MA Digital and Visual Communications

This module focuses on developing your creative practice through research-informed independent project work. You will be supported to build a portfolio of work that brings together critical research and practical outcomes, helping you to refine your ideas, methods, and professional direction. Throughout the module, you will engage with taught content, workshops, and guided activities that explore contemporary issues in digital and visual communications. Alongside this, you will carry out independent research, both written and practice-based, to deepen your understanding of your chosen specialist pathway. You will be encouraged to question, test, and extend your practice in response to current debates and thinking within your discipline. A key part of the module is the development of a negotiated project, where you define and explore a theme or topic that is meaningful to your own interests and career goals. Your final portfolio will demonstrate how research has informed your creative decisions and practical outcomes, showing a clear and critical dialogue between theory, idea development and making. This module is designed to help you become a confident, reflective, and research-aware practitioner.

This module puts you at the centre of research-led and practice-based learning. You will explore creative risk-taking and interdisciplinary ways of working to develop a focused body of practical work. Through guided activities and independent study, you will test ideas, materials, and processes, allowing you to experiment and refine your own creative methods. You will carry out research alongside hands-on experimentation to deepen your understanding of contemporary visual communication practice. This includes engaging with relevant histories, theories, critical perspectives, and methodologies, and applying them directly to your practical work. The module encourages you to respond to current creative and cultural issues while developing ideas that are driven by your own interests and specialist area. By developing advanced research and production skills, you will begin to identify and shape emerging ways of working that support your individual practice. The module supports you in building confidence as an independent practitioner, helping you to develop innovative approaches that are informed by research, experimentation, and critical reflection.

This module is the final stage of your course and brings together the learning, skills, and experience you have developed across earlier modules. You will complete a substantial body of practical and/or written work as part of your Final Major Project. The purpose of this is to demonstrate your individual specialist approach within the field of contemporary digital and visual communications. Building on earlier experimentation and development, you will refine and resolve a self-directed project that reflects your interests, strengths, and professional ambitions. You will carry out independent research and apply advanced design and production skills to explore current issues and debates within your discipline. This module gives you the opportunity to work with a high level of independence, supported by tutorials and feedback, allowing you to take responsibility for shaping the direction, focus, and outcomes of your work. Your Masters project may take the form of an exhibition, a professional portfolio of practical work, a dissertation, or a combination of these, depending on your chosen pathway. This module is designed to help you demonstrate your readiness for professional practice, further study, or research by showcasing a confident, research-informed, and critically engaged body of work.

This module focuses on research and contextual study to help you critically explore contemporary issues shaping the creative industries. You will be introduced to key ideas, debates, and theoretical perspectives that inform current digital and visual communications practice. Central to the module is an exploration of the relationship between material and digital culture, including questions of authorship, value, technology, sustainability, access, and audience engagement. Through lectures, seminars, and independent research, you will develop the skills needed to analyse how creative work is produced, circulated, and experienced in contemporary contexts. You will examine how historical and cultural developments connect to current practices, and how digital technologies continue to reshape creative labour and visual culture. The module encourages you to critically reflect on where your own practice sits within these debates and how it responds to contemporary social, environmental, and technological issues. You will also strengthen your research, writing, and communication skills by engaging with key texts, contributing to discussions, and producing critically informed written work. By connecting theory to practice, this module supports you in developing a confident, research-informed understanding of contemporary creative industries and your position within them.

This intermediate module builds your practical expertise in the digital channels that dominate modern marketing search engines and social media platforms. You'll develop hands-on skills with the tools and platforms employers use daily, making you immediately productive in SEO, SEM, social media, and content marketing roles. You'll learn how search engines rank content and social media algorithms surface posts, enabling you to optimise your marketing for visibility and engagement. Through practical workshops, you'll conduct SEO audits using professional tools like SEMrush and Google Search Console, create and manage paid search campaigns in Google Ads, and execute social media strategies across multiple platforms including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. This module emphasises doing, not just knowing. You'll build real campaigns, create content that generates engagement, analyse performance data, and optimise based on results. You'll work towards industry certifications (Google Ads, Google Analytics, Meta) that strengthen your CV and prove your platform competency to employers. You'll also develop the professional judgement needed to manage brand presence responsibly, handling community engagement, responding to reputation management challenges, and making ethical decisions about data privacy and targeting. These capabilities are essential as social media managers and digital marketers work in real-time, always-on environments where brand reputation is constantly at stake. By the end, you'll have a campaign portfolio demonstrating live results, practical tool proficiency employers can verify, and the confidence to manage digital channels independently from day one of employment. This prepares you for high-demand roles as SEO specialists, social media managers, paid search analysts, and digital marketing executives. Key to Your Success: Employers need marketers who can execute campaigns confidently using current tools and platforms. This module develops that hands-on competence through practice experience, not just theory