School of Creative Arts, Film and Media (SCAFM)

Media

Increasingly, we gain a sense of the world and our place in it from the media - through the TV programmes we watch, the magazines we read and the web pages we view. You will explore the media as sources of information, entertainment and identity, as well as examine how a variety of different national media systems still manage to survive in an age of global media companies.

Media Studies at Portsmouth is unique in its scope and vitality. Our students are thinkers and doers, researchers and writers, critics and makers. We help them gain the skills and knowledge necessary to understand the nature and needs of contemporary media. The course is not just an intellectual project, but one where media production is available in various forms of Video Production and Media Writing. Overall, our attitude is that thinking and doing should not be taken in isolation. Our unique ideal of 'critical practice' is based on the notion the thinking should inform practice and vice versa.

You will be taught by specialist staff with strong research interests across a range of media. You will study a range of core units in media history and theory, film studies, popular culture, media policy and global media. We also have a range of optional units for you to choose from, which become broader as your studies develop. For example, you could choose to study new media, popular television, screenwriting, newspaper culture or television sitcoms.

We think that Media Studies is a new and exciting discipline that should be approached in fresh and innovative ways. We also believe that the media thinker should strive always to bridge the gap between the classroom and the outside world. In short, we think that Media studies should be real.