MASS MEDIA & COMMUNICATION

STUDY AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT   

Modern media have powerful influences and effects on all aspects of contemporary lives; mass media and social media have greatly changed the way in which businesses, governments and private individuals communicate with and between one another.  Understanding how media work and operate – and how best to make effective use of them – is essential for the success and prosperity of businesses, because rapid and effective communication with prospective and existing customers and clients – nationally and/or internationally – is paramount in overcoming competition.  This is a very topical and “modern age” Program, with many important practical applications for people running or working in businesses of all types and sizes.

SUMMARY OF MAJOR TOPICS COVERED INCLUDE:

• Media professionals and the “politics” of representation.
• Media stars, personalities and celebrities.
• Dominant practices and forms of reality media: reality, truth, freedom, ethics, responsibilities.
• Media businesses in the digital age.
• Methods and techniques of mass communication.
• Regulation and public policy.
• The impact of social media and global media; global media production.
• Audiences: producing audiences, the range of activities of media professionals.
• Propaganda and manipulation of audiences, media effects and moral panics, from ‘effects’ to influence.
• Identifying audience activity; from ‘effects’ to uses and gratifications, media, context and meaning.
• Researching media audiences, ethics and audience research.
• Branding, identity and consumption.
• Media and power, conceptualization, ideology; discourse, power in communication, global news.
• Mass society, mass media and social change; theories of mass society, who the “masses” are.
• Making media: writing, still images, web design, moving images, animation, game design, audio production.
• Imagining, planning, telling, imaging, designing, editing, theorising; documentaries.
• The ‘consumer society’, history of consumerism and advertising; cultures of consumerism.
• National, international & global marketing.
• Advertising in the digital age; the future of advertising and marketing.