Master of Arts in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism

at University of Westminster - Harrow Campus United Kingdom

Our innovative MA in Film and Television builds on its prestigious heritage as the longest running degree programme of its kind in the UK. We aim to equip you with wide-ranging skills, knowledge and critical awareness to meet your career aspirations in sectors in which moving images play a central role. Our curriculum incorporates an exciting variety of learning and teaching activities designed to foster your capacity for researching and rigorously analysing different aspects of film, television and moving images. You will have the opportunity to develop key skills for communicating about and with moving images across a range of contexts and platforms.

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.

The Graphic Design BA aims to provide an intellectual and creative space for you to explore and develop a wide range of skills and understanding around the discipline of graphic design.

This is applied through a variety of current and emerging technologies and processes for visual communication. The evolving and fluid forms of published and experiential exchanges include interactions with audiences and users across digital, physical, and virtual environments.

The breadth and range of the facilities and processes available support creative learning that is interdisciplinary, collaborative and professional – embracing technologies and practices found in current industry work environments.

This course offers a flexible, interdisciplinary, and multi-faceted approach to the study of contemporary graphic design practice across a broad range of contexts and projects that are industry facing as well as experimental, discipline critical and research led. It will prepare you with the highest level of practical and employable skills, knowledge and visual understanding required to both work and lead in this sector of the creative industry today.

Study and learning on the course are encouraging, inclusive and supportive, fostering your aptitudes and individual expression in the work you produce while offering wide and in-depth visual inquiry and experimentation.

Throughout the course, there is a wide range of optional choice modules that support individualised creative agility, enabling you to be flexible and resilient, while also making you industry ready to adapt your practice rapidly within evolving employments, periods of change, new and emerging communication and societal driven exchanges and technologies.

Live Music is at the centre of Music as an industry and cultural experience. There is a rich set of global opportunities arising from the significant economic and cultural global growth of Live Music. Central to this are music festivals as economic, social and cultural centres of importance, enhanced by the link between social media and experiential experiences.

This new course will help you to develop a comprehensive knowledge and critical understanding of business and practice in the live music and events industries and equip you to navigate this fast-changing and challenging environment. It also sets out to examine how the live music and events industries interact with wider social and technological transformations, critically important in a socially distancing environment necessitating new business models such as live streaming, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.

At Westminster, we already have a highly regarded background and established reputation for successful teaching and research in music and events from the very heart of the global centre for live music, London. Our Live Music Management MA has been developed alongside and is heavily integrated with industry and will be delivered by both leading academics as well as frequent guest speakers from the live music industry (including leading industry spokespeople and companies).

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.

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.

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.

Our Contemporary Media Practice BA is built on our long tradition of teaching interdisciplinary media practice, working across moving image, photography and interactive media.

Our unique approach combines the creative exploration of art school traditions with academic and professional excellence. We have extensive industry-level facilities and equipment, and to develop your skills and knowledge we use a variety of assessment methods, including practical projects, presentations, written work, research tasks and portfolios.

Our course sets high standards for professional achievement in specific media industry roles, and prepares you for the challenge of a multi-skilled portfolio career. You'll also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development. Our graduates have a high employment rate across the media industries, including broadcast television; commercial photography and photojournalism; curating and film programming; film direction, production, editing and visual effects; fine art practice; and new media. 

Studying this course will enable you to develop your creative media production skills across a range of disciplines, and give you the ability to adapt to the creative opportunities of new media forms and hybrids. It will enhance your ability to participate in contemporary cultural debates, and develop your awareness of the political, ethical and aesthetic implications of your work.

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.

The Media and Development MA is an interdisciplinary course that teaches main theories, concepts, case studies and practical media skills around the theme of media and development and its implications for less developed countries. The course will provide you with a unique blend of theory and practice teaching, aimed at deepening your knowledge of the history of communications within the development process of emerging economies. It will critically evaluate the impact of international and regional institutions from a critical political economic perspective. Teaching by academic staff, guest lecturers and other carefully selected staff from development organisations will provide you with an overview of the policies, actions and impact of state and non-state institutions within the area of communication media and development.

A distinctive feature is its emphasis on the practical role of communication media in development. You will participate in media production workshops and take part in our internship programme, offered in partnership with media and development organisations in London. As part of the work experience module, students participate in an extensive NGOs and media seminar series featuring experts and panel discussions. The work placement programme is in line with the University of Westminster’s strategy of nurturing of the critical practitioner.