Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Fine Art Mixed Media (Optional Placement Year)

at University of Westminster - Harrow Campus United Kingdom

The Social Media and Digital Communication MA will give you the opportunity to develop an in-depth understanding of contemporary digital communication and its seismic impact on politics, culture and society.

Social media have challenged how we understand communication, democracy, news, relationships, privacy, advertising and entertainment. Social media have captured the attention and imagination of hundreds of millions of people. They enable their users to develop and display their creativity, to empathize with others, and to find connection, communication and communion. But social media have also captured those users’ personal information, and turned their daily lives into commercial data through business models built around surveillance.

The course examines social media as industries and as central sites for understanding the cultural politics of everyday life. It explores the meanings of sharing and privacy, of remix cultures and new forms of journalism, of new forms of communication and new forms of citizenship. It connects social media to other digital phenomena such as the internet of things, Big Data, and media convergence. In its core modules, learners engage with questions of media technologies and texts, of platforms and users, and of how networked digital media are adopted and adapted in an environment built around the convergence of personal and public communication.

We live in an age where almost everything of what we do is connected to data. Big data and datafication - the increasing transformation of multiple aspects of everyday lives into digital data - pose great opportunities but also risks for contemporary societies. This new MA course addresses, explores and creatively utilises this transformation. We place an emphasis on current and future technologies and practices such as algorithms, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, data analytics and data mining, the Internet of Things, and others.

This multidisciplinary course brings together media / communication studies and computer science. It combines hands-on and applied approaches with theoretical learning and critical analysis. It will encourage collaboration, creative practice, group work and problem-based learning. You will apply tools and technologies to your own data challenges and projects, including from your existing professional or cultural, political, social and economic environments. The course also features optional modules from a range of disciplines across the University: Media and Communication Studies, Law, Computer Science, Politics and International Relations, Cultural Studies.

You will be introduced to the tools and approaches that can be used for collection, analysis, management and visualisation of data, as well as to the skills needed to critically think about the ethical, cultural, social and political implications of their practice.

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.

This innovative Master's degree aims to equip students with the skills, knowledge and strategic approach to develop and analyse social change campaigns and activism, with a particular focus on the role of communications and the media. This is the only postgraduate programme of its kind, and has a flexible delivery to suit both full-time and part-time students.

The course builds on our close links with leading campaigners and communicators in London's vibrant social change sector. An advisory panel, with representatives from Amnesty UK, Friends of the Earth, Save the Children, WaterAid, SumOfUs, Advocacy Hub, Campaign Bootcamp, FairSay and The National Council of Voluntary Organisations among others, will ensure we always reflect the skill sets in demand and deliver an exciting learning experience. A limited number of work placements and internships will be available.

Our Television Production BA is a practice-based course taught by broadcast industry professionals and media theorists, combining critical analysis with hands-on practical skills.

Our course focuses on how television programmes are conceived, produced, commissioned and distributed in a digital broadcast and multi-platform environment. 

You’ll work across a digital workflow supporting single-camera and multi-camera studio production modes and produce programmes across all genres, from documentary and drama series to TV commercials and studio entertainment shows.

As well as learning practical skills in editing, camera operations, sound recording, lighting and graphics, you’ll study critical analysis of the ever-changing global broadcast and digital media industries. 

You’ll work with industry-standard facilities and equipment, and you’ll be taught by experienced industry professionals and practitioners, including documentary filmmakers, directors, producers and screenwriters. We also host a range of visiting lecturers and guest speakers, from sound designers to investigative journalists and social media strategists.

Our course is designed to prepare you for the challenge of a multi-skilled, mixed-portfolio career, and our graduates leave equipped with the knowledge, skills and mindset necessary to thrive in the creative industries.

Our course capitalises on the benefits that London has to offer, particularly through our connections with the many production companies based in the city, with links that include ITV studios, Disney and London Live. Our students have undertaken work experience with a range of employers, including the BBC, Endemol and ITV. 

Based at our vibrant Harrow Campus, just a 20-minute train ride from central London, you’re ideally placed to take up a range of exciting opportunities as you begin your professional career.

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.

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.

This course will equip you with the strategic decision-making, leadership and problem-solving skills you will need to become an entrepreneurial and visionary fashion business leader of the future. It continues the University’s fashion tradition of a commitment to excellence in developing highly effective, talented and committed professional fashion graduates.

Working closely with fashion industry professionals, role models and mentors, you will receive a relevant, well-grounded, high-quality education and skill base that will enable you to have a wider, clearer understanding of the business you are already involved in. The course offers inside knowledge of industry strategies and cultures on a global basis, combined with key business skills and essential fashion industry management knowledge.

This course equips you for a business management career in the domestic or international fashion industry. Delivered by a teaching team with a wide range of experience both in industry and academia, the course offers an innovative and relevant fashion business curriculum that focuses on preparing your entry into senior roles in business and management within the industry.

Our Fashion Design BA has an exceptional reputation for being aligned with the international fashion industry and enabling you to have outstanding opportunities to engage with the industry throughout your course. 

We specialise in enabling you to become a highly original and individual creative designer, capable of working at the highest levels of the international fashion industry. We were the first undergraduate course to show at London Fashion Week, and able to show in February 2020, prior to the national lockdown.

Throughout our course, the emphasis is on the development of your personal design philosophy. Our course offers a comprehensive design education for dedicated and ambitious individuals looking for a specialist career in the international fashion industry. You'll also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development.

Our students gain an enormous amount of specific and transferable knowledge from working within the fashion industry, whether these are in the context of ‘live’ design projects at university or out on extended periods of work placement.

Internships on both the three-year and sandwich course take place in partnership with leading international fashion companies, and have previously included: A Cold Wall, Alexander McQueen, Ashley Williams, Balmain, Burberry, Chalayan, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Charlotte Knowles, Christopher Kane, Cottweiller, Craig Green, Eckhaus Latta, Erdem, Eudon Choi, Gareth Pugh, Givenchy, Haider Ackermann, Halpern, JW Anderson, Kenzo, Kilgour, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Maison Margiela, Marine Serre, Marques Almeida, Molly Goddard, Nazir Nasar, Norse Projects, Peter Pilotto, Phoebe English, Preen, Raf Simons, Richard Quinn, Roksanda, Self Portrait, Simone Rocha, Stefan Cooke, Supriya Lele, Thom Browne, Underage, Viktor & Rolf, and Walter van Bierendonck. 

Embedded into the course structure are several opportunities to engage with the international fashion industry through set live briefs with companies. Previous companies have included FENTY, The Gap, CLOSED denim, Epson, Topshop, H&M, ISKO Denim, Max Mara, Abercrombie and ASOS. 

Course graduates include London Fashion Week designers Katie Ann McGuigan, Roberta Einer, Liam Hodges and Ashley Williams, as well as Jutta Kraus, Creative Director of Bernhard Willhelm; Stuart Vevers, Creative Director of Coach; Christopher Bailey; and Katie Hillier.

Our previous Fashion Design BA graduates have gained employment at companies including Versace, Rick Owens, Celine, Loewe, Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Carven, Tom Ford, Gucci, Versace, Ferragamo, Kenzo, H&M, Preen, MaxMara, Anya Hindmarch, Burberry, J.W. Anderson, Norse Projects, Acne, Jacquemus, Paul Smith and adidas.

From Al Jazeera to Hollywood, News Corporation to China Central TV, the media increasingly operate in a global context. This course offers a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to global media, and is designed for those who work in, or want to work in, the media industries.

You will examine key developments in the media and communications industries associated with the logic of globalisation, and explore the complex nature of the globalisation process in the media. You will gain a relevant, well-grounded, high-quality education and skill base, enabling you to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of communication and the mass media.

Based on continuous assessment, the course is taught in lectures and seminars by the team from Westminster's top-rated Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). You will be part of a bustling multicultural academic department which boasts a strong research culture, and you will be able to attend the regular talks by outside speakers (academics and practitioners) on a variety of communication and mass media issues.