Module: MCO5002-20 Global Communication Strategies

Level: 5

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Matthew Freeman

Module Tutor Contact Details: m.freeman@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module equips students with a broad understanding of how the media communications industries communicate to audiences on a global scale. Students will acquire a strategic industry-focused insight into ways of harnessing different media platforms, ways of connecting ethically with different cultures and countries through media forms, and ways of disseminating complex ideas – locally and globally.

On one level, students are asked to consider how wider global transformations shape and impact the communication practices of the media industries. Exploring key case studies from contemporary entertainment sectors, and drawing on research from across the fields of media communications, business studies, marketing, film and television studies and cultural studies, students analyse the makings of global media, making sense of the strategic creativity utilised by media entertainments to engage audiences globally, the cultural challenges that emerge from such strategies, and the technological shifts that allow media to spread around the world.

On a second level, students will also learn to critique the impacts of global media communication strategies, analysing the social, cultural, political or even personal implications of some of the media’s oft-commercialised global practices.

Both perspectives will come together to inform students’ practical understandings of global communication strategies and ethically-rooted alternatives to engaging global audiences, developing progressive ideas for how to communicate with audiences.

2. Outline syllabus

• Module Introduction: Thinking Globally about Media

• Global Communications Theory

• Conglomeration: Transmedia and Transcultural Entertainment

• Commercialisation: Endorsed Celebrities

• Digitisation: Online Television

• International Communication: Social and Immersive Media

• Developing a Transmedia Presentation

• Communications Strategy

• Ethical and Moral Implications: Industry Case Studies

• Web design and content creation tutorials

3. Teaching and learning activities

In the first half of the module, students examine the four key ways through which media is now communicated and disseminated globally – international communication, conglomeration, commercialization, and digitization. Students will explore the formations, practices and implications of these four approaches, completing a Research Blog (50%) complete with personal vlog reflections and research documentation that analyses the industrial and textual workings, as well as the social and ethical implications, of the ‘glocal’ communication strategies at the heart of these examples. Case studies include transmedia and transcultural stories, online television streaming services, international communication platforms such as TikTok and immersive technologies, and celebrity-branded commercial products.

In the second half of the module, students delve further into ways of communicating to audiences on a global scale, working collaboratively on a joint project that aims to experiment with practice-based methods of (re)communicating a chosen media product or brand to different audiences and cultures around the world, problematising the implications of ‘glocal’ communication and developing ideas for more progressive and inclusive alternatives to engaging audiences. This research will be presented as a Cross-Platform Presentation (50%) that showcases the outcomes of the research.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Coursework

• Description: Research Blog (2500 words)

• % Weighting: 50%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Coursework

• Description: Cross-Platform Presentation (2500 words equivalent)

• % Weighting: 50%