The module will be delivered through a virtual learning environment. It will run over 16 weeks, and will normally include 4 weeks for you to complete the assessments to be graded. During this period, you will work through a self-instructional programme of weekly reading and tasks that structures your learning. Tasks are designed to assist your understanding of the reading, make critical evaluations of reading content, and apply learning from reading to hypothetical or concrete contexts. In addition, a wide variety of web-based resources including papers, audio-visual and other documentary material associated with the weekly learning units is provided. At various points you will be expected to interact with each other and your tutors. You are expected to allocate a minimum of 24 hours to engage and interact with your tutors and fellow peers.

Independent Study Hours:
(1) independent learning (150 hours) through guided reading from core texts and the use of web-based materials to develop a detailed knowledge of contemporary debates in media practices.
(2) Assessment Preparation (120 hours) for planning, researching / drafting / writing /editing / producing assignments.

This module will examine how media communication shape and are shaped by social, economic, political, technological and social forces; how media communication are used in multiple contexts and the roles they can play in various forms of organisation that are situated in these societal contexts; the relationship between systems of meanings and relations of social and political power and inequality; and the ways in which social interactions may operate through circulating meanings and systems of representation. We will introduce you to current debates about media globalisation and power, democracy and civil rights, and the public sphere and freedom of information that inform media policy and practice, the social development and use of media technologies, and global media governance in the 21st century. This will include an examination of:
- the economics of media and communication industries
- the structure and organisation of media and communication industries
- the impact of new communication technologies
- responses by governments through policy and regulation to the challenges of media convergence.
Issues of power are central to the module. You will be encouraged to consider policy and ethical issues in media practice across a range of local, national, regional and trans-national contexts, where practice is understood as regular, social activity that provides a basis for thinking about media normatively and framing questions by reference to what people (individuals, groups, organizations) are doing that is related to media.

Multi-media computers for accessing Blackboard, websites and electronic journals.
The Blackboard virtual learning environment will be available (where relevant) to support this module. Details will be supplied in the module handbook.

An ESSAY length 3000 WORDS weighted at 45%.
The essay will examine the ways in which transformations in communication technologies are impacting on media institutions, forms and practices and the wider implications of this [Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3, 5]

PARTICIPATION in online forums weighted at 10% [Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 4]

A PRACTICAL PROJECT AND REPORT length 2500 WORDS weighted at 45%.
The report will be based on an investigation of a specific instance of social media practice (also assessed), and its use in a particular communicative
context together with a critical reflection on the process of communicating the results to a wider audience. [Learning Outcomes 1, 3, 4, 5]

Students must achieve a pass in all three assessments.

Barbrook, R (2007) Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village, London, Pluto Press
Couldry, N. (2012) Media, Society, World, Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Polity Press
Doyle, G (2008) Understanding Media Economics, London: Sage
Flew, T (2007) Understanding Global Media, Hampshire: Palgrave, Macmillan
Hassan, R (2004) Media, Politics and the Network Society, OU press.
Kung, L and Picard R (2008) The Internet and the Mass Media, Sage
Thussu, D.K. (1998) Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance, Edward Arnold
Wilkin, P (2001) The Political Economy of Global Communication, Pluto Press
New Media and Society - Journal