About this course
- Entry year: 2012/13
- Course code: P39012
- Applications: University
- Level: Postgraduate
- Department: Creative Industries
- Campus: Bower Ashton
- Duration: MA 18 months full-time, 36 months part-time.
Postgraduate Diploma 9 months full-time, 12 months part-time.
Introduction
UWE's critically acclaimed insight into the contemporary convergent media culture of the 21st Century and utilising a studio ethos structured around common projects run in interdisciplinary teams (including interactive media, video production, writing, direction, theoretical research), the course offers a postgraduate degree structure constructed to encourage a multi vocal student cohort.
Staff
MA Media staff at UWE continue to play a pioneering role in the development of New Media Studies. We offer a concentration of academic expertise unparallelled in the UK. The lead Routledge textbook New Media; A Critical Introduction (2nd Ed 2009) was co-authored by members of the team involved in the delivery of this degree, and this academic strength is fully complemented by a strong team of practitioner-academics, many of whom also teach on the Faculty's award-winning undergraduate programme in Media Practice. Research activity within the School of Creative Arts has been recently judged to be world leading in the recently completed UK Research Assessment Exercise, and has been enhanced through the formation of UWE's Digital Cultures Research Centre, led by Professor John Dovey.
Our location
MA study and research in Media is sustained by a cultural ecology particular to Bristol. The region is big enough to support major international research projects such as the work undertaken at UWE, Hewlett Packard Labs and Watershed Media Centre, yet small enough for students to be able to access these resources. This interface is centred on the Pervasive Media Studio in central Bristol, which is the site for some of our MA teaching (See Watershed's iShed ). The Studio brings together researchers and commercial producers in the field of wireless applications including groundbreaking work on social gaming and Alternate Reality Games.
Postgraduate programmes help students to develop the critical, creative and technical skills to either work professionally or to undertake further study in the rapidly evolving world of media. We aim to support students' creative abilities in both thinking and practice. Former students have established themselves successfully in the media industry and also as independent practitioners, or gone on to complete doctoral research and enter academic careers.
Contact us
Dr Tom Abba
Thomas2.Abba@uwe.ac.uk
General enquiries
+44 (0)117 32 84716
sca.enquiries@uwe.ac.uk
Structure
Content
The course is taught by experienced academics, film-makers, interactive designers, scriptwriters and researchers, and encourages an approach that acknowledges the pursuit of both practice and theory in a context designed to exploit the creative tension between the two. Through a combination of lecture series, symposia and workshop programmes, the course requires students to address:
- the study of cultural practices and media forms
- concepts of 'value' in the digital economy
- media as ecological systems
- multiplatform production
- established, and new methods of media production
- debates around narrative, non-narrative and deconstructed story forms
We recruit from a diverse constituency of media practitioners and interested researchers - filmmakers, designers, editors, writers, critics, and directors - our students follow a programme pathway consisting of core modules; Media: Practice and Culture I, II and III, supplemented by either Critical Debates in Cultural Theory or Principles of Practice and a Faculty-wide option module.
Each module is delivered through an experimental and exploratory approach to the creative production and design of media, founded on collaborative, interdisciplinary practice. The programme is designed to accommodate a Blended Learning mode of delivery, with flexible modes of attendance at key points in the course.
The full masters programme comprises 180 credits divided into three 60 credits stages: Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma, and Masters. Students work incrementally through the three stages and must pass all modules at each stage in order to progress to the next.
Students may join the programme as either full-time or part-time students.
Full-time students typically study for three semesters over 18 months, part-time students study for six semesters over three years. A semester is a 15-week period of study and generally runs September to January and February to June.
Special Features
Study facilities
Resources and Facilities
Postgraduate study of media in the Department of Creative Industries is supported by excellent resources, studios and facilities, a strong team of technical support staff in our faculty Media Resource Centre and Epicentre, and interdisciplinary practice and research links with other postgraduate programmes in the department. A full programme of guest lectures by visiting writers, directors, photographers, digital artists and theorists completes the picture, and underpins our teaching programme.
Entry
Fees
Full details of fees for this course can be found on our postgraduate fees pages.
For funding options, please see our funding and scholarship information.
How to apply
There is no official closing date and we accept applications throughout the year.
Applications for this course can be made by using the "Apply for this course link" within the "Next steps" box.
For further information
Page last updated 14 December 2011