The opportunity to engage in stimulating debates and gain practical experience of the media and cultural sector is the central focus of this BA.

The course has been created to examine the prominent role of the media alongside parallel developments in contemporary culture. You will explore theories drawn from disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. You will also become familiar with the roles that the press, photography, cinema, television and new media play in reflecting and shaping cultural life. The course will enable you to apply theoretical approaches when you are introduced to a range of media practices including journalism, radio production and film-making during the first two years of the programme.

The Media and Cultural Studies degree is not a vocational course. You are not being trained to be a photographer or a journalist or a television producer. Instead, you will develop a range of transferable skills - the capacity to organise your ideas and make arguments, critique cultural objects and cultural practices, understand how the media is organised and how it shapes content. You will meet a range of practitioners from across the media and cultural industries and develop a capacity to present your ideas in a creative and authoritative way.

In the second year you will undertake work experience within a chosen sector of the media and cultural industries such as advertising agencies, art galleries, museum, magazines, radio stations and television production companies. You will understand current developments across the cultural sector (this will be applied through the work placement) and you can take advantage of the networking opportunities available across University of the Arts.

What students say about the course

"Doing this course and attending university has been the best decision I have ever made in my life. I have been able to go places, see things, experience things and learn things which wouldn't have been available to me otherwise. Thanks for putting together not only a relevant, useful and challenge course but a course which has sent me on a journey of self discovery, self awareness and gave me a sense of perspective and context as to why the world is how it is." (Daniel Uwagbae, Year 3 MCS)

"I have not regretted the decision to do the BA in Media and Cultural Studies for one minute. The degree combined so many different facets and fields of interest that I gained enormous knowledge about all aspects of the media and culture industry. It also taught me about the importance of studying human existence since the Enlightenment and illuminated the topic of modernity and postmodernity. To put it in other words, the course has inspired me tremendously and I have not only gained a vast basic knowledge that only very few courses could have provided me with, but also found my future job interest." (Sandra Schustermann)

"Use the course and make it yours. It will provide you with the foundations to understand the media. It will also grant you the time to do work experience, which, if you want to work in the industry, is of paramount significance. I interned and I worked whenever I could from year one. I started at CNN, then went on to Time Out, and did my official work placement at MTV in New York, producing a chart show, which soon led me to work on shows like The Osbournes and the MTV Europe Music Awards. By the time I wrote my dissertation (titled 'Commodifying Rebellion: Thirty Years of Punk and Media Dialectics') I had accumulated vast knowledge of anything related to the media and its receivers (all of us) and numerous professional credits." (Davide Scalenge)

Year 1

In Year 1 you are introduced to the core theories of Media and Cultural Studies. We ask questions about culture and cultural differences, about the organisation of the media, about its histories and the histories of technologies, about identities.

We think about the effects of globalisation and digitalisation. We develop a range of different ways to analyse texts (films, advertisements, photographs, television programmes) and to explore and understand media and culture.

On the practical side students undertake a practice-based course each term, such as feature writing, radio production and introduction to film-making. These courses are taught by practitioners - people who work in various areas of the creative industries. While these applied parts of the programme are intrinsic to the way we think about media and culture they do not mean that this programme is a 'practical' course - by exploring aspects of practical media work you will gain insights into the media and cultural industries and your practical work will help illuminate aspects of the theory that we study in other areas of the degree.

Year 2

In Year 2 the theoretical approaches become more focused. We consider the centrality of consumer culture to contemporary identities and look at how consumption is related to media cultures and practices such as branding and design. We also explore the way new media technologies and social networking are changing people's relationship to media and culture and how these changes are part of a process known as 'globalisation'.

In the second year we have a strand of the programme that focuses on working in the media and cultural industries. You will go on visits to different media organisations and you will meet a range of people working in different fields. You will also begin to understand ideas about the 'sociology of the workplace' and the nature of work, how it is changing as a result of new media practices for example.

This strand prepares you for the work placement you will undertake in the summer term of Year Two. We help you find the placement but the process of obtaining one is an important part of your personal and professional development.

Year 3

In Year 3 you focus in the first term on two courses that complement each other - Travelling Cultures (considering the travel, tourism, mobility, displacement and identity shapes cultural artefacts, identities and social lives) and a specific areastudy of Latin American Media and Culture. You also find out about research methods to help you develop your final project. You will also explore the latest developments in media and cultural studies.

The final part of the degree is the dissertation. This gives you the opportunity to focus on a piece of research developed around an area of study that you are particularly interested in.

The Media and Cultural Studies degree is not a vocational course (you are not being trained to be a photographer or a journalist or a television producer).

Instead the programme develops a range of transferable skills - you develop a capacity to organise your ideas and make arguments, to critique cultural objects and cultural practices, to understand how the media is organised and how this organisation shapes content.  You meet a range of practitioners from across the media and cultural industries, you become more confident and develop a capacity present your ideas in a creative and authoritative way.

You will understand current developments across the cultural sector (this will be applied through the work placement) and you can take advantage of the networking opportunities available across the University of the Arts.

The skills and knowledge you develop will be invaluable when you leave the programme, either to continue studying at post-graduate level or entering the media and cultural industries where portfolio careers (often freelance) require a range of working practices. These involve a myriad of activities from creative production to curating, promoting, marketing, organising and networking.

2 A levels plus 5 GCSEs (A-C), or equivalent qualifications, or relevant professional experience/experiential learning, or a combination of formal qualifications and experiential learning.

Please apply through UCAS.

NON-EU INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS: If you are an international student and you are unsure of how to apply please contact the International Office first before applying - call +44 (0)20 7514 8138.