Media/Film/Tv Studies

Course summary

We live at a time when the media is playing an ever-greater role in our lives, expanding our knowledge, dominating our work and our leisure and increasingly influencing our thinking and ideas. This is a course that will help you to understand how the media industries work, apply theory to contemporary and classic texts and develop your analytical and creative abilities extensively. Through exploring debates such as the ethics of journalism, the rise of social networking, and the shift towards a society as eager to create media as to consume it, you will gain a critical insight into some of the key issues of our age. A Level Media engages students in the study of media products in four areas of theory: media language, representation, industries, and audiences. Students are required to study media products from all of the following media forms: television, film, radio, newspapers, magazines, advertising, online, social and participatory media, video games, and music videos. First and foremost, a fascination and engagement with media texts across a range of forms, and with how they – and the institutions which produce them – impact society. Beyond this, a love for analysis, a tolerance for technology, and a strong creative streak will get you through everything here! We’ve had students go on to journalism, to the television, radio, and film industries, into advertising and video game design, alongside the academic, education, and research routes that Arts subjects typically feed into.