Film & Media and Sociology, BA (Hons)

We have been teaching and conducting research in film and media since 1978, and our combination of academic and practical work continues to make us one of Scotland’s top institutions in this field. We are top in Scotland for student satisfaction in the 2016 National Student Survey. Whether studying Film & Media alone or in combination with other subjects, you can expect excellent teaching from staff with a range of skills, from active academic researchers to former and current professionals from media industries. You will also benefit from the Macrobert Arts Centre, an on-campus multi- screen cinema and theatre, and our students often choose to contribute to the campus television station and filmmaking group AirTV, to student newspaper The Brig, and to Air3 Radio. Film and Media teaching combines analysis and practice. You will learn the critical and theoretical skills required to study a range of topics within film, broadcasting, digital media, advertising and political communications. You may select modules devoted to audio and video productions and developing related skills in production, post-production, content development, pitching and research. Film and Media has excellent relationships with media organisations and individual media practitioners, who advise and contribute to our degrees. Students studying with us have full access to a modern suite of media facilities for radio and television production and a state-of-the-art newsroom. You will also be given the opportunity to participate in exchange programmes through which you could study for a semester or a year in a location chosen from a list including the United States, Canada, Australia and countries in Europe. Do you want to understand better how society works? Are you keen to know more about the purpose, processes and outcomes of social welfare, both here and abroad? Why and how do people break the law? How can the criminal justice system define this and how do we police, prosecute and punish people? Our courses look at the nature of social change, social differentiation, the construction and definition of social problems and the maintenance of social order as well as broader questions of process and policy. And we offer an international and comparative approach covering topics that analyse society and welfare issues in various countries. We have particular expertise covering Scotland, the UK, the European Union, Western and Central Europe, Australasia, North America and Latin America. In your first two years you will take three subjects each semester. One of these is a core subject for your degree, but you can choose the other two from Faculties across the University. For example, you could take Sociology with English or another language, Social Policy with Marketing or Criminology with Law. The key benefits of this system are that you can change the emphasis of your degree as you progress, change from full-time to part-time if you need to, change your degree subject(s) and not until midway through your second year do you need to decide what your final degree subject(s) will be. Many of our students go on to complete Combined Degrees with subject such as Law, History, Education, Politics, Philosophy, Business Studies, Spanish, Computing Science and Psychology. The core modules for Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology students in the first two years – Social Differentiation, Social Problems, Understanding Social Policy and Development of Social Theory – provide a coherent and cumulative introduction to key concerns.