Reporting And Writing

This unit teaches the researching and writing of news stories and feature articles. You will learn how to identify what is newsworthy and then how to write for a series of platforms across a number of subjects, in an ethical and professional manner.

Radio Skills

This unit allows you to acquire key radio production and presentation abilities. You will learn some of the underlying principles of radio, together with essential equipment operation and digital production techniques. Taken together, these will provide you with a variety of key skills needed for the creation of high quality audio and broadcast radio content.

Radio 101 History & Practice

This unit provides you with an introductory grounding in the history of broadcast radio, paying particular attention its social and political impacts. It provides an overview of the context within which current broadcast radio content and practice are situated, paying particular attention to professional industry and regulatory structures. The unit will also help develop your academic and professional research skills as you discover more about radio and multi-platform approaches to audio programming.

Introduction To Podcasting

This unit allows you to explore the distinctiveness of podcasting as a both a medium and a movement, especially in contrast to traditional broadcast radio. You will develop your academic, professional research, critical analysis and presentation skills as you discover more about the history of podcasts and the unique qualities and practices that podcasting delivers.

Radio, Audio And Podcasting

This unit enables you to expand your radio, audio production, podcasting and presentation skills base. You will develop various types of programme content through the use of studio and location recording techniques alongside building your abilities in relation to digital audio editing.

Preparing For The Audio Workplace

This unit allows you to showcase what you have learned on the course so far and prepare for the transition to work. It will help you understand subject specific and transferable skills relevant to the job market You will develop the skills necessary to improve your employability, including those related to creating a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and professional social media profile. You will learn how to research potential employers, how to contact them in a professional manner and how to prepare for an interview. The creation of a work portfolio will be explored such that you can compile materials and present them to future potential employers after you have graduated from the course.

Radio Structures & Regulation

This unit allows you to explore how broadcast radio is structured and regulated. It examines differing approaches to the delivery of radio and how these are overseen through legislation and regulatory structures. Alternative approaches to radio broadcasting found outside the United Kingdom are considered, alongside technological developments within the medium along with the impacts of more recent audio delivery technologies.

This unit will also help develop your academic and professional research skills as you discover more about radio and multi-platform audio delivery.

Digital Production Skills

This unit will build your digital broadcast news skills. You will develop your practical television, radio and online production skills, your editorial skills and your voice skills, all of which helps you build towards your goal of producing industry standard digital broadcast journalism. This unit prepares you for the 15 Newsdays you will complete in the following semester.

Law, Regulation & Public Administration

This unit both deepens and broadens the basic legal, civic and regulatory knowledge you acquired in unit as Introduction to the Journalism Industry. The knowledge you acquire in this unit will enable you to report confidently on civic structures and to do so in a legally safe, regulatory compliant manner.

Radio 24/7

This unit enables you to produce a variety of radio programming to a professional industry standard. You will develop your ability to formulate, develop and deliver your ideas whilst working within professional production constraints. You will learn to critically reflect on your own work in comparison to professional radio and audio practice.

Radio & Audio Documentaries

This unit enables you to produce radio and audio documentaries to a professional industry standard. You will develop your ability to formulate, develop and deliver your ideas whilst working within professional production constraints.

Practical Special Project - Cnc

This unit allows you to demonstrate the skills, ideas and learning acquired during your degree in an extended piece of work that is self-initiated and managed, and supported by your assigned supervisor. The project needs to be in one of the areas of your degree, and have a clear and strong link to it. The project content should be taken from your main area of interest within your course. The topic will require the prior approval of the unit coordinator.

In this unit you will develop your practical project, individually or in groups. In the area of radio&audio, media communications and journalism: the project can be undertaken individually or as a group.

In the area of video/television: the project can only be undertaken as group activity.

The project is the bridge between your studies and the world of work, and you should approach it in a professional manner and demonstrate independent thinking, responsibility, perseverance and high standards, all necessary to enter your professional life or postgraduate study.

Dissertation Special Project - Cnc

This unit allows you to demonstrate the skills, ideas and learning acquired during your degree in an extended piece of work that is self-initiated and managed, and supported by your assigned supervisor. The project needs to be in one of the areas of your degree, and have a clear and strong link to it. The project content should be taken from your main area of interest within your course. The topic will require the prior approval of the unit coordinator.

In this unit you will develop your research project, in the form of an undergraduate dissertation. Your project will follow the guidelines of ethical practice for the British Sociological Association, confirmed through the compilation and approval of CATS ethics form.

The project is the bridge between your studies and the world of work, and you should approach it in a professional manner and demonstrate independent thinking, responsibility, perseverance and high standards, all necessary to enter your professional life or postgraduate study.

English Language Foundation

This unit focuses on your ability to understand and use the English language accurately when you read, speak, listen and write. We will concentrate on the English you need for undergraduate level study in your chosen subject area, covering grammar, subject area vocabulary and the four language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.

A key element of the unit is the grammar of the language, and particularly the verb tense system in English, because your ability to use the verb tense system accurately will be extremely important when you come to write essays and reports. This unit will focus in particular on the grammar of the language.

We will also focus on reading, listening and speaking skills in the context of your chosen subject area. Beginning with short texts, we will practise each skill and practise it again, so that gradually you will see, hear and feel that your command of the language is improving. 

A recurring focus of the unit will be your acquisition of 'learner autonomy'. This means your ability to acquire the language yourself, without needing a teacher's help. This is important because from next year you will not have an English teacher to help you. So we will consider and practise strategies to help you gain confidence in your own ability to increase your knowledge of and ability to use the language, including for instance guessing meaning of difficult words, deciding which words are important in a text, recognising differences between formal and informal language, and other strategies, so that as the first semester continues, you begin to feel more confident in your use and experience with the English Language.

Academic Skills Foundation

When you begin your undergraduate level studies, you will be expected to have knowledge of and ability to use a large range of 'study skills'. You will also be expected to have some knowledge of the subject area you will  be studying. This unit deals with both of these aspects of your preparation for undergraduate level study. 

All of the academic skills are practised in English, so you will use your developing acquisition of the language from the partner unit 'English Language Foundation' to practise and gain mastery of these skills. You will also use your language and study skills as you learn the foundation of your subject area, putting the skills into practice as you learn.

Developing English Language Skills

This unit builds on the progress you made during its partner semester 1 unit 'English Language Foundation' and increasing your level from that which you had achieved by the end of semester 1. 

We will recycle the tense system in English and other elements of the grammar system, but you will  now learn how to use other aspects of the grammar, including the passive voice, as well as linking words and phrases and devices which enable you to write longer sentences but retain grammatical accuracy. 

You will notice that we gradually introduce more specialist language that you need in preparation for your degree and we will expect you to use and develop the skills that you gained in the previous units so that you are able to work more independently.

Academic Skills Development

This unit builds on the skills learnt and practised in its partner semester 1 unit 'Foundation Academic Skills'. We will add more skills to the list, including summarizing and synthesising, argumentation, critical thinking and referencing and citation skills, as well as several others and practise and test them in the same way as with the semester 1 unit.

We will also investigate the research skill and you will learn how to prepare a research proposal and conduct a literature review, and how to plan a research project, learning about the research tools available and how they can be used to conduct research in your chosen field. 

You will continue to broaden your knowledge of key current issues and theory in your chosen subject area, and apply the critical thinking and argumentation skills you acquire in this unit to argue for and against propositions you have studied in the form of in both essays and presentations and in seminar situations, ensuring that you are ready to step up to your chosen undergraduate course with a base level of subject area knowledge from which to continue your academic development as you progress to level 4 study.

Professional Practice Year (Subject Area Culture And Communications)

The aim of this unit is to provide the opportunity to undertake career-related experience which will allow you to understand and undertake responsibilities in the work place at an appropriate level and use the opportunity to assess your readiness to undertake a career in your chosen field