business and Media degree you'll focus on an industry placement as well as looking at research methods for live projects, which will equip you with the knowledge and skills to execute independent research.

Modules

• Research Methods for Live Projects
• The British Music Industry
• Popular Music Studies
• Media Placement

Options*

• Video Production 2
• Photographic Practice 2
• Social Media for Activists and Community Groups
• Branding and Public Relations
• Community Radio
• Media Project Management
• Specialist Journalism

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

Placement 

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

The placement enables you to:

• apply your learning to real life situations and challenges
• make confident and informed decisions about the direction of your media career
• get an insight in to how businesses and organisations  function
• develop your 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.

Read about media students' experiences on placement.

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

You will work in creative partnership with music innovation labs and gain practical understanding of digital media marketing as well as conceptual knowledge of the celebrity economy. With the university’s support you will undertake a live project and go into industry and complete an independent research project.

Modules

• Music Innovation: Design and Development
• Digital Media Marketing and Innovation
• Live Project

Options*

• TV Production
• Sustainability and Innovation in Digital Culture
• Community Project

*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

Staff who teach on the course include:

Iestyn George lectures in media studies and is a journalist, who previously worked as an editor at NME, GQ and Golf Punk. He was marketing manager of the Manic Street Preachers between 1999 and 2003. 

Podcast: listen to Iestyn talk 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.

Shara Rambarran is a musicologist who worked (performing, composing, production, and music PR) in London, before returning to the academia to specialise in popular musicology. Shara has extensive experience in delivering programmes in popular music, music history, music industry/business, and cultural studies at various universities. She co-runs the Art of Record Production conferences, and serves on the journal editorial boards for the Journal on the Art of Record Production and Journal of Popular Music Education.

Dr Eleftherios Zenerian lectures in media studies and is course leader of the Music Business and Media BA(Hons). He studied political and social sciences at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (BA, MSc) and the University of Sussex (MSc, PhD). He has taught sociology, politics and media, and cultural studies in the University of Sussex and University of Portsmouth. His research interests encompass creative labour, popular music cultures, and social and cultural theory. He currently researches fan creativity and the materiality of popular music.

Dr Paula Hearsum is a lecturer and researcher in media studies, with specialisms in popular music and journalism. Paula worked as a music journalist and continues to write for the wider press. She maintains a relationship between academia and media practice, developing innovative industry-relevant courses and national online educational resources. Her research has focused on the mediation of popular musicians' deaths as way to consider dominant social discourses and narratives.

Course fees

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2024–25.

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).

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