Media and Film & Television

Core modules

Reading the Screen: Approaches to Film and Television studies

Reading the Screen provides the vital foundations for further study of film and television. It stresses the importance of film and television as cultural forms and explores ways through which we can make sense of them, investigating them as objects of study and account for their similarities and their differences.

International Cinemas I

Complementing Reading the Screen, this module provides you with an introduction to a range of non-Hollywood cinemas to give you a growing awareness of the diversity of international cinema in terms of its stylistic choices and the contexts to which it responds. Cinemas which are typically covered will include European, Asian and African ones but may also embrace other world cinemas.

Understanding Media

This module explores representation and identity; media production and regulation; the way media forms are consumed; and what it's like to work in the media. Throughout this module, you'll investigate the place of media within culture and society more generally and be introduced to principle theories, concepts and approaches.

Screen and Sound Media: Culture and Practice

This module introduces you to a range of key academic texts that examine and theorise screen media (film, television, the computer etc.) and sound media (popular music etc.). You'll also produce a group project based on media culture or media practice.

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Introduction to Media Practice and Production

This module provides a foundation in the skills required for effective media project work. It explores the principal elements of creating media content through understanding narrative, still and moving image and sound, and the practical and theoretical relationship between those elements.

Some optional modules may be studied on the City campus.

Core modules

Media, Theory and Society

Develop your knowledge of theoretical approaches to understanding the media and culture. This module will help you to understand some of the key theoretical approaches that are used in the study of media, communication and culture. You'll develop a familiarity of important theoretical approaches used in contemporary media and for the use of cultural analysis.

Theorising the Screen

This module explores some of the key theories that have shaped our understanding of the screen. It draws upon classic works of film theory and television studies as well as theories that have adhered to more marginal and alternative screens, audiences, and industries.

Humanities in the workplace

This module will give you a taste of live industry experience. You will complete a placement, write a report around your experience and follow clear work-based learning objectives.

Media optional modules

Analysing Popular Music

Analysing Popular Music has two major concerns: firstly, to develop a social understanding of transatlantic popular music and secondly, to develop a cultural-historical perspective on its development over the past 100 years and more. This module introduces you to theoretical approaches to the study of popular music, allowing you to engage in independent critical analysis of popular music and popular musical cultures.

Creative Documentary

This module will encourage you to examine  the key critical issues of documentary production such as authenticity and ethics. To prepare you for your dissertation in Year Three, you'll create a 5-10 minute documentary as a group (or individually) and be encouraged to creatively and critically engage with the given styles and genres of documentary.

Researching Media, Communication and Culture

This module introduces the key empirical methods and analytical approaches of Media and Cultural Studies. It enables you to produce original research, and to gain greater understanding of the methods you might use in your Media dissertation. It outlines a range of methods, and shows how these can be applied to particular media and cultural case studies.

Intermediate Media Practice and Production

During this module you'll undertake an in-depth media production project for and with a local external not-for profit, charitable or voluntary organisation. This module will focus on developing your skills in media production and you'll reflect on issues surrounding citizenship and media access.

Film & TV optional modules

British Cinema

This module examines British Cinema since the 1960s. It looks at a wide range of films to understand how British cinema represents issues such as nation, class, race and gender. It discusses key genres, movements and theoretical debates.

Analysing British Television

This module introduces you to key ways of understanding the development of British television. It examines the evolution of British television industries and institutions from their beginnings up to the present, looking at important factors and influences that have shaped the industry over time. It explores different accounts of â€کBritishness' both in television shows or formats and in the relationship between television producers and audiences.

European Cinema and the City

This module starts from the dual observation that cinema is the art of the modern and that the city is the space of the modern. It builds on this to examine the interaction of cinema and the urban: how film has both represented and been shaped by the city.

Some optional modules may be studied on the City campus.

Core module

Dissertation

The final year dissertation module enables you to undertake a sustained, single piece of independently researched work on a topic of your choice, under expert supervision.

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Humanities Research Project

Explore your interests in a way that draws on both subject areas. Combine the knowledge and skills you have gained in each of your subjects to complete an interdisciplinary piece of research. You can deliver your project either as a written dissertation or through an alternative creative format such as a publication, film, podcast, website, or performance, supported by a shorter essay.

Media optional modules

Lifestyle and Consumer Culture

Explore key approaches to understanding lifestyle and the culture of consumption. You'll be introduced to many important theoretical approaches to understand lifestyle and consumer culture and you'll use many case studies such as travel and tourism to evaluate these.

Cultural Policy

Explore a range of debates within the developing field of policy study which relate to the development of media. You'll examine some of the key institutions within which policies relating to film, television, the visual arts, heritage and other creative industries are determined. You'll explore questions such as: what is cultural value and how important are the cultural and creative industries?

The Body and Popular Culture

How is the body represented in popular culture? Examine key ideas such as how we might understand the various meanings surrounding the body across a range of media and cultural forms. By studying a selection of case studies, you'll explore the way that the body is addressed and located within popular culture, for example, from music to sport.

Client-Led Media Practice and Production

During this module you'll be able to focus on the development of skills in media production by completing a media project that will be set to a 'real brief'. This is an opportunity for you to enhance your employability options by participating in live projects with a real purpose. This module will encourage you to make connections between theory and practice.

Film & TV optional modules

American Television since 1950

This module examines American television from the 1950s to the current moment. It moves from the emergence of the Classic Network Era through to the Post-Network era of digital television. It places American television in its historical, industrial and cultural context. It considers the formal and aesthetic properties of American television programmes and engages with the organisation and history of network television (for example NBC) and cable television (for example HBO).

American Cinema since 1949: Margins and Mainstreams

This very popular module explores American cinema from 1949 to the present day by looking at different but interrelated areas of production, typically including Hollywood, the independent sector, and the experimental-underground cinema.

International Cinemas II

This module considers a variety of subjects pertaining to the study of international cinemas. Issues and concepts such as slow cinema, New Wave cinema, Diasporic filmmaking and world cinema blockbusters will feature amongst case studies of European, South American and Asian cinemas. While it will pay due attention to film style and form and to the way films engage with socio-cultural and political contexts, it will also examine the policy and film industrial frameworks within which film is produced.