Digital Media and Communication BA (Hons)

Develop the skills you need to confidently navigate your future career. You’ll engage in real-world professional activities like networking simulations, mock interviews, and digital branding exercises, supported by industry guest speakers and career coaches. Practical sessions will sharpen your communication, research, and critical thinking abilities, while workshops will guide you in building a digital portfolio to strengthen your employability. Alongside hands-on experience, you’ll map your career goals and reflect on your progress, ensuring you leave with a clear, personalised development plan. This is your chance to take control of your professional journey with expert support every step of the way.

Build the academic and professional skills you need for success in the creative and technology industries. You’ll develop key study techniques, including effective note-taking, research, academic writing, and digital communication. Through workshops, tutorials, and practical tasks, you’ll boost your confidence as an independent learner and strengthen your ability to plan, organise, and deliver assignments. You’ll also learn how to manage your time effectively, reference sources correctly, and apply your skills in real-world contexts. Guided by academic staff and supported by online resources, you’ll create a solid foundation for excelling both at university and in your future career.

Strong numeracy and data-handling skills are vital in creative industries. In this module, you’ll learn how to interpret graphs, solve problems using digital tools like spreadsheets, and present numerical information clearly. Practical exercises build your confidence with real-world scenarios, supporting your wider academic and professional development. By focusing on rational problem-solving and applied data skills, you’ll strengthen your ability to work independently and collaboratively on future creative projects that demand critical analysis.

Understanding how media messages are created and interpreted is essential in today’s digital world. This module introduces you to key frameworks for analysing visual media, while also building your ability to communicate ideas clearly and persuasively. You’ll design an academic poster using professional software, develop critical thinking around cultural differences, and practise both oral and written communication for academic and industry contexts. A creative, skills-focused approach ensures you gain a strong foundation for your degree and professional journey.

You’ll harness new technologies and creative approaches to complete a practical project that mirrors real-world challenges in the creative industries. Through group work, independent development, and targeted workshops, you’ll sharpen leadership, collaboration, and technical skills. The module encourages innovation, critical reflection, and the ability to see projects through from concept to completion. By the end, you’ll have both a tangible creative product and a deepened understanding of how creative professionals work today.

In this module you will explore aspects of post-production and promotion within the Media industries. Building on term one, you will be introduced to advanced techniques such as editing, sound design, visual effects, and colour grading. You will gain hands-on experience using industry-standard software tools to enhance audio/ visual and will cover promotional strategies, including marketing, distribution, and audience engagement.

Learn how stories work across film, TV, games and digital platforms. Practise building themes and motifs, make smart use of genre conventions and tropes, and explore how new technologies are reshaping narrative design. By the end, you’ll be able to analyse stories from both creator and audience perspectives and apply techniques to craft your own media pieces, working ethically with others. Teaching is hands‑on and collaborative through lectures, workshops and guided exercises. Assessment is a portfolio of media writing linked to live or applied projects, showcasing your skills and progression.

Upon completing this module, you will have a solid understanding of media law and ethics, including the principles and regulations that govern media practices. You will learn about the rules and laws that guide media practices and understand the ethical principles that are important for responsible journalism and media practices. The module will also explore how AI affects media production and consumption. You will develop the skills to understand and navigate the complex legal and ethical issues in today's media landscape by looking at real-world examples and current events. 

In this module you will explore aspects of post-production and promotion within the Media industries. Building on term one, you will be introduced to advanced techniques such as editing, sound design, visual effects, and colour grading. You will gain hands-on experience using industry-standard software tools to enhance audio/ visual content and will cover promotional strategies, including marketing, distribution, and audience engagement. 

Upon completing this module, you will gain essential news writing skills. Some key areas will include what makes a story newsworthy, how to create attention-grabbing headlines, follow ethical standards, and improve your writing and editing skills. Moreover, you will learn how to adapt your writing styles to different formats and audiences, allowing you to write for different media types, like newspapers, websites, and social media. 

Build the habits and mindsets that support a successful creative career. Grow meta skills in problem solving, communication, digital proficiency and teamwork, while tackling ethics, social justice and cultural awareness through practical tasks. Learn through interactive workshops, simulations, guest speakers and short live projects, including a hackathon that mirrors real studio collaboration. By the end, you’ll be ready to plan next steps with a career action plan, present yourself professionally, and respond confidently to changing workplace demands. Assessment is a portfolio that brings together a tailored CV and cover letter, evidence of career development, a team presentation and a short reflective log.

Upon completing this module, you will gain an understanding of creative business and enterprise. You will learn how to develop innovative media products, explore sustainable revenue models, and navigate the digital media entrepreneurship landscape. Additionally, you will learn to create strategic business plans for media startup ventures. This module will equip you to succeed in the dynamic and competitive world of media entrepreneurship, whether you are a journalist starting your own media venture or a business professional working in the media industry. 

Learn to design stories that live across platforms. You will study transmedia theory, convergence culture and complex, linear and non-linear narrative, then build your own storyworld across video, audio, animation, photography and more.  Workshops, screenings and tutorials guide you through research, ideation, and testing, including experiments with generative AI tools for production.  By the end, you can explain key terms, critique the aesthetics of your work, and show developing technical skill in a chosen medium, supported by clear research and reflection.  Assessment is a single portfolio that evidences your process and final outcomes across the platforms you choose.  

Explore how media and communication industries work in the real world, from advertising and broadcasting to journalism, film and social media.  You will test ideas about authenticity, creativity and commercial pressure, look at structures and workflows, and consider how AI affects originality.  Using established theorists as anchors, you will build skills to analyse practice, make ethical choices and explain your value as a creative. Teaching mixes lectures, workshops and peer feedback, plus a group presentation to informed stakeholders.  The assessment is a single portfolio that brings together research, reflection and applied creative work, showing your technical ability alongside a clear critical understanding.  

This module will immerse you in live reporting and studio coverage, equipping you with the essential skills and knowledge needed to excel in covering events in real-time. You will learn the complexities of planning and preparing for live events, mastering the tools and technologies essential for live reporting. Moreover, you will learn crisis and risk management to handle unforeseen challenges confidently and professionally. From pre-event preparation to post-event analysis, you will learn to navigate the fast-paced environment of live reporting with accuracy, speed, and professionalism.

This module introduces you to data storytelling, presenting it as an innovative development of the forms of storytelling and reporting methods that you have covered already. You will learn to use data to craft compelling narratives, enhance storytelling techniques, and convey complex information in an accessible and engaging manner. Additionally, you will discover how to find stories within datasets and make data visualisation for organising and presenting information graphically. By integrating data into your work, you will develop the skills necessary to thrive in an increasingly data-driven world. 

This module prepares students for employment in the media and creative industries and enables self-reflection on career progression. Building upon the competencies and skills identified at level 4, it supports effective professional development through practical experience and live projects. Students will have opportunities to develop and enhance their employability and entrepreneurial skillset in preparation for graduate employment in their chosen field.

Students will complete a Career Development Portfolio which will include information and critical reflection on either a collaborative project, work experience with internal or external clients, work placement with a relevant employer, or a combination of any of these activities as engaged in during the module.

This course offers the opportunity of year-long placement between years two and three. If you choose to take this option, you’ll spend your third year on a placement with a relevant company or organisation, adding valuable practical experience to your growing academic knowledge. 

The extra placement year means it will take four years to complete your studies, instead of three.

This module equips students with media research methods and production planning for conducting final media projects through theoretical and practical knowledge. 

Students will devise, research and plan a self-identified major project in an appropriate medium within their area of study. You will draw from and build on learning from across your programme of study to develop a project that is informed by the theories, methods and practices relevant to your area of interest within the creative industries.

Ultimately, students will formulate coherent and comprehensive research proposals, outlining research questions, methodologies, production plans and theoretical frameworks appropriate to their subject. 

In this module, you will learn about the new media ecology, developing your understanding of the tools you use in your current practice, such as generative AI, to consider the potential impacts on workplace cultures. Our focus is on the UK media and communication industries, including animation, film and journalism. 
As well as gaining a richer understanding of the creative capacities of new technologies, including developing understanding of the technical foundations to virtual futures, including VR/AR/Extended reality/the metaverse, critical approaches to AI development and AI ethics will be analysed.

There will also be an introduction to future-facing ideologies which reconceptualise the concept of what it means to be ‘human’ in the 21st Century. These will include transhumanism, hyper-humanism and posthumanism, broadening awareness of the implications of human/machine assemblages and post-digital culture.

This module equips students with media research methods and production planning for conducting final media projects through theoretical and practical knowledge.

Students will devise, research and plan a self-identified major project in an appropriate medium within their area of study. You will draw from and build on learning from across your programme of study to develop a project that is informed by the theories, methods and practices relevant to your area of interest within the creative industries.

Ultimately, students will formulate coherent and comprehensive research proposals, outlining research questions, methodologies, production plans and theoretical frameworks appropriate to their subject.

In this module you will work either in teams or individually to deliver a live project to an industry pathway relevant brief, culminating in a project showcase. The module will aid in the development of your employability skills and provide industry-informed experience ready for life after graduation.

Projects briefs will be chosen and allocated according to your chosen career pathway(s), suitable to your skill-set. Across the term you will work to meet a brief set by an internal or external media practitioner. The module will require you to manage your own workload and provide an opportunity to hone your professional communication skills.

Learning will include practical skill building in the form of lectures, workshops and studio based production, culminating in a delivered project and an individual critical reflection. 

Brand building introduces you to conceptual frameworks that will help you make sense of how to reflexively market your own skills sets. The module provides a comprehensive understanding of the principles, strategies, and techniques involved in creating and managing successful brands, including your own, within a broader analysis of the centrality of branding to contemporary socio-economic relations. 

This module aims to introduce you to the practice of brand management from both a strategic and socio-cultural perspective drawing from the latest research in the field. We seek to develop your knowledge holistically and incorporate the most relevant scholarship in the area of branding.

The aim of this module is to introduce you to social media marketing, a relatively nascent yet vibrant field of contemporary marketing research and practice. The module seeks to evaluate how social media can be harnessed for marketing purposes and consider the role that social media can have in the co-creation of brand meaning. While social media has unquestionably changed the ways in which people communicate and interact, the processes through which it can be integrated into marketing strategy and practices are as yet not fully understood, and a range of recently published texts within the marketing literature have sought to address this problem. 

The module will explore key concepts of online communities and the co-creation of value, as well as seek to understand how social media can be used as part of an integrated brand management strategy. Social media platforms such as gaming and mobile will be examined, as well as the role of electronic word of mouth in creating meaning and identity for brands. The module will consider how consumer social media engagement is measured and evaluated, as well as its potential role as a marketing research tool. Issues surrounding consumer digital rights and privacy within a social media context will also be embedded strongly. This module, the first of its kind within the school, will help to develop and enhance the social media marketing skills of the millennial generation of undergraduates, who are widely recognised as digital natives, and enable them to understand how to unlock the potential of social media for both marketing and brand management purposes.