Course Brief

This module is divided into two blocks:

Advertising and Television Drama involves an examination of contemporary advertising in terms of its textual structures, branding, reliance on celebrity and the pleasures that it offers to consumers, followed by a detailed analysis of TV drama texts - raising important questions of representation, power and identity.

Media, Modernity and Mobilities offers an exploration of contemporary experiences as they relate – directly or indirectly – to practices of media use. The block begins with a consideration of media uses in everyday routines, and of social interactions (many of which are technologically mediated) with a range of others in modern living. There will also be reflections on users’ embodied, sensuous dealings with material things (including media technologies), considering their uses as place-making practices of a sort. Discussion on this block will take in the uses of radio, television, computers, phones, books and newspapers – for imaginative, virtual or mobile-communicative travel – but it will be necessary to contextualise these uses by talking about other practices and forms of mobility, too, such as getting around on foot and travelling by car or plane. That discussion will range from the details of local experience and physical co-presence through to the movements of information, people and objects on a global scale.

  • 45

Upon successful completion of this module, a student will have demonstrated:

• understanding of key concepts, theoretical approaches, issues and debates within the field of media studies;
• ability to engage critically with these concepts, approaches, issues and debates;
• ability to apply relevant concepts to specific areas of media output;
• understanding of the institutional contexts of media production and consumption;
• skills of synthesis and presentation in written work;
• ability to employ critical sources effectively in the construction and development of academic arguments.

Themes and issues are introduced each week through lectures. Seminars are used for the discussion of concepts and perspectives, through the detailed analysis of media output and/or by discussing and debating ideas introduced in the lectures.

  • BA (Hons) Mass Communications (Top-Up)

    The SBCS Centre for Media, Communication & Design in collaboration with the University of Sunderland is pleased to offer you a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Mass Communications. Be part of our next intake scheduled to start in October 2021. This final year of an undergraduate degree (Top-Up programme) can be earned in eighteen months.

    With this programme, students will gain understanding of new media, cultural theory and popular culture, and acquire new skills in media studies.

    On the practical side, modules such as Moving Camera II & Advanced Digital Post Production will focus on developing students’ video production skills.