Module: MCO4109-20 - Writing For The Media

Level: 4

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Rebecca Feasey

Module Tutor Contact Details: R.Feasey@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

At a time when media transcends the borders of platforms and cultures, this module asks students to consider: how does the media appeal to specific audiences? This module equips students with the analytical, research and content skills to engage different demographics of media audiences. Students are introduced to methods for successfully categorizing and conceptualizing media groups, exploring how specific formats appeal to specific consumers – both historically and in the present-day. Students will learn the importance of in-house writing styles in the journalism and publishing industries, genre in the entertainment industries, and digital devices versus broadcast media, all of which speak of defining recognizable conventions and expectations that communicate to defined media demographics.

Students gain practical content-creation skills, particularly in copywriting and image design, as they practice producing journalistic copy for different audiences. Students will also evaluate how wider factors such as trends in popular culture and emerging tensions between mainstream and alternative media impact the way we define specific demographics.

2.Outline syllabus

● Module Introduction: Who is the media for anyway?

● Demographics and categorizing media consumers

● Understanding media uses

● Cultural impacts: High, low and popular culture

● Cultural impacts: Audiences for digital versus print

● Analysing registers and in-style styles

● Analysing genres and their audiences

● Inclusive and diverse content creation

● Writing copy for particular audiences

● Designing images for particular audiences

3.Teaching and learning activities

In the first half of the module, students are introduced to how the media industries go about targeting and defining different kinds of audiences, be it in terms of age, gender, profession, income, interests and so on. Students are exposed to the kinds of demographic-defining methods utilized by the media over time, and will analyse media uses. The module explores the impact of a range of cultural trends and phenomena such as changing forms of popular culture and tensions between mainstream and alternative media on the way we define specific demographics.

In the second half of the module, students move on to consider the importance of in-house writing styles in the journalism and publishing industries, genre in the entertainment industries, and digital devices versus broadcast media, all of which speak of defining recognizable conventions and expectations that communicate to a carefully defined media demographic. At this point, students will be asked to conduct a critical analysis of a chosen piece of media, analysing how said media serves to appeal to and engage a particular audience, while debating how well the media promote the engagement of a diverse, inclusive audience. Students will apply their research and analysis by producing a portfolio of journalistic content, comprising copy designed for a chosen audience for a defined publication, with well-selected/designed images. All of this work comes together as a Research Portfolio (100%).

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Research Portfolio (4000 words equivalent)

• % Weighting: 100%