Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Digital Media and Communications

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

To survive, thrive and succeed in business, it’s not only about managing people, developing strategies and driving performance within the organisation. It’s also about understanding and engaging the market – identifying your position in the competitive landscape, developing an offering that meets demand and communicating with your target audience effectively.

With this business and marketing degree, you’ll delve into business operations, looking at how some of the world’s most successful organisations manage finances, lead staff and harness technology, as well as learning about the key issues in business today – from sustainable development to ethics in a global environment.

It’s a course that’s designed to help you prepare for the workplace, so we don’t limit your learning to the classroom or lecture theatre. Once you’ve discovered and discussed the theories in lectures and seminars, you’ll have the chance to turn ideas into action. We run various business and enterprise competitions that provide skill-building, CV-boosting experience. You will also have the option of spending a year on a placement, building on your skills in a professional environment.

As such, you’ll leave us with a blend of business understanding and marketing intellect. It’s a powerful mix. Whether you see yourself running a start-up, getting onto the fast-track to senior management or making waves in an agency environment, our BA (Hons) Business and Marketing can help you pave the way.

On this course you will study theoretical approaches to living in a digital society, coupled with an advanced understanding of social science research, and will have the option to specialise in either digital politics or digital society, or take a general route. This degree draws on academic expertise from both the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, and the Department of Sociology.

You will be introduced to an overview of qualitative and quantitative digital methods, while becoming familiar with the field of digital social research in its ever-growing diversity. You will be taught a set of professional skills necessary to be a successful digital researcher, whether in academia, policy, or industry. There is the option to specialise and graduate with a bracketed award through your choice of option units, allowing you to cater to your own individual interests and academic development.

MSc Digital Society (Digital Politics) will cover theories and practices of digital politics and media as well as an in-depth exploration of digital politics around the world.

MSc Digital Society (Digital Sociology) will cover theories and practices of digital sociology as well as an in-depth exploration of the global digital challenges and crises.

As the role of digital technologies, from social media through to algorithms and artificial intelligence, continue to play a prominent role in every aspect of social life, research into our digital society is becoming more and more significant. Many societies have seen a dramatic change in the way transport, consumption and other services are managed and delivered through apps, platforms, and other digital services. However, with the positives come many challenges, such as the inequalities digital technology generates in society and the rise of fake news, misinformation and cyberwarfare.

MSc Digital Society allows you to study this relationship between digital technologies and society in an interdisciplinary and research-informed environment. We aim to equip you with the tools needed to become an expert in understanding how digital technologies shape societies, nationally and internationally, through a range of units that take a global view; alongside research that draws on empirical examples from around the world. You will be taught by leading experts in the field who are engaged in research at the cutting edge of current developments, relevant to the lives of people across the globe. You will also become part of a community of staff and PhD students in the digital society research cluster, who can offer mentorship and knowledge exchange.

Why is our education system organized the way it is? How can those working within the sector influence social justice and empower those in education?

Throughout our Education course, you’ll explore these and other questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives. From media, youth and play to disability, citizenship and development you’ll consider issues such as the way education differs across national and international contexts.

We want to make your experience as interactive and collaborative as possible. The course is designed to introduce you to a range of current debates and contemporary issues in education, combined with practical experience.

As you progress through the degree, you will have the option to explore your personal journey within education, tailoring your study to your career intentions. You may opt for units focusing on issues such as global agendas in education, or volunteer in a nursery to understand child development. This course also offers the chance to explore areas of Secondary Education opening-up new, exciting, career opportunities.

You will be encouraged to take a critical perspective throughout, and you will balance academic skills with practical experience.

You’ll learn through a mix of lectures, projects and placements, tutorials, presentations and discussions. Some of the ways you might learn include group work with your peers, debating topical issues in education and delivering group presentations. This is to help you develop the confidence to present to an audience, whether you’re speaking to a classroom of eight-year-olds, your friends or educational professionals.

There is an increased need to visually communicate fashion-based ideas. This requires a creative who has a clear appreciation of and experience in developing fashion concepts, understanding and dealing with the associated critical pathways and the practical means by which to communicate. On this course, you will be encouraged to critically evaluate and creatively respond to these conditions and define your own new role within fashion.

You will be interested in the way fashion is consumed (beyond wearing it) and the opportunities this presents for developing innovative visual practice-based work. Fashion is changing due to many external factors such as digital platforms and media, and issues around sustainability. There are also changes in the role fashion plays and how it has become increasingly an exciting area for inter-disciplinary exploration within design, culture and society. At the heart of this are the new ways that fashion is becoming explored, extended, designed and consumed.

We will develop you to be a highly creative fashion visionary, with an emphasis to engage, explore, question, visualise, illustrate, develop and communicate fashion concepts, trends, products and ideas through publication, exhibition, art direction and styling.

Placement options
Contacts in all areas of the creative industries help with providing placements to enhance your experience of working in the fashion and design industry. You will be encouraged to take placements during your period of study.

Political and economic developments such as Brexit mean that international trade agreements, foreign direct investment and the attractiveness of where a company does business and accesses talent are more important than ever.

In the digital age, almost every business operates on the world stage and supplies to multiple countries. To help you compete in a hugely competitive global landscape, our International Business Management degree will give you a greater understanding of the nuances, challenges and opportunities of operating overseas.

Exploring enterprise, entrepreneurship and emerging markets

We’ll help you gain specialist knowledge in managing people of different cultures and backgrounds, and the political and governing structures of different markets that influence how businesses operate.

You’ll also develop the cross-cultural management skills you need to build international business relationships in often volatile political, cultural and economic environments.

Our International Business Management degree offers four-year routes where you can spend your third year on placement or study abroad at one of our overseas partner universities. Past students have worked for Johnson and Johnson in Tokyo, Hellman Worldwide Logistics in the USA and Warner Bros in London.

By the time you leave our business school, you’ll have the business knowledge and cross-cultural management skills to kick-start your career in the UK and abroad.

Study Abroad

Instead of a placement, you’ll have the opportunity to spend up to a year overseas, studying with one of our partner institutions across Europe, or beyond. Go abroad in the third year of your degree, and you’ll not only learn about other cultures, improve your language skills and discover more about yourself – you’ll also boost your career prospects.

Having first-hand knowledge of another country’s cultures and traditions can take you far in a range of careers. And, by going abroad you’ll also demonstrate the kind of independent spirit and adaptability that many employers want.

English and journalism have long been a strong partnership. Today, with the multimedia element, our Joint Honours Degree puts a modern spin on this most enduring of relationships.

This exciting course offers the chance to bring the former together with an up-to-the-minute, multimedia version of the latter, reflecting the demands of the modern media environment.

Today’s journalists are expected to operate across broadcast, print and online networks. With a broad range of units, we’ll give you all the skills you need to compete in this fast-moving world. You’ll learn from accomplished reporters and editors, drawing on extensive newsroom experience to give you industry-relevant understanding and insights.

You’ll also build a set of complementary skills through our range of English units, including critical and cultural theories, and textual analysis. Then when you get to your final year, you’ll have the chance to put those skills into practice – by tackling a substantial piece of project work, whether a portfolio of journalism or an extended piece of critical writing.

Along the way, you may have opportunities to study abroad and, if you wish, to do your third year as a placement - in Britain or abroad. You will be based in a lively department that is staffed by internationally renowned writers and critics, and there's a strong research culture, creating a learning environment that is both supportive and intellectually challenging.

Manchester has one of the biggest digital and creative sectors in the UK. With MediaCityUK, home to the BBC and ITV, it’s an ideal place for an ambitious journalist to build a network, gain experience and boost your career prospects.

Manchester has been identified as one of the major games industry hubs outside of London* (*source: 'A Map of the UK', Nesta, 2020). As home to organisations such as Gameopolis, the city is a driving force for building and coordinating the future of the games industry.

With our MSc in Computer Games Development, you’ll gain the skills required for an exciting career within this growing industry, both here in Manchester and beyond. You’ll learn the core essentials of programming for games and you’ll conduct playtesting sessions and user research to ensure that your games are fun, impactful, and that they effectively reach their target audience.

You will also complete a masters project. While you’ll have plenty of support along the way, it’s a solo research project designed to develop confidence, autonomy and self-sufficiency – qualities that can take you far in the workplace.

By the time you complete your masters, you’ll not only have the technical knowledge, you’ll also have gained key employability skills such as team working, communication, project management and negotiation skills. With the mentorship of passionate games-focused staff at Manchester Met, you will be able to build a refined and diverse portfolio, to help you work towards securing a job in the games industry.

The combination of digital and physical technologies that is driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) is changing our world. Our MSc Engineering Project Management offers the opportunity to develop management skills to implement technical strategies in projects across the engineering sector.

This course explores specialist challenges to the key objectives of innovation and sustainability in the delivery of new engineering systems, products, enterprise and services for Industry 4.0.

Throughout this course, you’ll develop specialist skills for the management of multidisciplinary projects along with techniques to manage the operational and developmental phases of product and system life cycles.

Our teaching staff come from a range of professional backgrounds with active networks in various sectors, from manufacturing engineering and environmental industries, to railways and built environment. Together, this multidisciplinary group will help you to become a rounded professional, ready to apply for engineering management roles in organisations globally.

Placement options

The optional industry placement provides the opportunity to apply academic knowledge in the workplace, as well as acquiring additional specialist expertise and transferable skills through responsibilities and contributions to the employer’s business.

Following the completion of the taught elements of their MSc course, students can gain additional practice credits by working for a minimum of 36 weeks and maximum 42 weeks (excluding paid and statutory holidays) in an industrial setting, relevant to the student’s course.

Students will be responsible for searching and applying for advertised placement opportunities, supported by academic staff and the University’s Careers and Employability Service.

All placements are approved and monitored in accordance with the University’s Institutional Code of Practice for Placement and Work?Based Learning, including additional checks for international students on study visas. Once a student secures an approved placement, an academic tutor and workplace mentor will be identified. The academic tutor will provide support and progress checks.

Explore the person-centered therapeutic process, brief interventions, and different approaches to psychotherapy. Practice core psychological skills, from therapeutic interventions to applied research and consultation. And, reflect on practitioner resilience and self-care.

On this course, you’ll explore the theories behind therapeutic methods related to promoting psychological wellbeing, and develop practical research skills.

You’ll study topics including the principles of therapeutic approaches (such as developing positive therapeutic relationships with clients and person-centered care), therapeutic strategies of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), including cognitive restructuring, and brief interventions, such as solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) and motivational interviewing.

In skills sessions, you’ll complete role-plays and scenario-based tasks to practise core therapeutic techniques, such as reflecting, identifying internal/external frames of reference, and Socratic questioning.

You’ll also reflect on practitioner wellbeing and development. Some of the themes you’ll consider include boundaries and safe practices, privilege and social responsibility, and core values and beliefs.

We’ll help you to develop your awareness of self-care through experiential learning groups based on your experiences and you’ll complete a practitioner log and reflective diary too.

You’ll have the opportunity to complete a service-related dissertation, connecting theory and practice, influencing service design and delivery for statutory and third sector organisations or people with particular vulnerabilities.

At Manchester Met, our teaching team includes practitioner psychologists (clinical, counselling, health and sports) with experience in working in NHS and private settings in the UK and internationally.

Games design offers a route into a form of entertainment that’s not only one of the world’s most popular but is also constantly evolving, innovating and redefining its own boundaries. In short, the games industry is an exciting place to be and our BSc (Hons) Games Design course can offer your route into it.

Throughout the course, you’ll find an activity-led approach focused on the practical processes of making games. So, with our support you’ll build up a strong portfolio of games and game-like artefacts. As you progress, you’ll have the chance to pursue the specialist areas of the discipline that interest you most, and with cutting-edge assessments like our ‘Game a Week’, you’ll also build up your abilities as a games designer. Then, in your final year, you’ll not only work solo on your own game, but also work on a large-scale game through a series of smaller projects within a simulated game studio.

The School of Digital Arts offers the perfect setting for that kind of collaboration. That’s because our innovative curriculum paves the way for the same cross-disciplinary teamwork you’ll find in the professional digital sector – by working with students in sound design, animation and media production as well as students from our Department of Computing and Mathematics. The result is an environment that fosters creativity and helps you build a varied, well-rounded skillset. And, because SODA is purpose built with industry-standard facilities, you’ll leave us equipped with industry-standard technical skills too.

As a Games Design student, you’ll find Manchester offers both the perfect backdrop for your studies and an ideal launching pad for your professional ambitions. It’s not only home to a rich heritage of games publishing, but today has the largest media and creative sector outside London. On our doorstep, you’ll find a globally recognised web and UX sector, as well as renowned CG, visual effects and VR/AR agencies and at MediaCityUK in Salford, the BBC’s digital and games teams. All in all, it provides a range of opportunities for a graduate ready to make a statement in the world of games development.

Placement options

SODA Placement Year
As part of your studies with SODA, you will have the chance to take a year working on placement within the industry. During your year, you will spend at least 36 weeks working within an organisation in the industry, developing workplace skills, practical understanding and genuine industry experience.