BA (Hons) Media and Communications

AI Creative Practice

This module introduces you to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within contemporary creative practice. It is designed to develop awareness, confidence, and a basic critical understanding of how AI is used across creative disciplines. 

You will be introduced to the ways AI intersects with areas such as writing, media production, performance, audio, and visual design. Early teaching provides an accessible overview of key ideas including authorship, originality, bias, and ethical considerations. 

Following this, you will undertake an individual exploration into the use of AI within a chosen creative context or area of practice. This exploration may involve practical experimentation, comparison of outputs, or a combination of both. 

The emphasis of the module is on exploration rather than technical mastery. You will be encouraged to try out AI tools, observe their effects, and begin to recognise your own judgement in relation to the outputs you produce. 

Foundations of Screen Story 

This module introduces you to the fundamental principles of narrative design for the screen. Lectures and screenings deconstruct how stories are built, sustained, and resolved across a wide range of screen narratives and forms.  

You will learn the core underpinnings of screen story – character, structure, conflict, theme, and genre – while appreciating how different disciplines (production, directing, writing, audio, VFX, production design, editing, cinematography, etc.) contribute to and shape narrative meaning. Core focuses concern the nature and importance of creative collaboration, artistic vision and voice, and ‘influencers’ from the past and historical contexts. 

The module is not practice-based in production terms, but analytical and creative, encouraging a critical eye and a passionate engagement. It prepares you to write better scripts, shoot more purposeful coverage, design more expressive sound and visuals, and critique media more intelligently.

Understanding Media and Communications

This module aims to support you in your transition into higher education. It aims to develop your understanding of some of the key concepts, issues, critical perspectives and methodologies that constitute our approach to learning, studying and teaching media.

During this module, you will also develop transferable skills in research and analysis. 

Introduction to Journalism

This module considers developments in journalism. It examines the significance of newspapers; addresses news values; explores news production and consumption; and reflects on reporting in new mediascapes.

The module tackles the way narratives are organised, structured and shared, and aims to enable you to both analyse and construct stories. 

Screen Development and Audience

This module aims to introduce you to the relationship between screen genres and audience expectations across film, television, and digital content.

It focuses on how genre conventions such as narrative, character, and visual style are used to engage audiences and how these conventions are repeated and adapted over time.

The module also introduces you to the idea that screen content is developed with particular audiences in mind, using genre as a starting point for both analysis and creative thinking.

Media Production Toolkit

This module provides you with a technical and collaborative “toolkit” for the modern creator economy, centred on the production of a high-quality “Pocket Podcast” series. Working in production crews (group work), you will mirror industry workflows to navigate the full lifecycle of a digital series. 

The curriculum is structured to provide equal weighting between planning, studio production, postproduction (editing), and content delivery. You will move from initial concept development to planning the studio setups (3-point lighting, depth of field control) and capturing high-fidelity audio. 

In the postproduction phase, teams will focus on high-retention editing techniques, sonic branding, and the creation of “Hot Link” social media assets.

The module culminates in the group delivery of a Production Portfolio pack, detailing a 10-episode seasonal arc, alongside the execution of the first three episodes of the series.

Projects

The module provides a structured framework within which you will undertake a suite of specialist projects appropriate to your degree programme, developing independent working practices.

You will be expected to respond to multiple project briefs (typically 2-4) across two semesters, managing time, resources, and creative or research-based workflows. 

The projects support the development of discipline-specific technical, creative, and analytical skills to a standard appropriate for progression to major projects and career preparation. Most projects will require team/group work and collaboration, sometimes between degree pathways, reflecting industry practice wherever possible. 

You should engage with non-practical forms of inquiry (e.g., essays, reports, case studies, critical analyses) alongside practical production, fostering critical reflection and research literacy. 

The module prepares you to evaluate your own work against professional, academic, or audience-facing criteria, articulating strengths, weaknesses, and lessons for future practice. This will in most cases involve team/group work on the projects themselves, and working to fixed delivery deadlines across both semesters. 

Alongside the project(s) outcomes, be that written or practical, students document and critically reflect upon their research, creative influences, production processes, and final outcomes through a structured individual portfolio. 

All productions/projects should be analysed using the BFI Albert Sustainable Production Framework.

The Art of the Interview

This module aims to explore a range of interview techniques and styles as employed by researchers, documentarians and journalists.

As such, the focus of the module is on ‘factual’ stories and those who can reveal them.

You will also examine the role ethics play in the development and presentation of interviews. 

Marketing and PR in the Music Industry

This module aims to develop your understanding of marketing and public relations within the contemporary music industry.

It explores how artists and music products are promoted across a range of platforms, with a focus on audience engagement, branding, and campaign development.

You will also be introduced to the role of media and journalism in music promotion, including the function of the music press, online media, reviews, and interviews in shaping artist visibility and public perception.

You will consider how marketing, PR and media coverage work together within wider industry contexts. 

Adaptation

This module explores adaptation as a process of interpretation, transformation and creative authorship, examining how source material is reshaped for screen, digital, and interactive storytelling.

You will analyse and reinterpret a wide range of materials (fiction, non‑fiction, real events, folklore, and existing narrative frameworks), investigating how meaning can shift when a story is transformed for a new audience, form or medium.

A key focus is on decision-making in adaptation, including perspective, theme, structure, originality versus familiarity, and how to balance innovation with recognisable elements.

The module also examines why stories are adapted at all, drawing on adaptation theory, folklore evolution, and the changing function of stories through history.

Adaptation is presented not as direct translation but as creative construction, encouraging you to develop your voice through interpretation, reframing, and narrative transformation.

Digital Journalism

This module aims to develop your ability to produce journalism for contemporary digital platforms, with a focus on podcasting and video-based content such as YouTube.

It explores how journalistic content is shaped by format, platform and audience, and supports the development of work that reflects current industry practices.

Dissertation

You will undertake a substantial, self-directed project (group or individual) that represents the culmination of your undergraduate study.

It will require you to synthesise, where applicable, technical skills, theoretical knowledge, creative vision, and professional practices to produce a substantial piece of original work (group or individual) accompanied by an individual portfolio exploring research methodologies and underpinned by critical reflection. 

The dissertation is defined not by a single format, but by its significance, ambition, and rigour. You will propose and execute a project that aligns with your discipline while demonstrating an understanding of its context within the broader screen arts landscape. Unlike traditional written dissertations, this module accepts diverse outputs—from films and screenplays to audio dramas, sports documentaries, essays, media campaign analyses, or technical portfolios—as long as they are underpinned by systematic research and critical reflection. 

All productions/projects should be analysed using the BFI Albert Sustainable Production Framework.

Documentary Project

This module develops your ability to research, design and produce short documentary work across a range of contemporary factual forms. It introduces you to both traditional and powerful story‑led documentary approaches and contemporary factual‑entertainment styles commonly seen in online spaces, including YouTube explainers, short‑form digital features and social‑platform factual content. 

You will explore the practical, conceptual and ethical demands of documentary production, learning how to shape factual material into engaging screen content for real audiences.

The module emphasises the increased cultural visibility and influence of online documentary formats and encourages students to consider and appreciate both traditional narrative forms of documentary storytelling and modern emergent documentary practices. 

You will work independently to produce a five‑minute documentary, drawing on prior knowledge and expanding your skills in research, interviewing, shooting, producing and editing.

A research portfolio supports the development of your film and demonstrates your ability to conduct, annotate and apply research from multiple sources. 

Gaming and Interactive Narratives

This module explores video games and interactive media as complex narrative systems, examining how story, play, technology and culture intersect within contemporary gaming environments. 

You will investigate how narrative operates within interactive forms, engaging critically with the combination of narratology versus ludology, player agency, avatars, worldbuilding and choice‑based storytelling.

Alongside narrative design, the module situates games within wider media ecologies, exploring game genres, fandoms, economies and the use of addictive or persuasive technologies. 

The module balances practical creative development and critical enquiry. You will develop an original game or interactive narrative idea through a professionally produced pitch document or slide deck, supported by a research portfolio that situates your concept within theoretical, cultural and industrial contexts. 

The module is suitable for students interested in writing, narrative design, interactive media theory and immersive storytelling, and encourages independent research, critical thinking and creative experimentation. 

Creative Portfolio

This module supports you in developing a professional creative portfolio that clearly communicates your skills, identity and ambitions within the creative industries. It builds on work produced across earlier modules and focuses on curation, presentation and strategy, rather than volume of output. 

You will be encouraged to create either a simple online portfolio website using an appropriate portfolio‑building platform, or a professionally designed PDF portfolio for those who prefer an offline alternative. You will also be invited to explore show reels as a critical component of some creative portfolios. Overall, the emphasis is on clarity, selection and intent, ensuring that work is framed appropriately for its intended audience. 

Alongside portfolio creation, the module introduces key principles of personal branding, creative entrepreneurship and career sustainability. You will develop a forward‑looking plan that outlines your intended career direction over the next five years, how your portfolio will support this trajectory, how you will maintain engagement with the industry, and how you intend to adapt your practice in a changing creative landscape. 

The module is highly independent and student‑led, encouraging you to take ownership of your creative identity, reflect on prior learning, and articulate purposeful next steps beyond graduation.