MA Digital Marketing & Media (Full Time)

This Masters degree combines the important areas of digital media with business and marketing strategy, enabling you to understand the context in which digital and social media functions.

Course overview

This course is designed to provide you with knowledge and skills in digital media, and marketing topics, covered throughout from a strategy, international, social and ethical perspective.

You can choose either to follow the Postgraduate Diploma route or complete a dissertation to achieve an MA award – both are universally recognised qualifications and have been rated highly by examiners.

The course gives dual emphasis to a contemporary academic approach and managerial application. Students have the opportunity to carry out a three-month consultancy project during the second semester which enables you to work with business clients and apply theory to a practical problem.

The academically and industrially experienced tuition team will provide access to excellent teaching and learning resources, and fully support you through the varied and interesting teaching and assessment programme. A great deal of emphasis is placed on supporting students throughout their studies.

Course content

Professional Development
This unit runs throughout the two taught semesters and is designed to equip you with the academic skills you need to study at postgraduate level, as well as to understand your own skills and interests so that you can choose the right option pathway on the course.

Integrated Marketing Communications
This unit critically analyses and evaluates the significance of communication within the marketing management environment. Emphasis is placed on the importance of a holistic approach to communications, the options available to the marketing manager in terms of message vehicle, and tools for evaluating the success of communication in both a marketing and business context.

Digital Marketing Platforms
This unit examines the development of new marketing strategies, incorporating the new technologies and globalisation in the context of evolving hardware and software platforms which are driving digital marketing and social media. It also examines traditional analytical methods, stakeholder management, sustainability, branding relationships, implementation issues and marketing metrics.

Digital Studio
This is a double-weighted unit which enables students who have experience in digital media to develop their expertise in the latest production programmes and techniques. You will be given an overview of production development relevant to different media production formats, and opportunities to develop specific skills in one of your areas of interest. A central focus of your work will be gaining the fundamental skills and principles involved in the creation of content to a high standard.

You can choose to exit the programme with a Postgraduate Diploma or complete a further creative project or dissertation unit for the MA award.

Research Methods and Creative Masters Project
This unit involves studying the research methodologies and techniques required to undertake your own research on a specialised topic, prior to developing a creative project in close consultation with your tutor. The project links theory with commercial practice and enables you to engage with new trends in digital marketing and media.

Research Methods and Masters Dissertation
Alternatively, this unit is designed for students who prefer to take a more academic approach to their studies or who intend to study in future for an MPhil or PhD research degree. Following instruction on academic research methods and techniques, you will undertake your own research on a specialised topic, in close consultation your tutor, prior to developing a dissertation which examines existing or emerging theory and commercial practice.

Option units

The course shares a number of option units with our postgraduate Marketing Management| course: Academic English for Graduates; Contemporary Issues in Marketing; e-Marketing Management; Entrepreneurial Marketing Management. These are examples of the units that have run most recently. Option units will be updated periodically to keep pace with modern marketing practices and will also be subject to demand. 

Additional option units include:

Persuasion in the Media Age: Writing for Integrated Marketing Communications

This double-weighted unit offers the practical application of copywriting skills for commercial and awareness campaigns, as well as the theoretical perspectives and arguments associated with persuasion and influence. You are encouraged to bring your own experience of writing and apply it to new tasks.

Services and Relationship Marketing Management

This unit critically analyses and evaluates the distinctive nature of marketing management within the service sector. Emphasis is placed on the importance of service quality, the service encounter and customer care, and the potential conflict with the operational aspects of services, together with an understanding of how relationship marketing can enhance long-term business profitability and growth.

Marketing Consultancy Project

This unit lets you demonstrate, in a real world environment, what you have already learned about a specific aspect (or aspects) of marketing. It also enables you to develop useful consultancy skills.

Global Retail Marketing Management

Retailing is becoming an important element of developed economies and this unit is designed to help you understand the key strategies involved in global retail operations, including logistics, location theory, e-marketing and e-tailing.

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Assessment

There is a varied and interesting assessment programme involving in-course individual and group work. There are no examinations. Students must pass all eight taught units plus the Research Methods (Creative Masters Project or Masters Dissertation) unit in order to gain a Masters degree.

Key career skills

Digital and social media skills, marketing research and strategy, client and agency account management, communication, consulting, project management, teamwork.

Projects/work experience

A number of units provide the opportunity to work on live projects for companies. The Consultancy Project, for example, provides research projects for students to complete on behalf projects for students to complete on behalf of organisations such as Symantec, Southampton City Council, The Leprosy Mission, the Nuffield Theatre, Cunard and Microsoft.

Placements are available for students during the summer vacation when there is an opportunity to work closely with a UK business and, by agreement, undertake research for the dissertation.

Solent's special features

• Supported by Lawton Communications, Carswell Gould, Box PR, B&Q UK, Symantec and the Institute of Commercial Management, plus guest speakers and Visiting Fellows from industry and commerce.
• Our emphasis on employability means that, through close links with the CIM, with employers and industry experts, we can provide the vital blend of academic with digital and media commercial and public sector experience.

Fees

Fees for the 2011/12 academic year are:

Full Time: UK and EU students - £4,400; Overseas students - £9,400.

 

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