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An Introduction to MA Scheme in Creative Media Arts

MA Creative Writing
MA Critical Arts Management
MA Cultural and Media Studies
MA Digital Film
MA Digital Photography
MA Media Writing
MA New Media

Our part-time innovative Masters degrees in creative media arts are project-centred and designed to enable students to continue with and build on professional work. Each MA aims to provide students with the opportunity to research and develop a specific idea or interest in the creative arts or media into a postgraduate level project. The aim is to develop your personal creative goals and to develop your career through a combination of professional practice and critical reflection.

Our staff provide specialist guidance to nurture the skills needed to develop, produce and evaluate your arts or media project. Students are supported by dedicated media technicians and have access to the department’s digital media labs, which offer up-to-date facilities in photography, video, sound and multimedia. There is also a new theatre and studio performance space, with a dedicated theatre technician, for performance-based work, and a digital media gallery for exhibitions.

The project is conducted over two years. You are taught primarily through a combination of individual tutorials and intensive project development symposia over two to three days involving master classes, skills workshops and research seminars, held in January, June and September each year. In addition there is an optional supplementary programme, which includes reading seminars and research workshops held every few weeks on Wednesday afternoons. All MA students may negotiate sitting in on undergraduate modules in the department to develop specific skills needed for their project.

Projects are assessed through written analyses, prototypes and experiments, as well as the production of a completed project. Depending on the project, this might involve a collection of poetry, a script, a novella, a portfolio of journalism, a digital video, a website, a sound design, an exhibition, a performance, a show or event, an analysis of arts policy, an academic investigation or an educational project. The balance and forms of assessment will depend on the nature of your project and is negotiated between you, your tutor and the course director.

Whatever the subject or form of your project, it is situated within core dimensions of study shared across the scheme. These include: the study of digital technologies, the relationship of theory to practice, real world contexts, and active learning. These core themes ensure all our Masters students develop a shared critical language as well as specific knowledge related to the project. In addition to the project, students write a 12-15,000 word dissertation on a topic usually related to their project in terms of its theme or area of interest.