Journalism Studies BA

Essential Journalism

This module develops news writing, news production and academic skills, combined with theoretical understanding of journalism in both a national and international context. It also provides an introduction to key future themes such as media law, ethics and analysing information. Students will learn how to write and structure news stories, develop interviewing skills, source and use quotes, and journalistic social media skills, amongst others. Themes include; journalism and politics; media freedom; journalism and society; audiences; technology and innovation in journalism; law and ethics; current debates in industry; and analysing news agendas.

120 credits

Core modules

Live News Production

This module will give students a range of multi-platform production skills to showcase their journalism and to enable them to operate as critically thinking professionals. The module will gradually build up students' real world experience and will enable them to operate as self-motivated individuals as well as within a team. Students will work as Journalists in a variety of ways - ranging from the fast paced Newsday environment to the production of features, documentaries, projects and portfolios over a longer period of time. Students will learn to work as professionals while adhering to industry guidelines and making connections with academic theory.

60 credits

Media Law for Journalists

This module provides for those wishing to be journalists, or studying journalism, essential knowledge of media law applying in England and Wales, and of regulatory codes which UK journalists should comply with. This law includes that of defamation, privacy and contempt of court, and other law governing court reporting. The codes seek to uphold journalistic standards generally, including protection of people's privacy and of the identities of sources promised confidentiality. The module also demonstrates that UK journalists can assert `human rights' which in law and the codes uphold freedom of expression, including publication of material `in the public interest'.

20 credits

Optional modules A

You must choose one of the modules from this list.

Reporting Justice

This module introduces journalism students to the skills required to write news reports from Crown, magistrates' and coroners' courts cases. Student will visit these courts to makes notes on real cases for these reports. Feedback is given to each student on their draft and finalised reports, and on their notes. Their accuracy in note-taking and speed in writing such a news report is assessed in a formal examination in which they write up a news report of a hypothetical 'prosecution opening' of a trial.

20 credits

Introduction to PR for Journalists

This module will provide students with knowledge and skills necessary to communicate messages through the media. Case studies and practical workshops will allow students to learn about the practice of media communication. They will learn how the media operates and how to communicate messages through interviews, press conferences, news releases and social media. Topics covered in the module will include the development of communication strategies, the understanding of news values and news cycles and strategies for successful and ethical communication.

20 credits

Optional modules B

You must choose one module from either this list OR the Guided Module Choice list below.

Data Driven Storytelling

Data-driven approaches to reporting are gaining in popularity and importance in today's world. Established media institutions, such as The New York Times in the US or The Guardian and Press Association in the UK (and many more around the world) already have units that specialise in data journalism. Thus, it becomes essential for the next generation of journalists to be data-literate and to appreciate how data can be verified and used not only to find stories but to tell stories. This module is designed to make you confident and comfortable in working with data and, furthermore, to expand your journalistic toolkit for data-driven, analytic and investigative journalism.

20 credits

Introduction to Investigative Journalism

The module provides an introductory grounding in the skill sets, methodology and knowledge needed for investigative journalism, and includes practical assessment. It includes opportunity for students to further develop knowledge of how to use the Freedom of Information Act.

20 credits

Journalism and Political Communication

Journalism and Political Communication explores news media coverage of political events, procedural political processes such as policy making and societal processes such as civic campaigning. By focusing on different aspects of political communication - broadcast and digital - both in Britain and internationally, the module seeks to answer a significant and central question: Does media reporting of politics help to inform and clarify or to obfuscate public understanding of policy, political processes and political issues? The module is delivered via interactive lectures and seminars. Assessment is via a case study on a topic selected by the student and approved by the module leader.

20 credits

Journalism in History

This module aims to set the processes and outputs of UK journalism in their historical context. You will develop an understanding of how journalism developed as a commercial activity and a recognisable profession in the nineteenth century, and how these beginnings influenced the shape of journalism throughout the twentieth century, with the growth of the tabloid press, the battles of the press barons, the rise and fall of the print unions, coverage of scandals, and the growth of consumer and lifestyle journalism. You will discuss and debate key issues such as the emergence of a free press, campaigning and investigative journalism, the development of an alternative media and representation of diversity within the press.

20 credits

Guided Module Choice

Contemporary Japanese Society

This module discusses key factors shaping contemporary Japanese society. Our particular focus will be on the last twenty years as post-Bubble Japan has entered a period of economic decline, prompting a series of debates about the effects of this change on society. Weekly lectures provide analysis and explanation of each week’s theme, with a focus on cutting-edge scholarship from the fields of history, anthropology, media studies, gender studies, and cultural studies.

20 credits

Understanding Contemporary North Korea

What does it mean to “understand” North Korea, and what are the potential implications of this understanding, academically and professionally? This module explores these questions through the disciplines of international relations, history, media studies and anthropology, as we cover a range of topics in the field of contemporary North Korea. These topics include post-colonialism, founding myths, nationalism, identity, ideology, human rights, international relations, and security, and covers key events and trends from the mid-1900s to the present day. The module provides a foundation for students to critically analyse how the North Korean state and society are presented to us via a variety of voices, as well as how we might respond in any capacity to engage with North Korean affairs. Lectures, instructional videos and assigned readings will provide background, case studies and theoretical approaches helpful for developing a nuanced understanding of the topics covered. Seminar classwork and the assessed portfolio will be used to learn and practice skills integral to both academic and professional activities commonly associated with studies of contemporary politics and society.

20 credits

Gender and Identities in East Asia

This module offers an overview of the study of gender and its connection to social, cultural, political and economic discourses across East Asia. Covering key issues related to the structures and dynamics of gender in East Asia, we learn to situate these dynamics in their historical and cultural context using case studies drawn from across the region.

20 credits

Contemporary Drama and Creative Practices

This module engages with diverse modes of contemporary drama and creative practices, including formats beyond conventional play scripts. Expanding literary and dramatic traditions, this module investigates alternative, experimental and even radical processes for creating drama and creative practice and reflects on the potential these modes of making might offer. Students will be introduced to a range of approaches, aesthetics and forms in which contemporary dramatic and creative practices could be understood and analysed. Building on interdisciplinary understandings and theoretical research, this module will also examine the contexts which gave rise to these modes of making and consider how these respond to or challenge different traditions. Under staff direction and supervision, students will experiment with different strategies and apply various methodologies in making, writing and sharing new dramatic and creative texts, drawing from their practical research and exploration.

20 credits

Good Books: Intertextual Approaches to Literature and the Bible

Literature, film and television constantly return to the Bible as a source of narrative, character and image. Biblical texts are translated, rewritten, transposed and radically challenged by literature from the medieval period to the present day and so intertextual readings of the Bible and literature provide insight into the ways authors engage with politics, philosophy, and tradition. Our module explores a range of intertextual relationships, from medieval dream poetry through to contemporary writing and cultural representation, including a range of genres and approaches. We will analyse film, TV and visual media as well as literary forms, to explore the ways in which creative writers interpret and re-imagine biblical narratives and tropes.

20 credits

Analysing Voice, Image and Text

This module builds on and develops skills and understanding of a range of qualitative research approaches used in contemporary human geography. The module will focus on a number of methodological approaches (e.g., qualitative interview, visual, digital, participatory, ethnography, focus groups, life histories, case study) and consider the relative strengths of these resulting data and the analytical approaches used to make sense of these forms of data. These approaches are considered in the context of research design more broadly, alongside key concerns such as positionality and research ethics.

10 credits

Culture, Space and Difference

This research-led module introduces students to the cutting edge of Social and Cultural Geography and dovetails with the Sheffield Geography Department’s Culture, Space and Difference research group. The module illustrates the diversity and vitality of contemporary social and cultural geography including some of the philosophical concepts and theoretical debates that have shaped the subject.  The module aims to deepen and enrich the ways in which students are able to think about geographical issues, through a critical understanding of concepts and approaches that underpin the substance and methods of contemporary human geography. The module team work with students to develop their own ‘photo essays’  - which bring the ideas of the module to students’ experiences from everyday life.

20 credits

Philosophy of Mind

This module provides a survey of philosophical theories of the mind, looking at such questions as: How is consciousness possible? Why is it that vibrations in the air around us produce conscious experiences of particular auditory experiences in our minds? Why is it that electromagnetic waves hitting our retinas produce particular visual experiences in our minds? What makes our thoughts represent things in the world? What is it about your thought that cats have whiskers that makes it about cats and whiskers? What is it about your thought that there are stars in the universe too far away for any human to have perceived them that makes it about such stars? What is the relation between thoughts and conscious experiences and brain states? We'll look at a variety of answers to these and related questions and examine some of the most important and influential theories that contemporary philosophers have to offer.

20 credits

Modern Japanese History

This module will explore key themes in the modern history of Japan from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, while developing core skills in reading primary sources and historical analysis. Broad themes include identity and nation-building, social and economic change, war and its practical and cultural legacies. Key sub-disciplinary approaches will be based in social and cultural history, with some excursions into other historiographical approaches. It will be delivered through weekly lectures, and seminars structured around developing primary source analysis skills and relating these to appropriate secondary literature. 

20 credits

Children and Digital Cultures

Digital technology has transformed the lives of many, impacting on culture and society. Many young people have quickly seen ways of extending and deepening social networks through their uses of technology, and immersed themselves in Virtual Worlds, Facebook etc and enjoyed browsing on shopping sites. This module examines new technologies and associated social practices impacting on children's lives, considering the nature of new digital practices and how these affect identity, society and culture. Educational implications of new technologies is a developing field of research and students will engage critically with debates within the field alongside examining websites and new practices.

20 credits

Territory, Power and Policy

The module introduces you to contemporary debates within political geography. You will develop a detailed understanding of political processes at a variety of spatial scales, from the international, national to the local, from collective politics to individual political behaviour. You will explore questions of power, efficacy and conflict with an emphasis on the spatial and place-specific aspects of politics in relation to issues including: geopolitics and international relations; the state and territoriality; the politics of nationalism and citizenship; civic activism; and individual political participation.

20 credits

Who Gets What? Social Justice and the Environment

Environmental issues continue to be a key area of contemporary public concern and current political debate. They raise fundamental questions about the relationship between society and environment, and the politics and equity of that relationship. This module provides a geographical introduction to these issues and debates with examples from a range of scales from the global to the local. It also considers the role of stakeholders and how they benefit or are disadvantaged by policy that seeks to address issues to do with the environment-society relationship. The module then develops these core ideas through inter-related sections covering debates focused on different empirical themes.

Particular skills will be achieved including: policy analysis, ethical awareness, positive mindset, global awareness and self-awareness.

20 credits

Digital Storytelling

The use of digital media to enhance the effectiveness of a narrative is common in the fields of business, entertainment, cultural heritage, education and journalism. The module provides an introduction to the area of digital storytelling including key concepts and technologies involved in creating/using digital content and how to use digital media to tell a story. Students will be taught practical skills such as how to create and use digital media such as images, videos, and sounds, and how to design and create complex multimedia applications using Adobe Animate CC (an industry recognised platform, using HTML and CSS).

20 credits

Feminism

Feminists have famously claimed that the personal is political. This module takes up various topics with that methodological idea in mind: the family, cultural critique, language. We examine feminist methodologies - how these topics might be addressed by a feminism that is inclusive of all women - and also turn attention to social structures within which personal choices are made - capitalism, and climate crisis .

20 credits

Environmental Justice

This module will introduce students to contemporary philosophical discussions of environmental justice at the global level. Topics to be covered may include: The nature of global environmental injustices; responsibility for global environmental problems; the relationship between global environmental challenges and other historical and contemporary injustices; fair international sharing of the costs of environmental action; the justifiability of environmental activism; the rights of indigenous peoples; fairness in global environmental decision-making; and the politics of ‘geoengineering’ the planet.

20 credits

Social Problems: Policy and Practice

This team taught unit adopts a 'sociological approach to social policy'. Drawing on current examples and comparative references, it explores social and ideological constructions of social problems and the role of the state and other agencies in responses to them. It explores key concepts and themes in social policy and practice such as inequality, justice and fairness; individual versus collective responsibility; and welfare versus social control. It focuses on major contemporary issues, including welfare and work; housing and homelessness; and community participation. The unit aims to equip students with the necessary critical perspective and skills to understand and explore social problems.

20 credits

Cities, Violence and Security

Introduces students to key examples of violence, conflict and insecurity in urban contexts around the world. The course focuses on efforts to make better and safer places and seeks to develop student understanding of the political, economic and social drivers of human insecurity in urban settings. Examples of urban violence and crime, policing, forced evictions, domestic violence, terrorism, gangs and the rise of gated communities and other modes of design and control to produce securitised urban spaces are discussed and analysed in their effectiveness.

20 credits

Core modules

Magazine Journalism and Production

In this module you will produce a multi-platform brand specifically for a target market. It combines working under your own initiative and working as part of a team to launch a new magazine that you will write and design as well as creating digital and social content and appropriate multimedia, as well as commissioning content from colleagues. You will undertake market research, an analysis of your competitive set and produce a business plan that demonstrates the commercial potential of your brand. When working as a team, you will learn how to deal with different personalities and skill sets while developing a sense of professional conduct as you produce a magazine that is the sum of all your work.

40 credits

Final Project

You will prepare and execute a substantial piece of work that either analyses an issue in journalism, or is a piece of journalism publishable on a platform of your choice. Under the guidance of a named supervisor you'll be able to choose your own topic, and in the process be able to see how almost any topic can be investigated and researched from a journalistic and academic perspective. You'll be able to make an informed choice about the nature of your project in relation to your own strengths, weaknesses and ambitions.

40 credits

Optional modules A

You must choose one of the modules from this list.

News Project

This module aims to coach, support and develop the skills required in specialist reporting, such as crime, education, data, health, politics, in a bid to allow you to report more creatively, analytically and develop off-diary news-gathering abilities to appeal to both regional and national, and international audiences as well as exploring campaign opportunities and developing project management skills by the creation of a branded news organisation.

20 credits

Television and Radio Live Production

The module will cover the production of individual radio packages including pitching story ideas, and using sound and audio imaginatively to create radio packages. You will be part of a team producing a television news magazine-style programme, where longer television news packages and special reports will be put together over a number of weeks.

20 credits

Optional modules B

You must choose one module from either this list or the Guided Module Choice list below.

Free Speech and Censorship

Free Speech and Censorship critically explores the historical and contemporary status of freedom of speech and expression and the limits and constraints on this liberty. The module covers topics as varied as the philosophies of free speech; the history and significance of free speech; the legal framework for the protection of free speech in Europe and the US; the limits of free speech and press freedom; debates about harm and offence. Students taking this module should be interested in examining these debates as they apply to contemporary media, legal and political systems. Assessment is via academic coursework on a topic selected by the student and approved by the module leader.

20 credits

Gender, Feminism and the Media

This module critically examines the media through a feminist and gendered perspective. It considers how women, 'femininity' and women's issues are constructed in the media across a variety of cultural contexts. It introduces theories and approaches with which to analyse a variety of media including newspapers, magazines, and social media. Students will comparatively analyse traditional and social media from a feminist, intersectional, and postcolonial perspective. They will consider the role of the media in both perpetuating, but also challenging, normative ideas about gender. The module draws on a variety of case studies. Topics include LGBTQI+ identity, activism, and the body.

20 credits

Radio and Development

Radio plays a crucial role in development. It is the main source of information in many countries in the Global South and obtaining factual, independent and timely information allows listeners to make informed decisions, promoting empowerment and democracy. This module focuses on, and engages with, the role of radio in development. It examines theoretical discussions and also practical applications used, and sometimes misused, by radio and development agencies internationally, during conflicts and pandemics and the challenges they encounter culturally, politically, economically, legally and institutionally. It brings together practical skills (radio production) and theoretical understandings.

20 credits

Guided Module Choice

You must choose one module from either this list or the 'optional modules B' list above.

Democracy and Citizenship: Dilemmas and Tensions

This module explores how a geographical approach helps us to analyse issues such as controversial election results, divisive immigration policies, and contentious social activism. The two key concepts of democracy and citizenship are used to engage with contemporary debates and theories to draw out the links between geography, policy and society, and the ways in which these are shaped and responded to by citizens, communities, civil society, and political parties. The module emphasises the critical appraisal and interpretation of a variety of perspectives - including our own. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which these interactions are played out across and through multiple scales, from the global to our everyday lives.

20 credits

Advanced Political Philosophy

This module will investigate a broad range of topics and issues in political philosophy and explore these questions in some detail. It will include both historical and foundational matters and recent state of the art research.

20 credits

Utopia, Reform and Democracy

Humanity faces a recurrent political challenge: the task of steering itself towards a sustainable and just future. A crucial part of this challenge involves developing a vision of change, of an achievable good society: a vision of the harbour we are aiming for as we sail through these troubled waters. But how are those visions to be enacted in the world? What theories of change lay at the heart of various philosophical visions? This module will introduce students to some of the major schools of thought - historical and contemporary - regarding the relationship between social theory and political practice.

20 credits

Topics in Social Philosophy

This module will introduce students to some contemporary issues in social philosophy.

20 credits

Feminist and Queer Studies in Religion, Global Perspectives

This module applies feminism, queer studies and trans philosophy in analysis of genders and sexualities in religious traditions and cultures around the world. We will examine deities and goddesses, gendered language in religions, cisheteropatriarchy, and LGBTQIA life in e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, as well as in Chinese, and Japanese cultures. We will discuss genders, rituals, spirituality, sexual practices, procreation, abstinence, and asexuality, reading a range of feminist, queer and trans philosophical works, and texts ranging from the Kama Sutra to Confucius and the Vatican documents, Scriptures, and empirical research. Assignments allow students in Philosophy, Humanities, and Social Sciences develop their expertise using their preferred methods and topics, on religions of their choice.

20 credits

Children, Families and Welfare States

This module examines welfare state support and services for children, parents and families, informed by sociological and social policy theories, concepts and research. Adopting a comparative approach, the module critically reviews different approaches to, and configurations of, welfare state support and services for children, parents and families across the UK and Western/Northern European welfare states. Four policy and provision domains are examined, namely cash support for children and families; childcare and early years' services; parental leave and work-family balance policies; and child welfare and family support services.

20 credits

Psychology of Language

This third-year module in psycholinguistics examines the relationship between the human mind and language, addressing both theoretical and methodological issues. We look at the processes involved in producing and comprehending speech, and in reading, exploring the ways in which we represent and store linguistic knowledge. The core linguistic modules will be investigated (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics), with a focus on phonology. Evidence from speech errors, impaired speech, and neuroscience alongside classic psychological experimental work in the field will be considered. Students will gain a thorough grounding in psycholinguistic theory and practice, and should acquire the tools to undertake their own research in the future.

20 credits

Decolonising Geographies

This module examines Indigenous geographies through Indigenous storytelling and film as a way to understand the need to decolonise geography. It examines how race, racism, Indigenous rights, settler colonialism, settler responsibility, white supremacy, land rights, dispossession and genocide shape geographies of place, space and landscape, as well as more affirmative visions of Indigenous futures. Topics covered include geographies of identity, emotions, memory, racism, colonialism, gender, landscape, and visual representation. The aim of this module is to centre Indigenous narratives, voices and knowledge to understand geography differently while simultaneously critiquing the current whiteness of academic geographical discourse. Trigger warning - this module engages with potentially distressing and challenging themes of rape, murder, abuse, loss and violence.

20 credits

Creative Geographies: Media, Imaginaries and Politics

Place, in all its forms, has long inspired creativity, while the works that result are themselves inherently spatial.  This module will explore work from several historical and contemporary creative movements and associated cultural producers in context.  Why did their work arise where it did?  What difference did that place (or places) make to their aesthetic thought and expression?  How was space itself integral to their creative work?  This module will guide students through the intricate relationship between art across various media, geography, and the political.  Emphasis will be put on specific types of space and place as sites and mediums of aesthetic thought and creative practice.  Core themes will include identity, place and displacement, historical imaginations and the built environment, and creativity and socio-spatial transformation.

20 credits

Philosophy of Psychology

This course provides an in-depth look at a selection of issues in contemporary philosophy of psychology. Philosophy of psychology is concerned with such questions as : What is the structure and organisation of the human mind? Is the mind one big homogenous thing, or is it made up of smaller interacting components? If it has components, what sort are they and how are they interrelated? What aspects of our minds are uniquely, or distinctively human? What is the cognitive basis for such capacities as our capacity for language, rationality, science, mathematics, cultural artefacts, altruism, cooperation, war, morality and art? To what extent are the concepts, rules, biases, and cognitive processes that we possess universal features of all human beings and to what extent are they culturally (or otherwise) variable? Do infants (non-human) animals, and individuals with cognitive deficits have minds, and if so, what are they like? To what extent are these capacities learned as opposed to innately given? How important is evolutionary theory to the study of the mind? What is the Self? What are concepts? Is all thought conceptual? Is all thought conscious? What is consciousness? This course will discuss a selection of these and related issues by looking at the work of philosophers, psychologists, and others working within the cognitive sciences more generally.

20 credits

Philosophy of Law

Law is a pervasive feature of modern societies and governs most aspects of our lives. This module is about some of the philosophical questions raised by life under a legal system. The first part of the module investigates the nature of law. Is law simply a method of social control? For example, the group calling itself Islamic State issued commands over a defined territory and backed up these commands with deadly force. Was that a legal system? Or is law necessarily concerned with justice? Do legal systems contain only rules or do they also contain underlying principles? Is 'international law' really law?
The second part of the module investigates the relationship between law and individual rights. What kinds of laws should we have? Do we have the moral right to break the law through acts of civil disobedience? What is the justification of punishment? Is there any justification for capital punishment? Are we right to legally differentiate between intended crimes (like murder) and unintended crimes (like manslaughter), or does this involve the unjustified punishment of 'thought crime'? Are we right to legally differentiate between murder and attempted murder, despite the fact that both crimes involve the same intent to kill?

20 credits

Moral Theory and Moral Psychology

This course examines the relationship of moral theory and moral psychology. We discuss the relationship of science and ethics, examine the nature of self-interest, altruism, sympathy, the will, and moral intuitions, explore psychological arguments for and against familiar moral theories including utilitarianism, virtue ethics, deontology and relativism, and confront the proposal that understanding the origins of moral thought 'debunks' the authority of ethics. In doing so, we will engage with readings from historical philosophers, including Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Smith, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche and Moore, as well as contemporary authors in philosophy and empirical psychology.

20 credits

What it means to be human

New technologies and new scientific knowledge make powerful claims about `human nature’ that are reconstructing how we understand ourselves. At the same time, they also give us new potential to reshape our bodies and brains. This module aims to critically engage with these developments using concepts from a number of sociological traditions. Can biology tell us anything meaningful about social interaction or racial and gendered differences, or about ability and disability? What are the criteria by which we determine ‘the human’ and who decides what these shall be? Does our psychology have an evolutionary basis? How are the boundaries between humans and machines changing? What is the human impact on the environment? Should we use new technologies to enhance ourselves? The module will provide students with the opportunities and tools to grapple with these and other important questions.

20 credits