BA Publishing, Media and Cultural Studies Degree

Overview & facilities

Here's an opportunity to benefit from the reputation and contacts Middlesex University, London has in all areas of publishing, and gain an excellent foundation for developing a career in a broad range of media and related industries.

Our BA Publishing, Media and Cultural Studies degree with Honours offers a combination of theory and practice, enabling you to explore many issues in media and cultural studies, alongside more practical work in publishing and related media, including magazine, book, online and digital media, electronic writing and publishing, or editing and marketing.

Choosing our BA Publishing, Media and Cultural Studies degree to build on, or develop a knowledge of the contemporary media and cultural industries, will also enable you to develop specialist skills and knowledge in a wide range of publishing industries. Our closely linked areas within media, culture and communication also provides you with a wider choice of modules, so you can tailor your study towards your specific interests.

Content & modules

Modules

• Year 1

  Introduction to Journalism (30 Credits) - Compulsory

  The module introduces students to the skills, practices and institutions of journalism. It will give students a practical and historically contexted grounding in journalism as a legally constrained, culturally shaped and stylistically informed practice, governed by economic and political imperatives. Students will be given the opportunity both to sharpen their own journalistic abilities as well as their knowledge and understanding of newspaper, magazine and online journalism industries.

  Issues in Media, Politics and Culture (30 Credits) - Compulsory

  The course will complement the theoretical learning on MCS1100 by providing students with the knowledge and skills to investigate, discuss and critically evaluate contemporary issues in media, politics and culture. Students will learn about current social issues, and how these are mediated through press and broadcasting, and in culture. The course will provide a foundation in cognitive and practical skills relevant to the MCS programme, and provide students with transferable graduate skills.

  Media Communication Practices in Context (30 Credits) - Compulsory

  This module aims to Provide students with a practical introduction to specific contemporary media technologies and the communications practices they entail; Give students an appreciation of the importance of situating their understanding of media technologies within a social and cultural context; Develop an analysis of the interaction of form and content in the production of media messages.

  Media Discourses: Texts and Contexts (30 Credits) - Compulsory

  The module s main aims are as follows: - To equip students with the foundational skills for study in the JCM, PLM, and related, programmes; - To introduce students to processes of meaning production in the media alongside developing a critical understanding of issues and concepts of cultural representation; - To enable students to develop a knowledge of key approaches to analysing how different types of language and image produce concepts, ideas, values and feelings. - To provide a critical context in which to introduce students to Personal Development Planning PDP and graduate skills in personal learning and career planning, as well as elements of IT through library sessions in researching and identifying relevant resources

• Year 2

  Critical Feature-Writing and Editing (30 Credits) - Optional

  The overall aims of this module are: 1. To equip students with a critical, theoretical and practical understanding of editing and feature writing with a focus on an applied knowledge of relations between editing, journalistic writing and its contexts, in particular considerations of genre, market and readership. 2. To help students to develop and demonstrate an inquiring, critical and reflective approach to the complex interaction between writing, readers, the role of editing and the editor in the production, circulation and reception of texts. 3. To be of more general application in developing skills in the practice of researching and writing clearly and concisely to a brief: in relation to specific markets and editorial contexts.

  Issues in Researching and Developing Media Projects (30 Credits) - Compulsory

  PLM2000 has the following main aims: - To introduce students to contemporary debates in media, and related areas of cultural studies and to key approaches to studying the media and media industries: processes, practices, products, audiences/consumers; and to enable students to develop the skills and knowledges required to critically evaluate such debates and approaches - To enable students to draw on a critical evaluation of contemporary debates in media, and related areas of cultural, studies, key issues and approaches to studying the media and media industries and apply this to the development of planning and development of a research proposal framed by a detailed literature review - To enable students to make productive connections between devising and developing independent projects and the frameworks of their taught programmes - To help students develop the independent research skills they will need to flourish in academic and vocational contexts and to appreciate the importance of thinking critically

  Media and Cultural Industries (30 Credits) - Optional

  This course develops the work in MCS1200 and introduces a number of approaches to the study of the media and cultural industries, from early Marxist critical theories to more recent accounts of the relationship between the media and new international economic structures. It looks at the difference between mainstream and alternative media and the rise of a global media industry. This module also acts as a preparation for students undertaking work experience in MCS3300, and aims to help students identify and conduct research into particular aspects of the media and cultural industries that interest them. In the process it will help prepare students for their third year dissertation.

  Media for Advertising and Marketing (30 Credits) - Optional

  The module s main aims are as follows: - To promote an informed and critical approach to the history, development, current state and future trajectory of contemporary advertising: industry, processes and practices; - To develop students knowledge and understanding of advertising as a marketing practice - To develop skills in analysing existing and considering potential advertising campaigns; - To go beyond the mechanistic and for students to interrogate and reflect on advertising s place in consumer culture and on the complex interrelationship between advertising and the media.

  Media, Image, Power (30 Credits) - Optional

  The course introduces key debates in media and cultural theory which enable the interrogation of the power of media images from a variety of angles. It will develop an understanding of media images as a form of communication and focus on contemporary developments in society and culture which shape our experience of media images. In the process the course will theorise the changing forms of power relations involved, enabling students to produce a specific analysis of a particular instance of the work of media images.

  Writing and Publishing Online and Electronic Media (30 Credits) - Optional

  To introduce students to a variety of disciplinary methodologies through which to develop a critical approach to both desktop and online publishing; Provide a critical and practical framework within which students can engage with the study of editorial design, content creation and creative implementations for the digital network and print media; and the application of this to the production of practical projects.

• Year 3

  Independent Project Single (30 Credits) - Optional

  This module builds on work undertaken on PLM2000. The module s main aims are: - To enable students to design, refine and undertake a sustained piece of self-directed, independent work: this might take a number of forms but the primary distinction will be between a formal dissertation-style piece or a practical project accompanied by a formal, academically grounded critique. - To promote the development of an independent project: the aims and focus of which will be grounded in, and directly relevant to, the overall framework of the programme being undertaken - To enable students to produce work which will build on, extend and/or refine issues, practices, concepts and approaches which formed part of the individual student s learning experience on their relevant programme. - To build on critical frameworks and practices from previous modules in the student s programme rather than to formally introduce new material

  Magazines (30 Credits) - Optional

  The modules has the following key aims: - To provide students with a grounded knowledge of the structure, nature and operations of the contemporary magazine publishing industry and its place within local and increasingly global markets; - To equip students with a knowledge and understanding of key historical developments within magazine publishing, as well as specific technological, political, cultural and economic factors contributing to the emergence of the magazine as a media form. This will then form the background for a critical reflection on the contemporary industry and possible futures for the magazine; - To consider the complex relations between accounts of consumer culture, markets, magazine publishing and magazines; - To promote a critical stance towards the evaluation of materials from a range of sources, drawing on this to inform critical approaches to reading, independent research and the production of work informed by this.

  Marketing: PR and Promotion (30 Credits) - Optional

  The module s main aims are as follows: - To introduce processes and practices of marketing as they apply to the area of promotion and in particular PR and related promotional strategies and to critically reflect on these using case studies and examples drawn from the contemporary media and cultural industries; - To promote a critical, inquiring approach to analysing and producing PR materials and strategies, with a focus on media relations; - To enable students to adopt a critically inquiring stance towards practices of PR and related promotional strategies, especially as they relate to a wider consideration of theories and concepts of promotional culture; - To enable a sustained inquiry into the possible relations between PR and wider media practices, in particular that between PR and journalism.

  Media practices (30 Credits) - Optional

  This course critically develops and extends work done in MCS1100, MCS2300 and MCS2400. Media practice is linked to economic, industrial, political, technological and ideological processes. In the economic sphere, media concentration, deregulation and globalisation are influential factors on media practice. Politically, questions of power, ownership and control affect media content and programming. Technological developments have also impacted on the way media institutions are organised, and on the way media forms, organisations and products are circulated, distributed, publicised, advertised and marketed.

  Work Placement (30 Credits) - Optional

  Students will have begun preparing for work placement and the opportunities and challenges of producing a work placement related project in PLM2000. The main aims of the work placement project are: - To extend the student learning experience through active participation in, and formal reflection on, the workplace: a fundamental part of this process should be the critical reflection on the translation, and refinement of skills and knowledges, gained on specific PLM programmes to participation in the work place. - To develop a critical perspective on the relation between formal and informal experiential learning. - Students to learn as much as possible about the practices of their chosen organisation, while critically reflecting on the economic, social and cultural context in which it operates. A fundamental part of this process will be critical self-reflection on contributions made to the work setting, and the impact of the work place on self-development; as well as on how the work place selected relates to wider circuits of cultural and media production - To enable students to produce work which will build on, extend and/or refine issues, practices, concepts and approaches which formed part of the student s learning experience on their relevant programme inform an overall work placement project, which references and develops issues and debates informed by or relevant to the chosen work placement - To enable students to build on critical frameworks and practices from previous modules in the student s programme; apply these to the work placement and to the production of a self-devised, independent project

  Writing and Publishing Genre (30 Credits) - Optional

  To provide students with a knowledge of the codes and traditions of different modes of genre fiction romance, historical, horror, crime, fantasy, sf and support their writing in these modes. To provide students with a knowledge and understanding of an expanded definition of reading in order to critically consider a range of texts such as art, radio, film and tv, gaming and eventually the emergence of cult video/DVD; the aim of which is to critically explore the ways in which different genres adapted to new media in distinctly different ways. To enable students to critically discuss the context of these works within the market and traditions of the genres, exploring the development of genre writing, publishing and marketing in the context of relevant social and cultural developments from the end of the nineteenth century.

  Writing the City (30 Credits) - Optional

  Writing the City invites students to develop a detailed consideration of the interactions between media systems in the broadest sense of the word, and their environments. Using writing as a metaphor and a conception of the city as a surface of inscription, it invites students to think about how the city is written, how the sense we make of the places we live in is constructed - and sometimes deconstructed - through media. By considering a variety of media forms - from the lowly sticker and the maligned art of graffiti to monumental architecture, installation art and hyper complex computer networks - Writing the City produces an understanding of the spaces we live in as complex assemblages of discourse, media technologies and architectural forms. Writing the City also aims to encourage students to employ their myriad local knowledge in order to engage directly with the fabric of urban life by thematically and methodologically addressing the place of experience in modernity and its aftermath.

Alongside an exploration of contemporary media and cultural debates there is an opportunity to develop practical skills. You might be engaged in online and electronic writing and publishing; editing and marketing; or an exploration of the magazine industry. Student projects are greatly enhanced through the use of our new, dedicated digital media suite, with facilities for video, audio and print-based work, and the opportunity to work closely with experienced staff in a stimulating and critical environment.

In your final year you can undertake a relevant work placement or develop a project of particular interest to you. Work placements offer opportunities in a wide range of areas, from magazine publishing and magazine titles, including supplements such as the Sunday Times magazine, magazines such as Vogue and the Radio Times, to work in book publishing companies such as the Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury and Penguin.

Entry & applying

We normally make offers between 200-240 UCAS tariff points, plus GCSE English Language at grade C. BTEC National Diploma/International Baccalaureate/Advanced Progression Diplomas at equivalent tariff. Access to HE - Pass. Applications from candidates without formal qualifications are welcomed. Additionally overseas students whose first language is not English will need a qualification that demonstrates competence in English, eg IELTS 6.0 or TOEFL 550 paper-based or 213 computer based.

Apply now

Qualifications accepted

For a comprehensive list of qualifications accepted by Middlesex, see further information under entry requirements

English language requirements

You must have competence in English language and we normally require Grade C GCSE or an equivalent qualification. The most common English Language requirements for international students are IELTS 6.0 (with minimum 5.5 in all four components) or TOEFL internet based 72 (with at least 17 in listening & writing, 20 in speaking and 18 in reading).

Middlesex also offers an Intensive Academic English course (Pre-Sessional) that ranges from 5-17 weeks depending on your level of English. Successful completion of this course would meet English language entry requirements. For more information on applying for the pre-sessional please email english@mdx.ac.uk.

Entry into year two or three (transfer students)

If you have achieved a qualification such as a foundation degree or HND, or have gained credit at another university, you may be able to enter a Middlesex course in year two or three. For full details of how this works see transfer students

UK/EU applicants with existing higher education qualifications

If you have already been awarded a qualification at the same level as the course you are applying for, you may not be eligible for a tuition fee loan, see fees and funding for more information.

Applying

Applications for UK and EU students should be made to UCAS – the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. The institution code for Middlesex is M80, and the code name is MIDDX. You also need the code for the course you wish to apply for – this is found in the 'at a glance' box above.

International students from outside the EU can make a direct application.  We have a network of regional offices across the world to assist you with your application.  They have worked with people from your region coming to Middlesex before and can help. Read more on international applications

Fees & funding

The tuition fee for the 2012/2013 academic year for UK/EU students is £9,000.
The tuition fee for the 2012/2013 academic year for International students is £10,400.

Click here to find out more about fees, funding and our scholarships in 2012.

Careers & placements

London offers excellent opportunities for experiences in a range of relevant publishing and media organisations. Together with our contacts in these industries, graduates have a broad range of exciting options; their skills are clearly transferable, and highly valued by employers in communications or information management industries, publishing, and media businesses. Equally, graduates can opt to take up postgraduate study in either theoretical or practical aspects of media communications.