MA Media & Communications

Join a pioneering MA Media and Communications programme in a world-leading department. Founded in 1993, this Master's programme reflects the research-led interdisciplinary approach we take to media and communications that has made us leaders in the field. We value the creative and the critical and their interrelationships, to explore and interrogate how the complex, mediated worlds we live in work.

• You’ll study in one of the top Media, Communications and Cultural Studies departments globally. We are ranked second in the UK for 'world-leading or internationally excellent' research (Research Excellence Framework, 2021) and 16th in the world (third in the UK) in the 2024 QS World Rankings by Subject.
• The programme aims to provide you with ways to understand, analyse and intervene within the complex, mediated worlds we live in, from how the digital age has transformed our communicative experiences to how the mediated worlds impact the rituals of our daily lives. Read more about the subject matters you will explore.
• Our teaching is theory-driven, but you will also have the opportunity to undertake a practice option in a range of areas, including journalism, campaigns and design, and the Screen School.
• You’ll complete a dissertation, where you will research a subject that ignites your interest. From creativity and AI, and post-pandemic digital practices to queerness in gaming, these are just some of the topics that past students have researched, but your dissertation topic is entirely up to you.
• We encourage you to look at issues holistically. Alongside lectures and seminars, we run workshops, screenings and cultural trips to encourage you to explore the role of the media in our lives as widely as possible – from the individual and organisational level to corporations, the state, and the market across both the public and private sectors.
• Every year we change the content you study to relate to existing issues, so we’ll always be working on what’s current. We take a collaborative approach, bringing in many different intellectual ideas and calling upon a whole range of ways of thinking which have been traditionally compartmentalised.
• Together, we will investigate modern-day issues to establish how the media are implicated in different aspects of life and the way the world functions.