MA, 1 year full time/2 years part time
Subject overview
In the Department of Media and Film at Sussex:
- we offer exceptional opportunities for graduate study, with innovative taught MA degrees and a range of supervision for MPhil and PhD research in theory and practice
- we have a thriving research culture in media theory and practice, with around 50 research students working alongside faculty each year
- we are rated joint 8th in the UK for research in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). 100 percent of our research was rated as recognised internationally
- we are ranked in the top 10 places to study in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2013, in the top 15 in the UK in The Sunday Times University Guide 2012 and The Complete University Guide 2014, in the top 25 in the UK in The Guardian University Guide 2014, and in the top 100 in the world for communication and media studies in the QS World University Rankings 2013
- we offer opportunities to make practical creative projects alongside conceptual and theoretical study
- we have dedicated state-of-the-art digital production facilities and links to the thriving creative and media scene in Brighton
- we are home to the Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies and the innovative Centre for Material Digital Culture.
Programme outline
This MA is associated with the acclaimed Centre for Material Digital Culture.
This course offers you an exciting opportunity to combine theoretical and practical work in a degree designed to give you an excellent working knowledge of the field of new media.
The MA is designed to offer advanced study of new media, aimed at graduates who wish to further their study and at professionals who wish to consider developments in the field of digital media/new media. While it is not a vocational degree, it will also be of interest to those seeking to enter new media industries.
Teaching is through lectures, seminars and hands-on workshops in small groups. This MA locates new media within the theoretical contexts of media and cultural studies. You will:
- gain hands-on experience of designing and developing new media products using industry-standard equipment and authoring tools
- work on a longer summer project, which may be theoretical, practical or based on a work placement.
We continue to develop and update our modules for 2013 entry to ensure you have the best student experience. In addition to the course structure below, you may find it helpful to refer to the 2012 modules tab.
Autumn term: you take the core modules Media Theory and Research • Theory and Practice of Interactive Media. Exceptionally, and with the approval of the course convenor, students with an undergraduate degree in media theory may opt not to take Media Theory and Research, and choose instead from Gender and Representation • Promotional Culture • Sound Environments.
Spring term: you take the core module New Developments in Digital Media. In addition, you choose one option from a list that may include Gender, Sexuality and Digital Culture • Media Technology and Everyday Life • New Moving Screens • Queering Popular Culture, or other options, as available.
Summer term: you undertake supervised work on a 18,000-word dissertation, or produce a practical project and accompanying 10,000-word critical report, or undertake a work placement and produce a report.
Assessment
Assessment is by term papers and project work and by an 18,000-word dissertation or multimedia project and report.
Current modules
Please note that these are the core modules and options (subject to availability) for students starting in the academic year 2012.
Core modules
Options
Expanded Media: Forms and Practices
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
This module looks at what happens when media forms overlap and interact. What new forms are created? What histories can be drawn upon? How does collaboration inform creative practice?
Through the exploration of global concepts such as (but not limited to) narrative (and anti-narrative), time and space, dreams, and memory, you will experiment and collaborate in ways that reflect the formal and thematic implications of the concepts discussed. Topics may include: theorisations on hybrid forms; expanded cinema; history of collaborative practice and experimentation; interactivity; notions of the avant-garde; synesthesia; site-specific media installations; and immersive technology.
Gender and Representation
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
This module addresses the gendered nature of both mainstream and minority discourses and representations in history and culture. It will introduce you to the conceptual and theoretical frameworks which facilitate understanding of the production and reception of powerful representations of masculinities, femininities and sexualities, and how gendered discourses operate in different spheres.
The first part of the module concentrates on key issues in feminist and queer theories, focusing specifically on the concepts of gender, representation, and constructions of masculinities, femininities and sexualities.
The second part of the module considers these theoretical constructs within the frame of various media-centred case studies. We will also examine the way in which theories of gender and representation across a number of academic disciplines are located within specific cultural and historical contexts which themselves are both structurally and institutionally gendered.
Media Theory and Research
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
The module offers you the chance to explore at an advanced level a number of principal theories and methods within a cultural studies approach to media studies, and to consider how these shape the ways we might think about and research particular media industries, forms and issues. The theory element aims to introduce you to the key thinkers, traditions and debates in media and cultural studies and contributing disciplines. It investigates media as institutions and systems of representation and explores problems of production and consumption in a variety of social and geo-political contexts. You will be encouraged to prepare informal presentations and to engage in discussion with other members of the seminar group. Each week there will also be a short introduction to the following week’s topic in the lecture given by members of the Media and Film faculty. The research element aims to develop a systematic and critical understanding of the practical, epistemological and ethical issues involved in conducting different kinds of media and cultural research. It also aims to make you methodologically self-conscious in your own research and written work.
Media, Culture and Communication
30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1
The module offers you the chance to explore at an advanced level a number of principal theories and methods within a cultural studies approach to media studies, and to consider how these shape the ways we might think about and research particular media industries, forms and issues. The module begins with a focus on questions concerning media production, distribution and consumption. In the latter part of the module, we pay attention to a variety of methodological approaches which draw attention in particular to different ways of conceptualising the relation between the media and concepts like subjectivity, identity, perception and experience.
The theory element aims to introduce you to the key thinkers, traditions and debates in media and cultural studies and contributing disciplines. You will investigate media as institutions and systems of representation and explore problems of production and consumption in a variety of social and geo-political contexts. You will be encouraged to prepare informal presentations and to engage in discussion with other members of the seminar group. Each week there will also be a short introduction to the following week’s topic in the lecture given by members of the Media and Film faculty. The research element aims to develop a systematic and critical understanding of the practical, epistemological and ethical issues involved in conducting different kinds of media and cultural research. It also aims to make you methodologically self-conscious in your own research and written work.
Media, Technology and Everyday Life
30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1
On this module you will explore historical and contemporary examples of technological innovation within the public and private spaces of the everyday. You will considers major theoretical approaches to the study of media technology and ask how a variety of new media forms – including television, radio, mobile communications, the internet and computers - are socially shaped, re-shaped, and experienced, and how everyday life itself might be theorised and/in relation to media. By the end of the module, you will have developed a critical awareness of your own relationship to media and information technologies, and be able to relate your experience to wider empirical evidence and historical and theoretical perspectives.
New Developments in Digital Media 1a
30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1
This module critically surveys developments in the expanding field of new media and explores the dynamics driving digital convergence, which is viewed as an industrial, political, social, economic and technological process. You will consider what drives convergence between previously discrete industries, technologies, and contents, and what limits convergence processes. You will explore key developments in the field of new media, including phenomena such as social networks, pervasive and locative technologies, new forms of knowledge organization and gathering.
The module is both theoretical and practical, with seminars exploring the areas outlined above through critical reading, while a series of workshops provide you with an understanding of core technologies underlying contemporary developments, and help you gain literacy in approaches to content development in this field.
Queering Popular Culture
30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1
This module offers you the chance to explore lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer contributions to, and perspectives on, the key fields of popular culture, including film, television, the press, popular music, fashion and style. Topics for detailed study will include lesbian representation in mainstream television genres; cinematic homosexualities and their historical context; lesbian and gay 'community television'; contemporary lesbian and gay magazines and newspapers; queer pop from David Bowie to the Pet Shop Boys and beyond; sexuality and style politics; and the pleasures and problematics of camp.
You will investigate issues of representation, consumption and interpretation; unravel debates over stereotyping, subcultures and sensibilities; and ask whether a specifically 'queered' critique of the existing academic discourses used in the study of popular culture is conceptually feasible and/or politically desirable. You can expect to sharpen and deepen your skills in interdisciplinary cultural analysis, and there will be a particular emphasis on a self-reflexive examination of (y)our own popular cultural tastes and practices, exploring the connections and contradictions between theoretical accounts of popular images and forms and our experiential investments in them as consumers located in (or interested in) sexual minorities.
The approach on this module is unrepentantly interdisciplinary - there is no overarching theoretical model to which you will be obliged to subscribe. Students with or without backgrounds in cultural studies will be made equally welcome.
Sound Environments (Theory)
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
This module examines sonic media creations and sound architectures, which may be physical, digital or hybrid, through alternating seminars and workshops. Seminars will provide interdisciplinary context and review a range of practices, while workshops afford a space for you to develop your ideas through practical work and theory. We consider the rapid development of interdisciplinary sound creation beyond the concert hall. Urban spaces as venues for creative work are considered alongside creative, curatorial and critical practices arising from networked sound technologies (streamed radio, distributed performance works, podcasts etc.) We also consider architectures where performance is integral. Earlier examples of the integration of architecture, space and organised sound include Sempers Fespielhaus in Bayreuth and LeCorbusier/Xenakis's Philips Pavilion. Today, digital processing opens up new performance possibilities including new notions of 'performative architectures'. You will write a term paper of 5,000 words in response to these ideas.
Theory and Practice of Interactive Media
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
Digital technologies are re-wiring established media cultures, transforming traditional media systems (television, cinema) and introducing new media networks (internet, mobile devices). This module explores aspects of this techno-cultural transformation, through both a practical exploration of the form and by considering critical debates exploring the power, force, significance and form of a series of new media texts, artefacts and systems. The module situates practices related to these forms in a media studies/cultural studies perspective and with reference to multi-disciplinary debates.
The module consists of a series of theory orientated seminars and project based workshops that are designed to give you a practical introduction to a range of software authoring tools widely used within the media. Early sections of the course are taught through discrete group-based tasks. During the latter stages of the module, you produce your own short terms papers and creative projects investigating an aspect of a new media artefact or system.
The module will equip you with the necessary production skills and theoretical frameworks to schedule and deliver these projects. This grounding will provide you with basic authoring skills, will give you the capacity to develop your skills further through individual study, and will also equip them to think critically about the forms and contents of contemporary media systems.
Entry requirements
UK entrance requirements
A first- or upper second-class undergraduate honours degree in an appropriate discipline. We also welcome applicants who do not have this academic qualification who are able to demonstrate in their application that they have relevant professional/creative skills and experience.
Overseas entrance requirements
Please refer to column A on the Overseas qualifications.
If you have any questions about your qualifications after consulting our overseas
qualifications table, contact the University.
E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk
Visas and immigration
Find out more about Visas and immigration.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5, with not less than 6.5 in Writing and 6.0 in the other sections. Internet TOEFL with 88 overall, with at least 20 in Listening, 20 in Reading, 22 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
Additional admissions information
If you are a non-EU student and your qualifications (including English language) do not yet meet our entry requirements for admission directly to this degree, we offer a Pre-Masters entry route. For more information, refer to Pre-Masters.
For more information about the admissions process at Sussex
For pre-application enquiries:
Student Recruitment Services
T +44 (0)1273 876787
E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk
For post-application enquiries:
Postgraduate Admissions,
University of Sussex,
Sussex House, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9RH, UK
T +44 (0)1273 877773
F +44 (0)1273 678545
E pg.applicants@sussex.ac.uk
Related programmes
Fees and funding
Fees
Home UK/EU students: £5,9001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £5,9002
Overseas students: £13,4503
1
The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2
The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3
The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
To find out about your fee status, living expenses and other costs, visit further financial information.
Funding
The funding sources listed below are for the subject area you are viewing and may not apply to all degrees listed within it. Please check the description of the individual funding source to make sure it is relevant to your chosen degree.
To find out more about funding and part-time work, visit further financial information.
Sussex Graduate Scholarship (2013)
Region: UK, Europe (Non UK), International (Non UK/EU)
Level: PG (taught)
Application deadline: 16 August 2013
Open to final year Sussex students who graduate with a 1st or 2:1 degree and who are offered a F/T place on an eligible Masters course in 2013.
Faculty interests
Our internationally respected research explores questions around the materialities, technologies and politics of cultural forms and formations. Researchers work on, across and through a range of media: film, television, radio, photography, and ‘new’ and interactive forms.
They specialise within three interlocking themes:
Cultural histories/cultural politics
Research is focused on histories of journalism and the public sphere and the relationships between cultures, technological change and social and political change. It also encompasses an analysis of the construction of national identities and borders, and their institutionalised histories and marginalised others.
Media technology, form and experience
The relationships between technology, form and experience are explored through studies of techno-cultural innovation, sense perception, and embodied experience. A key aspect, which builds on expertise in the Department, is the development of new critical frameworks for the exploration of new media forms and practices as they emerge in everyday life.
The politics of representation
The Department of Media and Film has long been a centre of excellence for research on gender, sexuality and representation. We continue to build on this through a concern with the images and narratives of popular culture, and the ways in which these construct identities and play on pleasures, fears and desires.
Individual research interests are briefly described below.
Dr Caroline Bassett New media technologies, most recently working on narrative and new media. Published widely on new media and gender.
Dr Michael Bull Works extensively on the nature of auditory experience. Specialises in the work of The Frankfurt School.
Wilma de Jong Researcher, scriptwriter, director and producer. Media and activism, independent production, documentary and news.
Andrew Duff Production tutor. Specialises in exploring reactive and interactive multimedia, experimental digital and analogue audio.
Melanie Friend Documentary photographer. Representations of conflict and trauma, asylum detention in the UK.
Lee Gooding Senior production tutor. Has produced a range of programmes for a number of organisations.
Adrian Goycoolea Film-maker addressing issues of identity, exploring the intersections of personal memory with social and political histories.
Dr Ben Highmore The culture of daily life. Author of A Passion for Cultural Studies (2009); Ordinary Lives (2009).
Dr Gholam Khiabany Academic leader of the journalism degrees.
Dee Kilkelly Production tutor. Co-runs APT new media, a collective responsible for art events and club nights in and around Brighton.
Mary Agnes Krell Media artist whose work spans performance, digital media and narrative practices.
Dr Kate Lacey Gender, media and the public sphere. Has published widely on radio history and theory. Current work focuses on listening publics.
Andy Medhurst Post-war British popular culture; media representations of masculinity and homosexuality.
Dr Monika Metykova Lecturer in media communications/journalism studies.
Dr Sharif Mowlabocus Digital cultures, gender, sexuality and representation. Author of Gaydar Culture (2010).
Professor Sally R Munt Queer studies, cultural studies, identity and emotion. Co-author of Queer Spiritual Spaces: Sexuality and Sacred Places (2010).
Dr Kate O’Riordan Cultural studies of science and technology. Author of Human Cloning and the Media: from Science Fiction to Science Practice (2008); The Genome Incorporated (2010).
Dr Martin Spinelli Produces award-winning literary and experimental radio projects. Interests include radio art and sound poetry, and cultural studies.
Lizzie Thynne Film-maker who has exhibited widely in broadcast, festival and gallery contexts. Interests include auto/biography and surrealism.
Janice Winship Published on women’s magazines, advertising and consumption in the 20th century.
Kirk Woolford Media artist who engages in practice-led research to explore concepts that defy textual representation.
Careers and profiles
Our graduates have gone on to pursue careers in journalism, PR, marketing, web design, education and consultancy. Students have also gone on to further study or to work in academia. Employers of our graduates include the BBC, Cogapp, Digital Media Lab at Universidad Diego Portales and Makemedia.
Ayodeji's career perspective
‘Prior to starting the MA in Digital Media at Sussex I’d worked and gained some experience in the field, but I wanted to formalise and expand the knowledge and skills I’d acquired so I could improve my prospects in a competitive employment market.
‘Choosing Sussex truly paid off for me. You’re not spoon-fed information and the study system is structured to bring out the best in you – it helped me to see beyond what I thought were my limits. With critical appraisals, seminars, practical workshops and projects, I was able to express myself creatively, and in ways I never imagined I could.
‘Sussex prepared me for the job market and has had a great impact on my career. I learned skills that were vastly transferable and valuable. From my first job after graduation to starting and running my own digital media consultancy company, Insight, I feel safe to say that I learned a lot of what I know from the University.’
Ayodeji Adeyemi
Project Coordinator
Insight
For more information, visit Careers and alumni.
School and contacts
School of Media, Film and Music
The School of Media, Film and Music combines rigorous critical and historical studies of media, film, music and culture with opportunities for creative practice in a range of musical forms and the media of photography, film, radio, and interactive digital imaging.
School of Media, Film and Music,
University of Sussex, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9RG, UK
T +44 (0)1273 873481
E mfm@sussex.ac.uk
School of Media, Film and Music
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