module specification

In today’s hyperconnected and data-driven world, we are surrounded by a constant flow of media — from targeted ads and viral TikToks to curated Spotify playlists, influencer content, and algorithmically personalised news. These media forms, both digital and traditional (film, television, print), continue to shape and reflect our social values, identities, and worldviews — often in invisible and powerful ways.
This module critically explores the evolving media landscape, examining how digital platforms, creator economies, and emerging technologies like generative AI influence communication, identity, representation, and power. It investigates how media connects — but also divides — communities across gender, race, class, and nation, and raises urgent questions around ownership, visibility, surveillance, and authenticity in a platform-dominated age.
Students will be introduced to the structures, logics, and tensions within both legacy and digital media industries. Through contemporary case studies and critical frameworks, they’ll analyse how culture and society shape — and are shaped by — media production, consumption, and disruption on a global scale.
Alongside theoretical insights, the module supports students in developing essential academic and personal skills, including:

• Academic Reading and Research
• Communicating and Collaborating Effectively
• Application of Knowledge and Presenting Data
• Critical Thinking and Academic Writing
• Reflective Learning and Self-Assessment

By the end of the module, students will be equipped to navigate and critique the complex media environments that influence their everyday lives — with curiosity, clarity, and confidence.

Available for Study Abroad? YES

Understanding the Media Ecosystem
An exploration of contemporary media industries, focusing on structures of ownership, platform capitalism, and the dominance of global tech players like Meta, Google, and ByteDance. Traditional media institutions are contextualised within today’s platformised, data-driven media landscape.
(LO1, LO2)
Media Power and Influence
A critical examination of how media shapes public discourse, (dis)information flows, and cultural narratives. Topics include agenda-setting, framing, media bias, and the political economy of digital communication in the age of polarisation and populism.
(LO1, LO2)
From Broadcast to Algorithm
Tracing the evolution from one-way mass communication models to personalised, algorithmically curated media flows. Case studies explore how recommendation systems, AI-enhanced platforms, and datafication shape visibility, engagement, and cultural consumption.
(LO1, LO2)
Audiences, Communities, and Engagement
From passive consumers to active co-creators: an investigation into digital fandoms, subcultures, online activism, and participatory culture. Students examine how communities engage with and reshape media in the social media era.
(LO1, LO3)
Media Texts and Meaning
Introduction to core tools for analysing media texts, including semiotics, genre theory, and discourse analysis. The session explores representations of race, gender, class, and sexuality, and how identity is constructed through media content.
(LO2)
Digital Media Literacies
Developing critical literacies for navigating the digital information landscape. Focus areas include misinformation, deepfakes, digital identity, echo chambers, and algorithmic bias. Practical tools for verifying, interpreting, and evaluating digital content.
(LO2, LO3)
Cultural Theories in Practice
Application of key media and cultural theories — such as postmodernism, hyperreality, media convergence, and identity fragmentation — to contemporary phenomena like influencer culture, meme politics, and algorithmic aesthetics.
(LO1, LO2)
Ethics, Regulation and Responsibility
A critical look at ethics in digital media production and consumption. Topics include surveillance of capitalism, content moderation, censorship, deepfake regulation, and the responsibilities of platforms, creators, and audiences in an AI-driven age.
(LO1, LO3)

Balance of Independent Study and Scheduled Teaching Activity
The module is delivered over a 12-week period and consists of two hours of lecture and one hour of seminar per week. The final two weeks of the semester will be dedicated to assessment preparation and support.
Weekly lectures introduce key theories, concepts, models, and analytical frameworks for understanding contemporary media. Seminar sessions complement these lectures by applying general themes to specific media channels and industry contexts — for example, how emerging media technologies are adopted within the fashion, aviation, or entertainment industries.
Seminars provide a collaborative space to deepen understanding through small group discussion, case studies, video analysis, and Q&A. These sessions also help students begin applying technical and analytical skills required for media and communications research, academic writing, and industry-specific analysis.
A blended learning approach will be used throughout. Weekly materials, including lecture slides, readings, and relevant external links, will be made available via WebLearn. This platform will support ongoing engagement and form the basis of in-class discussions. Students are encouraged to actively participate in the WebLearn discussion forum to enhance their learning and peer exchange.
The module also supports the progressive development of independent learning, preparing students to take increasing ownership of their academic and reflective practice.
The group assessment (Assessment 1 of 1) will be summative, and it encourages:
• Collaborative learning and peer engagement

• Application of theoretical knowledge to real-world examples

• Development of communication, critical thinking, and discussion leadership skills

and is designed to add a greater sense of student community and encourage bonding within the context of carrying out specific media-related and marketing communication tasks. It is designed to develop appropriate learning outcomes in the field of media channels, understanding trends relating to media adoption and usage. In addition, it will also test students’ ability to apply marketing communication practice within a real-world context.

By the end of this module, students will be able to:
1.    Critically evaluate the role of traditional and digital media — including AI-driven and algorithmic platforms — in shaping contemporary cultural narratives, social behaviours, and public discourse across creative and commercial sectors.

2.    Apply key theoretical frameworks from media and cultural studies to analyse how media forms, messages, and technologies construct meaning, mediate identity, and reflect systems of power and inequality.

Analyse the impact of media infrastructures and platform economies on representation, visibility, and access, with attention to issues of gender, race, class, and global inequality
 

Library Reading list link
https://rl.talis.com/3/londonmet/lists/D51550FD-50B9-C831-A58B-1D6685E705D6.html?lang=en-GB

Core Textbooks:
Campbell R; Martin C; Fabos B; Becker R. (2025) Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication Fourteenth Edition Macmillan Learning
Paperback ISBN: 9781319339715

Other Recommended Texts:  Zuboff S. (2018) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human :Frontier of Power: Barack Obama's Books of 2019  ISBN 9781541758001

Full Reading list: https://rl.talis.com/3/londonmet/lists/D51550FD-50B9-C831-A58B-1D6685E705D6.html?lang=en-GB

Journals:
New media and society
Mass communication & society
Journal for communication and culture
International Journal of Advertising
International Journal of communication
Journal of marketing & communication
Journal of Marketing communications
Journal of public Relations Research
Public relations journal
Public relations review

Websites:
The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) http://www.ppa.co.uk/
BBC Learning http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/subjects/media_studies.shtml
FT.com
Media studies.com http://www.mediastudies.com/international%20news.htm
AMARC (World Association of Community Radio Stations), http://www.amarc.org
Community Media Association, http://www.commedia.org.uk
The Advertising Association – www.adassoc.org.uk
The Advertising Standards Authority – www.asa.org.uk
The Office of Communications- www.ofcom.org.uk
The History of Advertising Trust – www.hatads.org.uk
Institute of Practitioners in Advertising- www.ipa.co.uk
Internet advertising Bureau http://www.iabuk.net/
Think Box http://www.thinkbox.tv/
Cinema Council http://cinemaadcouncil.org/
Screen digest
http://www.radiocentre.org

Social Media Sources :
Facebook
Instagram
Snapchat
X Formally Twitter
Flickr