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Communication, Media, Film and Cultural Studies

View the employability skills

In addition to capabilities specific to the particular discipline studied in this widely diverse group of subjects, a graduate in communication, media, film and cultural studies typically will have developed the transferable skills and abilities to:

  • understand how identities are constructed and contested through engagements with culture
  • evaluate their own work in a reflexive manner with reference to academic and/or professional issues, debates and conventions
  • understand communication systems, modes of representations and systems of meaning in the ordering of societies
  • be aware of the economic forces which frame the media, cultural and creative industries, and the role of such industries in contemporary political and cultural life
  • understand the role of cultural practices and cultural institutions in society
  • understand how people engage with cultural texts and practices
  • initiate, develop and realise distinctive and creative work in writing or aural, visual, audio-visual, sound or other electronic media
  • work flexibly, creatively and independently with self-discipline, self-direction and reflexivity
  • use ideas and information to argue cogently in written, oral or in other forms
  • retrieve and generate information and evaluate sources in carrying out research
  • organise and manage supervised, self-directed projects
  • communicate effectively in interpersonal settings, in writing and in a variety of media
  • work productively in a group or team, showing abilities to listen, contribute and lead
  • deliver work to a given brief and deadline, referencing sources and ideas and using a problem solving approach
  • apply entrepreneurial skills with audiences, clients, consumers, markets and sources
  • use IT skills including web-based technology or multimedia and develop specific proficiencies in media technologies.

Communication, media, film and cultural studies focus on cultural and communicative activities that shape everyday social and psychological life as well as senses of identity, the organisation of economic and political activity, the construction of public culture, the creation of new expressive forms and the basis for a range of professional practices.

Degree programmes aim to produce graduates with an informed, critical and creative approach to understanding media, culture and communications in society and to their own forms of media, communicative and expressive practice. Sources of conceptualisation and practice are aesthetics, art history and art criticism, history, law, literary and textual analysis, philosophy, theatre and performance studies, anthropology, economics, geography, linguistics, political science, psychology (including psychoanalysis), sociology, design, business, computing, advanced technology and creative practice in the cultural, media and communications industries.

Competition for employment is fierce and graduates are faced with complex career paths. It is common to be self-employed and/or to be in occupations involving a mixture of short-term contracts, employment, further study, part-time and freelance work rather than a predictable career progression.

Long-term options for those who are determined and who have the necessary capability include advertising account executive, advertising art director, copywriter, broadcast presenter, broadcasting journalist, exhibitions officer, film/video editor, information manager, magazine journalist, market researcher, medical illustrator, multi media specialist, newspaper journalist, photographer, programme researcher, teacher, television camera operator, television producer, television production assistant, writer.

To check the growing range of resources produced by the Subject Centre to support employability and the use of this profile (including the Skills and Attributes map) go to www.brighton.ac.uk/adm-hea.

This profile, produced in 2006, is based on the QAA benchmark to be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/honours/default.asp


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