Master of Arts in Diversity and the Media

at University of Westminster - Harrow Campus United Kingdom

The Documentary Photography and Photojournalism MA allows you to explore society through photographically-related practice and within critically-informed ways through a combination of practice-based teaching and discussion of critical contexts.

We consider documentary photography and photojournalism as exciting and expanding mediums, situated within their own histories, taking many forms in the 21st Century.

Applicants can include students of documentary photography or photographers in general who are interested in specialising in this area and developing their practice. Artists who wish to focus their activities on a more social practice, and individuals from other disciplines who wish to explore the subject area at postgraduate level are also welcome.

From the moment you arrive, we emphasise the development of your own practice, leading towards a consolidation of your learning into a high-profile exhibition in a central London exhibition space.

You will be taught by practising professional photographers, artists and writers, within a supportive course atmosphere.

Our facilities are equipped to the highest professional standards for both analogue and digital production of still and moving image.

The Illustration BA aims to provide an intellectual and creative space for students to explore and build skills in a range of traditional, digital and emerging image making technologies. Industry modules enable students to develop transferable professional skills that support creative agility, resilience and adaptability for rapidly evolving professional opportunities.

This course offers a flexible, interdisciplinary and multimedia approach to the study and practice of contemporary illustration and is developed through a range of industry-focused projects and self-defined contexts.

A supportive studio environment and learning community nurture your individual development and distinctive voice as both an illustrator and creative practitioner in the wider field of visual communication.

Studio-based projects, national and international competitions and live industry projects provide context and creative challenge, fostering experimentation and visual inquiry. You will have the creative space to explore and examine a range of processes and practices in both traditional and emerging technologies.

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.

This course offers a hands-on curriculum that allows you to develop your core journalistic skills in print, online and social media management.  

You will learn to master a broad variety of media formats from writing and reporting to social media and video. Besides writing, the course emphasises contemporary digital skills that will place you in high demand in an ever-changing world of content creation and distribution. 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 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.

We live in an age where almost everything of what we do is connected to data. Big data and datafication - the increasing transformation of multiple aspects of everyday lives into digital data - pose great opportunities but also risks for contemporary societies. This new MA course addresses, explores and creatively utilises this transformation. We place an emphasis on current and future technologies and practices such as algorithms, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, data analytics and data mining, the Internet of Things, and others.

This multidisciplinary course brings together media / communication studies and computer science. It combines hands-on and applied approaches with theoretical learning and critical analysis. It will encourage collaboration, creative practice, group work and problem-based learning. You will apply tools and technologies to your own data challenges and projects, including from your existing professional or cultural, political, social and economic environments. The course also features optional modules from a range of disciplines across the University: Media and Communication Studies, Law, Computer Science, Politics and International Relations, Cultural Studies.

You will be introduced to the tools and approaches that can be used for collection, analysis, management and visualisation of data, as well as to the skills needed to critically think about the ethical, cultural, social and political implications of their practice.

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. 

Our Digital Media course will show you how to create and share your message professionally across any digital platform so you can truly connect with your audience. The course is flexible, giving you the time and space to explore different aspects of digital media. All students gain skills  in content creation, digital media production, storytelling, and research, alongside a critical appreciation of the role of media in society. Students then build on these practical skills and conceptual insights by choosing a specialism which reflects their interests and aspirations.

At the end of the first year, you will be able to choose from pathways in Media Production, Communication, Public Relations and Advertising, and Journalism.  You will have the opportunity to learn from industry professionals throughout the course and can benefit from our industry links by opting to complete a work placement year.  Alternatively, you might decide to expand your educational experience by studying aboard between Years 2 and 3. You will also have access to our award-winning Careers and Employability Service with its network of over 3,000 employers. 

This up-to-date blend of skills and knowledge will equip you to work successfully in a wide range of sectors and professions in digital media and beyond. Whether you want to work for a leading multinational, a start-up, a media outlet, the public sector or to launch your own company, this course will give you the broad expertise alongside the specialist knowledge you need, both when you enter the job market and into the future.

Our Fashion Design BA has an exceptional reputation for being aligned with the international fashion industry and enabling you to have outstanding opportunities to engage with the industry throughout your course. 

We specialise in enabling you to become a highly original and individual creative designer, capable of working at the highest levels of the international fashion industry. We were the first undergraduate course to show at London Fashion Week, and able to show in February 2020, prior to the national lockdown.

Throughout our course, the emphasis is on the development of your personal design philosophy. Our course offers a comprehensive design education for dedicated and ambitious individuals looking for a specialist career in the international fashion industry. You'll also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development.

Our students gain an enormous amount of specific and transferable knowledge from working within the fashion industry, whether these are in the context of ‘live’ design projects at university or out on extended periods of work placement.

Internships on both the three-year and sandwich course take place in partnership with leading international fashion companies, and have previously included: A Cold Wall, Alexander McQueen, Ashley Williams, Balmain, Burberry, Chalayan, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Charlotte Knowles, Christopher Kane, Cottweiller, Craig Green, Eckhaus Latta, Erdem, Eudon Choi, Gareth Pugh, Givenchy, Haider Ackermann, Halpern, JW Anderson, Kenzo, Kilgour, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Maison Margiela, Marine Serre, Marques Almeida, Molly Goddard, Nazir Nasar, Norse Projects, Peter Pilotto, Phoebe English, Preen, Raf Simons, Richard Quinn, Roksanda, Self Portrait, Simone Rocha, Stefan Cooke, Supriya Lele, Thom Browne, Underage, Viktor & Rolf, and Walter van Bierendonck. 

Embedded into the course structure are several opportunities to engage with the international fashion industry through set live briefs with companies. Previous companies have included FENTY, The Gap, CLOSED denim, Epson, Topshop, H&M, ISKO Denim, Max Mara, Abercrombie and ASOS. 

Course graduates include London Fashion Week designers Katie Ann McGuigan, Roberta Einer, Liam Hodges and Ashley Williams, as well as Jutta Kraus, Creative Director of Bernhard Willhelm; Stuart Vevers, Creative Director of Coach; Christopher Bailey; and Katie Hillier.

Our previous Fashion Design BA graduates have gained employment at companies including Versace, Rick Owens, Celine, Loewe, Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Carven, Tom Ford, Gucci, Versace, Ferragamo, Kenzo, H&M, Preen, MaxMara, Anya Hindmarch, Burberry, J.W. Anderson, Norse Projects, Acne, Jacquemus, Paul Smith and adidas.

Digital and Interactive Storytelling LAB MA is a new and innovative course, designed for digital storytellers and shaped like a media LAB. This means that during the course you will be able to produce a wide range of digital-first work for multi-platform formats. Your work will be underpinned with academic research, theories and expertise on mobile platforms, and digital interactive communication.

The course delivers industry-level professional expertise in visual communication from photography to video content creation, interactive narratives and apps for change.

You’ll be involved in creating content that extends beyond current ideas in multimedia and online productions – as our aim is to advance storytelling as a format of communication and as a practice.

We recognise how competitive the job market currently is, therefore this Master's has been created to develop your skills and knowledge in a way that will enhance your career development.