Media & Communication BA(Hons)

Your first year introduces you to the core creative, strategic and technical skills that underpin digital media and communication. You’ll explore how digital technologies shape everyday life, learning to design, prototype and share ideas across different platforms using industry-standard tools. 

You’ll put these skills into practice through studio projects and workshops, analysing how brands, creators and communities communicate online, and experimenting with your own creative approaches. 

Along the way, you’ll build the essential professional attributes that define successful digital practitioners: from collaboration and creative problem-solving to presenting ideas with clarity, confidence and purpose. 

Writing Studio 

This module is all about understanding the mechanics of impactful writing. Collaborating with students from across the School of Communication, you will examine how language shapes the experiences of audiences across different platforms. 

Then, through practical tasks and workshops, you will develop tools and techniques that will build your confidence in writing with clarity, empathy, and purpose, helping you to craft engaging and persuasive stories for a wide range of different channels and contexts – from news and social media to websites and apps. 

Digital Media & Society

Explore how digital technologies shape the way we live, connect and communicate. In this module, you’ll examine how social media, data and platforms influence culture and identity, while developing the critical and creative skills to analyse — and challenge — the power of digital media in shaping our world. 

Creative Problem Solving 

Commercial businesses and non-profit organisations need solutions for all kinds of problems and challenges - from improving everyday products and services to dealing with the impact of new technologies, the climate emergency, diversity and social justice.  

During this module you will gain hands-on experience of creative problem-solving tools and techniques, learning how to collect information, discover insights, define problems and generate ideas to address problems in innovative ways. 

Everyday Media and Digital Prototyping 

You will explore how digital media shape everyday life and, through qualitative user research and hands-on prototyping, learn to transform insights into creative design concepts.  

Using lo-fidelity and digital design tools you will create practical outcomes which may include an app, website concept or interactive sketch addressing media use during disruption.  

Strategy in the Age of AI 

Since AI has arrived in the creative industries, tools and frameworks for strategising and planning advertising campaigns have shifted. In this module, you'll delve into the strategic aspects of the creative process, exploring the research and insights underpinning campaign planning and decision-making.  

You'll also learn how to leverage AI appropriately and ethically through lectures, seminar discussions on case studies, and practical workshops. 

Marketing Communications 

Building on the knowledge you gained in Marketing Essentials, in this module you will learn how to develop a marketing communications plan and the tools and techniques to make that plan impactful; advertising, PR, content and influencer marketing.  

You’ll explore case studies on different types of marketing communications and then create a plan for your own integrated communications campaign – placing audience needs and issues of diversity at the centre of your work. 

In your second year you will start to specialise, exploring social media, data-driven media campaigns, and behavioural economics, further developing your practical and theoretical knowledge and skills, and applying them to real-world situations. 

Creating Brands

This module explores the role of brands in business and society, introducing their key components: from values, positioning, and personality to tone of voice and visual identity. 

You will develop the practical brand design and production skills that bring brands to life: branding tools, methods, and frameworks to identify cultural tensions and opportunities, and strategies for compelling brand-building.  

Alongside understanding how brands create value for businesses, you will discover how brands support innovation and drive change by challenging industry norms and engaging with social, environmental, and ethical issues. 

Social Media and Digital Cultures 

Social media and digital platforms shape culture, identity, and communication. In this module, you'll learn to leverage each platform's unique features and possibilities to support your campaign objectives. Through lectures and case studies, you will examine how platforms influence everyday life, creative expression, and public debate, focusing on issues of algorithmic power, online communities and digital activism. 

Working both individually and in groups, you will be challenged to design digital-first tactics or campaigns, building a portfolio that demonstrates your ability to connect cultural insight with strategic platform use. Adobe sessions will help you prototype your ideas visually, while guest talks and lectures will explore how social and emerging media are reshaping the industry. 

Behaviour Change for Good 

Understanding human behaviour is crucial in the world of advertising. In this module, you will delve into psychology and behavioural research, learning how to gain insights, and using behaviour change frameworks to inform your ideas for tackling important social and environmental issues.  

Through a combination of lectures, practical workshops and tutorials, you will explore different research methods such as focus groups, interviews and observation to gain insights that can be used to inform a strategy or communication design intervention -- while also examining the moral and ethical considerations relating to behavioural research and the use of psychological techniques in communication and design. 

Creative Data and Campaigns

On this future-facing module, you will explore how data and AI can be used as creative tools to design personalised, strategic and responsive digital communication and experiences.  

You will learn to use data not only for strategic insights but also for driving creative outputs. You’ll explore how predictive models, generative systems, and autonomous AI can fuel innovation for companies or spark conversations among audiences.  

With opportunities to collaborate with students across disciplines, you’ll also have the opportunity to feed into global competitions, and will understand the risks, social, ethical and ecological problems caused by data-driven technologies and communications.  

Option modules:

Work Futures 

Digital media and creative industries are changing fast. In this module you will explore the contemporary creative industries and develop the skills and knowledge to shape them.  

Through a series of guest speakers from our network of alumni and professional connections, workshops and seminars, you will build a toolkit for working life. Reflecting on pressing issues such as the gender pay gap, racism, socioeconomic inequality, burnout, remote working, and the role of AI and digital platforms shaping jobs, you will prepare to make choices that align with both your ambitions and the realities of creative work today.  

You’ll also explore the importance of creating a personal brand and professional network reflecting on your own position and values. 

Digital Marketing Consultancy   

Working collaboratively and simulating a digital marketing consultancy, you will apply your marketing knowledge in industry-aligned scenarios. You’ll take on a clear role within the team to achieve a shared outcome for your ‘client’, mentored by your tutors to build your professionalism in preparation for your future career.   

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme.

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your placement year 

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

Your final year is about reinforcing and deepening the skills, knowledge and experiences you have gained, preparing a professional portfolio with a wide range of content for potential employers.  

You’ll work collaboratively and independently in simulated work situations and on industry-aligned briefs to sharpen your professional and business development skills.   

Creative Climate Communication 

Impactful climate communication is one of the most difficult yet urgent challenges of our time. On this hands-on, interdisciplinary module you will explore how digital media shapes public understanding of climate issues - and how you can use it to inspire awareness and action.  

Through lectures, workshops and collaborative projects, you will engage in campaign analysis, creative experimentation, and come up with communication ideas to overcome audience disengagement and/or instigate activist strategies aimed at promoting climate awareness or change. 

Major Project – Startup Development 

You’ll research, plan and develop a digital startup idea that is aligned with your creative passions or professional aspirations. 

Demonstrating engagement with contemporary industry trends, debates and conversations, you will conduct a combination of secondary and primary research to identify findings or insights that can be used to inform your creative practice.  

Through masterclasses, seminars and workshops, you will study research methods that are relevant to your discipline and chosen theme. With formative feedback from your project supervisors throughout, you will learn to shape your ideas and research findings into a clear and focused proposal of work. 

Industry Portfolio 

Responding to industry-aligned briefs, this module will enable you to develop a unique graduate portfolio demonstrating your experience, projects and skills to potential employers in an engaging, compelling, and portable format. 

Major Project - Showcase 

To launch your digital media innovation idea, you will create a thoroughly researched major project that establishes you as an expert in a chosen theme or sector.  

Through 1-to-1 sessions with your tutor, you will define and plan the appropriate project outcomes which will demonstrate how you have interpreted your research creatively.  

With the help of academic support sessions, you will also produce an accompanying written critical evaluation or rationale alongside your practical outcomes and prepare your work for public showcase whether in-person or online.  

Our approach to teaching is supportive, based on our experiences as well as real-life examples from the industry, and is both creatively and intellectually stimulating.  

A typical week can be any combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials (with a group or individually), demonstrations, practical workshops and editorial conferences, combined with your own independent study. 

To get you ready for life in the creative content industry, you’ll be supported in putting the skills and knowledge you’ve learnt into practice, working on externally-facing projects, as a team or on your own, using our professional equipment and facilities. 

Throughout your time with us, you’ll benefit from the course team’s industry connections.  

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning & teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.   

100% of your assessment will be coursework. There are no exams as part of this course.   

Assessment methods 

There are a variety of types of assessments, which include: 

• Portfolio - a selection of your work, sometimes in the form of a structured report 

• Presentation - a presentation made to a lecturer, class and/or panel 

• Report - a formal summary of a project or other activity 

• Journal - a reflective record of your learning and practice 

• Essay - an academic argument addressing a question or a hypothesis 

• Practical - an example of your creative or journalistic work 

• Critical evaluation - a written evaluation of another's or your own work 

• Dissertation - a term which can apply to a longform media or written artefact/project or an extended piece of academic writing