Global Journalism and Public Relations MA

Course overview

Covering key areas ranging from legal and ethical issues to interviewing, writing, broadcast and web skills, this course prepares you for global journalism and public relations practice and analysis in a digital and diverse world.

• Benefit from our current links with the media industry, including ITV and the BBC, and previous links with Al Jazeera and Africa-based media and online outlets here in the UK and elsewhere including the USA².
• The course is taught by experienced tutors with decades of practical journalism and public relations experience, and in addition, you will have opportunities² to attend guest lectures by top as well as upcoming journalists and public relations practitioners, including alumni (subject to availability).
• Gaining hands-on experience², you will be expected to work as part of a team on group projects, such as a magazine (see our Magcloud site) and a global collaborative newscast themed around pressing contemporary issues.

Why you should study this course

• You will be taught and mentored very well by a highly experienced teaching team, whose former roles have included contributing to Al Jazeera’s global media analysis show ‘The Listening Post’, managing communications and PR in Oxford, and editing commercial magazines.
• We have links with the journalism-media industry, including BBC and ITV in the UK, so we host high-profile guest speakers (subject to availability), who in the past have included a BBC Director-General, Channel 4 founder, a highly respected Channel 4 News anchor and a famous BBC Newsnight presenter.
• We help you to acquire the essential knowledge and practical skills needed for a successful career in global journalism or public relations as we get you used to working with multiple forms of media – generating traditional print, audio and video content, all the while embracing new technologies and creating parallel digital content, including social media, blogs and web-based content.
• You get opportunities to work individually and as part of a team on live projects such as a magazine, a global collaborative newscast and student union publications-broadcasts, among others².
• Facilities⁴ include newsrooms equipped with industry-standard hardware and software, a modern TV studio, radio studios and Media Loan Shop for professional equipment.

Careers and opportunities

Upon successful completion of this course, you should know how to:

• create content that exhibits awareness of global events and issues to professional standards, for broadcast, print, online-digital and social media
• understand how global journalism and PR work and how they relate to politics, international relations, business and society in general
• apply a wide range of journalism and communication skills as well as knowledge, to the production of content that exhibit global awareness, to professional standards
• work creatively, sustainably and independently within professional situations, employing a range of journalism and public relations strategies and techniques
• critically evaluate and analyse the broad range of factors that impinge upon professional and creative activities within global journalism and the broader communications industry
• demonstrate the ability to identify and successfully engage with a range of audiences, genres and media platforms within global journalism and public relations
• confidently prepare to apply for job roles within journalism, media, communication and PR.

This course prepares you for a broad range of positions in regional, national or international journalism, media, communications and PR – as a researcher, reporter, writer, editor or presenter, for example.

Career prospects are vast and varied, from established national and international media outlets, broadcasting organisations, newspapers and magazines, to emerging broadcast contexts, such as web-based text journalism, web-TV and web-radio.

Our Talent Team is on hand to offer tailored career and enterprise support if you wish to gain employment or take advantage of professional practice opportunities within course-specific industries². The course equips students for work in a wider range of careers that require transferable knowledge and skills such as global awareness, research, writing and communication with specific or general audiences including via various media. Our dedicated enterprise officers also can offer valuable assistance on how to begin as a freelancer/entrepreneur.