Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Illustration with Placement Year

at University of Westminster - Harrow Campus United Kingdom

The Social Media and Digital Communication MA will give you the opportunity to develop an in-depth understanding of contemporary digital communication and its seismic impact on politics, culture and society.

Social media have challenged how we understand communication, democracy, news, relationships, privacy, advertising and entertainment. Social media have captured the attention and imagination of hundreds of millions of people. They enable their users to develop and display their creativity, to empathize with others, and to find connection, communication and communion. But social media have also captured those users’ personal information, and turned their daily lives into commercial data through business models built around surveillance.

The course examines social media as industries and as central sites for understanding the cultural politics of everyday life. It explores the meanings of sharing and privacy, of remix cultures and new forms of journalism, of new forms of communication and new forms of citizenship. It connects social media to other digital phenomena such as the internet of things, Big Data, and media convergence. In its core modules, learners engage with questions of media technologies and texts, of platforms and users, and of how networked digital media are adopted and adapted in an environment built around the convergence of personal and public communication.

From Al Jazeera to Hollywood, News Corporation to China Central TV, the media increasingly operate in a global context. This course offers a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to global media, and is designed for those who work in, or want to work in, the media industries.

You will examine key developments in the media and communications industries associated with the logic of globalisation, and explore the complex nature of the globalisation process in the media. You will gain a relevant, well-grounded, high-quality education and skill base, enabling you to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of communication and the mass media.

Based on continuous assessment, the course is taught in lectures and seminars by the team from Westminster's top-rated Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). You will be part of a bustling multicultural academic department which boasts a strong research culture, and you will be able to attend the regular talks by outside speakers (academics and practitioners) on a variety of communication and mass media issues.

The course is designed for recent graduates seeking a career in traditional and new media organisations. It provides a combination of business and media skills designed to equip you to take up an entry-level position in today’s media organisations.

You will learn how media organisations are engaging with the challenges resulting from the emergence of digital media technologies and platforms. The course introduces you to the processes by which media organisations develop their corporate strategies, business plans, marketing and production operations as they respond to radical change in the commercial environment.

The course is designed to enable you to find and take up work placements and internships at media organisations in London during the course of your studies. Our students have successfully completed internships at TV production companies like the BBC, technology companies like Google, as well as many other multimedia, advertising and news organisations in London. Some have successfully started their own businesses in the UK.

Whether you are planning a career in a media organisation or seeking to create your own new business start up, the MA International Media Business aims to provide the analytical insight, operational knowledge and planning skills you will need to prosper. The course is taught alongside a suite of Masters courses in Westminster’s highly successful Centre for Creative Industries Management.

This three-year degree is one of the best-known film courses in the world, with an international reputation for its academic and practical teaching.

Our students’ films are shown at festivals globally and have won a host of honours and awards, including Royal Television Society Awards, a Student Academy Award and a Grierson Best Student Documentary Award.

We operate from a purpose-built studio facility in Harrow, with two large film and television studios, a set construction workshop, a 3D workshop, and extensive post-production facilities. The environment is both scholarly and creative, with all students studying film history, criticism and aesthetics alongside their practical work.

You'll learn to collaborate creatively as you develop production specialisms in areas such as writing, producing, cinematography, directing, production design, editing and sound. You'll also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development.

We aim to develop thinking filmmakers who have something to say to, and about, the world. A very high proportion of our students go on to work in film and television, and recent work from notable alumni includes The Greatest Showman and Nocturnal Animals (Seamus McGarvey, cinematographer), Senna and Amy (Asif Kapadia, director) and No Time to Die and Skyfall (Neal Purvis, screenwriter, producer). Under the Shadow, the first feature directed by 2005 graduate Babak Anvari, was selected as the UK entry for the 2017 Best Foreign Language film Oscar and won the Outstanding Debut Award at the 2017 BAFTA Awards.

The course receives substantial support from the industry and you will gain experience of working with professional actors, negotiating with facilities houses, equipment hire companies and local authorities.

Based at the recently refurbished Harrow Campus – home to the Westminster School of Arts – you will work alongside students from design, photography, music, fashion and journalism, in a unique hothouse of creative opportunity.

Through an excellent network of industry contacts, some of whom teach on the course, and including many alumni of the course, students have opportunities for part-time work, placements and work-related learning activities.

The second year includes a core work-based professional learning module in which students may undertake a short work placement and begin to develop their industry connections and awareness.

Students may also undertake an optional year-long placement between their second and third year.

This course offers a hands-on curriculum that allows you to develop core journalistic skills in broadcast and digital media. You will learn the technical skills to master TV, audio and digital reporting. The course has a very practical focus, so you will develop your own story ideas and gather your own material through research and reporting for journalistic course work.

You will be given full training in using our up-to-date video, audio, social media management and mobile journalism resources, ensuring that you graduate from the course as a multi-skilled journalist. These practical skills are underpinned with training in media law, ethics and regulation.

Whether your passion is current affairs, arts and culture, investigative features, travel, fashion, sport – or you are still deciding, our aim is to help you to find your first job in journalism.

This highly regarded course offers a rigorous analysis of the political, economic, cultural and sociological factors which shape the practices and outcomes of mass media. It will give you the opportunity to study and research the main ways in which social scientists have analysed the role of the mass media and communication, and how to develop, evaluate and apply research to evaluate those theories.

The MA ensures that you will receive a relevant, well-grounded, high-quality education and skill base, and a clear and comprehensive understanding of communication and the mass media. It is designed both for those who already work in or want to work in the media, and for those who want to go on to pursue further academic research in media and communication.

Our exciting specialist course will enable you to develop your imaginative and creative skills, while giving you a sound knowledge and understanding of animation processes, techniques and critical theory.

Commercial animation is a rapidly growing and vibrant industry, encompassing a broad range of rewarding and fascinating creative job opportunities. Our strong emphasis on creative practice will help you to develop your skills in drawing and design, along with the imaginative development and innovation of ideas expressed sequentially. These skills, together with the professional practice aspects of the course, will ensure that you have the confidence and expertise to succeed in industry, whether as a producer, technician, designer or manager. You’ll also develop the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development.

Throughout the course, there are opportunities for you to take part in national and international competitions and film festivals. Our course is delivered by a large team of experienced animation practitioners, staff and industry visitors, and you’ll work in dedicated specialist animation studios with facilities for blue screen, rostrum animation, CGI, drawing, stop-frame, film, photography, set building, sound and video.

Successful animators need to be flexible and able to adapt to changing cultures and new initiatives, and our course seeks to reflect this fluidity. You’ll rapidly develop your own practice in animation, and will be encouraged to work on shared initiatives. Based at our Harrow Campus – home to the Westminster School of Arts and the Westminster School of Media and Communications – you’ll work alongside students from film, photography, music, fashion and journalism, in a unique creative hothouse. 

This exciting new multidisciplinary Master's programme is fully designed to reflect the needs of contemporary interactive media industries, bringing together creative technologies, interactivity and design practices within digital cultures with the user in mind.

Interactive Media Practice combines a wide range of digital creative technologies primarily combining digital literacies design, technology and interaction, through user-centred design for commercial outputs to an industry standard.

Interactive Media Practice places the user at the centre of the experience and focuses on design and content creation in areas such as mobile app development, wearables, games, rich media websites, interactive guides and installations, immersive VR, next generation advertising and virtual and augmented reality systems, through to social media powerful eMarketing and entrepreneurship through innovation protocol.

This innovative Master's degree aims to equip students with the skills, knowledge and strategic approach to develop and analyse social change campaigns and activism, with a particular focus on the role of communications and the media. This is the only postgraduate programme of its kind, and has a flexible delivery to suit both full-time and part-time students.

The course builds on our close links with leading campaigners and communicators in London's vibrant social change sector. An advisory panel, with representatives from Amnesty UK, Friends of the Earth, Save the Children, WaterAid, SumOfUs, Advocacy Hub, Campaign Bootcamp, FairSay and The National Council of Voluntary Organisations among others, will ensure we always reflect the skill sets in demand and deliver an exciting learning experience. A limited number of work placements and internships will be available.

Our course in Fashion Marketing and Promotion has been designed to cater for creative, passionate and motivated students who want to pursue a creative degree within the fashion industry and develop a solid understanding of business in our digital era.

The fashion promotion industry offers some of the most attractive jobs in the industry and our course allows you to experience the wide spectrum of this field. The course will also give you a much better understanding of how you could use your strengths to achieve your future ambitions in the arena of fashion promotion.

Our aim is to help you realise your potential by directing you to the areas that are of greatest interest to you, both for your studies and in the future. 

We’ve developed this course with expertise from the industry in order to respond to the changing needs of fashion brands in our current innovative fashion industry landscape. Our industry experts are increasingly looking for creative and digitally literate fashion business graduates to help drive their marketing and promotion strategy across multiple customer touchpoints. This course is designed to develop your creative, technical and business skills on a commercial level.

During your three years on the course, you'll be introduced to a wide range of fashion promotion and marketing projects, including trend, creative marketing and communication, branding, styling, visual merchandising photography, film and media, visual merchandising, branding, strategic marketing, digital creation and new development in social media.

You'll also have the opportunity to apply for a semester abroad during your second year of study at one of our partner institutions. Our exchange programme is designed to equip you with the creative skills, knowledge and practical experience, along with the development of a professional character that is key to successful employment.