Degree Structure
Semesters, modules, credits
The BA in Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies is a three-year, full time, modular and semesterised scheme. This means:
Your work is arranged in modules, or separate teaching and learning units for which you will normally receive 20 credits each, within two periods of time each year known as semesters.
Most modules comprise 12 weeks teaching, usually including a reading week. The rest of the semester is devoted to exams and other kinds of assessment, along with the lengthy processes of marking and exam boards.
Year One
Year One consists of four compulsory modules:
Autumn Semester
- MC1110 History of Mass Communication and Culture
- MC1115 Media Scholarship (core module for single honours only)
Spring Semester
- MC1578 Understanding Journalism Studies
- MC1114 Representations (core module for single honours only)
Year Two
Year Two modules are designed to develop and refine ideas and arguments introduced in Year One.
Modules are still taught mainly using a lecture/seminar format, although the tasks developed in seminars will be more ambitious. You will be working both on your own and in groups, and will begin to experiment with and design methodological procedures for small scale research work. This year’s work includes three more advanced core modules and a choice of electives (modules you have chosen). By the end of the year, you will have the skills necessary to write a dissertation in Year Three, with the help of the supervising tutor, if you want to do so.
Year Two Core Modules
- MC3577 Popular Culture
- MC3603 Media and Democracy
- MC3551 Doing Media Research
- MC2116 Media, Power, Society
Year Three
You will build on the first two years, pursuing a wide range of more specialist and advanced areas of study.
Year 3 elective modules include:
- British Comedy: Identity, Class and History
- Cultural Agency: Theory and Practice
- Dissertation
- Global Postcolonial Culture
- Horror, Fantasy and the Media
- Journalism, New Media and the Public
- Media Law
- Media, Racism, Conflict
- Mediating Childhood
- Popular Music and Identity
- Quality TV Drama
- Spin Un-Spun: Public Relations and the News Media
- The Creative and Cultural Industries
- The Making and Shaping of News
- The Mediation of Political Violence
- Writing for the Media Today
- Writing with Light
All modules, at this level, will involve research led teaching, and you will often be expected to carry out small scale research, writing and new media based projects in these more specific areas of study.
You will have a choice modules allowing you to specialise in areas of interest. Each module is 20 credits where the dissertation is 40 credits.
While a number of these will be based on a lecture/seminar format, the range of teaching methods will be more diverse and involve assignments of greater complexity and challenge. You will apply theoretical ideas and approaches to practical as well as academic work.
Joint Honours Degrees
We currently run two joint degree schemes: with Sociology and with English Literature. If you study on one of these joint honours degrees you will divide your time equally between the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies and the other parent department.
This means taking 60 credits from each School each year. In Year Two you do not have to take our core modules, though you may choose to take them as electives. You will have a personal tutor in each of the two schools who will be able, for example, to advise on module choices in Years Two and Three.