Course Content
The MSc consists of both compulsory and optional modules, a typical selection can be found below. Modules can vary from year to year, but these offer a good idea of what we teach.
Compulsory modules
Dissertation in Media and Communications
You complete a dissertation of approximately 15,000 words over the summer period in consultation with a supervisor. You are encouraged to conduct primary research in an area relevant to the course in preparation for the dissertation.
Issues and Controversies in Media and Communications
Main topics of study: media ethics, media and moral panics, media power, media effects.
Qualitative Methods in Social and Cultural Research
Main topics of study: conceptual and practical issues in qualitative research design; interview research; research in and on the Internet; media analysis: research in practice; approaches to qualitative data analysis; planning and writing a dissertation.
Making Web Cultures
Making Web Cultures explores the development of internet communications, including social media and networks, the impact of online sharing and collaboration, and the challenges of surveillance and privacy.
The Creative Industries
This module explores the significance of creative industries and how they operate in various spheres of social life. The module focuses on how the notion of ‘creativity’ has emerged in the economy and society, its ideological significance, and the positive and negative consequences it has brought for society.
Particular topics addressed are the rise of the creative class, the symbolic economy, immaterial labour, gentrification of cities, and advertising and branding.
Media Audiences
Main topics of study: theoretical approaches to media audiences, gender and genre: cross-national and 'subversive' audiences; domestic technologies; media power and 'minority' readings; media production and audiences; television audiences and contemporary public issues (news and politics, health and illness, sexual violence); media effects/ influence debates; 'active' audience theory.
Principles of Media Research
Main topics include introducing and designing focus group studies; using critical discourse analysis; conducting research interviews; media content analysis and research ethics and safety.
Media, Body and Society
Main topics include early theories of the mediated body; modernity and the body: postmodernity, deconstruction and media bodies; superheroes, steroids and ‘masculine’ media; beauty, eating and ‘feminine’ media; laughter, ridicule and the body; ‘race’, ethnicity and sport; ‘deformity’, medicine and media; embodying mental illness; representing disability; zombies, consciousness and social death
Read more about the structure of postgraduate degrees at Brunel and what you will learn on the course.
Typical Dissertations
Examples of recent student dissertations include:
'How is authority established in virtual communities?'
'TV Consumption, Identity and Lifestyle: A study of the Chinese Community in Los Angeles'
'The construction of femininity in Sex and the City'
'Media bias and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict'
'Constructing a female cyberspace? A case study of Chinese women and the web'
'Ethnography of a newsroom in Ghana'
'New media and news gathering'.
Special Features
This postgraduate course is taught by leading academics in Sociology and Communications. Throughout our research we aim to tackle core theoretical questions and also engage with the international community and relevant groups of practitioners in industry, government and the wider public.
Where possible we invite professionals who are working in the media and broadcast industry (advertising and marketing; television documentary and different PR organisations) to come and talk to our MSc students and offer careers advice. We have also organised a field trip to BBC Television Centre in West London. Students are invited to our academic research seminar programme and to attend our social events.
We offer additional bespoke workshops and lectures to enhance students' employability skills, including ‘pitching yourself to employers’.
All students can benefit from our programme of workshops and informal ‘drop in’ sessions on information literacy to enhance academic writing skills.
Facts and Figures
Recent research projects within the department at Brunel include: mass media coverage of young people and politics; free speech and the public sphere; file-sharing and live streaming; health and science communication; public involvement in health policy; multiculturalism and institutional racism; the anti-globalisation movement, the media and 'new wars'.
Teaching and Assessment
Teaching
Taught modules of the MSc Media and Communications are delivered via traditional lecture/seminar format along with other workshops and set activities. Students may be required to keep diaries of media consumption, contribute to online blogs and engage in critical analysis of visual media.
Assessment
Assessment is by a mixture of essays, report writing, blog entries and online group work. Students also complete a 15,000 word dissertation.
Employability
Careers
Students of this Master's course typically go on to further advanced academic research or to pursue careers within the media industries (e.g. Press and Communications Officer; Head of Information). Past students have worked in developing countries for NGO’s or as technology consultants.
At Brunel we provide many opportunities and experiences within your degree programme and beyond – work-based learning, professional support services, volunteering, mentoring, sports, arts, clubs, societies, and much, much more – and we encourage you to make the most of them, so that you can make the most of yourself.
» More about Employability
Fees for 2016/17 entry
UK/EU students: £8,350 full-time
International students: £15,400 full-time
Additional course related costs
Read about funding opportunities available to postgraduate students
UK/EU students can opt to pay in six equal monthly instalments: the first instalment is payable on enrolment and the remaining five by Direct Debit or credit/debit card.
Overseas students can opt to pay in two instalments: 60% on enrolment, and 40% in January for students who commence their course in September (or the remaining 40% in March for selected courses that start in January).
A UK first or second class Honours degree or equivalent internationally recognised qualification in a Media/Communications-related subject preferably in the field of Sociology
Applicants with other qualifications or equivalent professional qualifications and that have considerable relevant work experience will be considered on an individual basis.
Entry criteria are subject to review and change each academic year.
International and EU Entry Requirements
If your country or institution is not listed or if you are not sure whether your institution is eligible, please contact Admissions
This information is for guidance only by Brunel University London and by meeting the academic requirements does not guarantee entry for our courses as applications are assessed on case-by-case basis.
English Language Requirements
IELTS: 6.5 (min 6 in all areas)
Pearson: 58 (51 in all subscores)
BrunELT: 65% (min 60% in all areas)
Brunel University London strongly recommends that if you will require a Tier 4 visa, you sit your IELTS test at a test centre that has been approved by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) as being a provider of a Secure English Language Test (SELT). Not all test centres have this status. The University can accept IELTS (with the required scores) taken at any official test centre or other English Language qualifications we accept as meeting our main award entry requirements.
However, if you wish to undertake a Pre-sessional English course to further improve your English prior to the start of your degree course, you must sit the test at an approved SELT provider. This is because you will only be able to apply for a Tier 4 student visa to undertake a Pre-sessional English course if you hold a SELT from a UKVI approved test centre. Find out more information about it.
Brunel also offers our own BrunELT English Test and accepts a range of other language courses. We also have Pre-sessional English language courses for students who do not meet these requirements, or who wish to improve their English.
Our International Pathways and Language Centre offers a number of foundation and pre-masters courses to provide you with the academic skills required for your chosen course.
