Media Communications and Sociology (Professional Placement Year)

Build the practical skills to thrive in Media and Communications and the sociological insight to shape the industry in this Media Communications and Sociology combined degree.

• Build practical skills in creative media and Sociology and apply your knowledge to urgent real-world challenges, from online misogyny to AI ethics.

• Gain skills that employers value across communications, policy, research, the criminal justice, social care sectors and beyond.

• Join The Studio, the University’s innovation hub for creative media technology and work with Sociology's network of practice-based partnerships.

Gain the skills you need to thrive in the ever-growing communications industries and develop the sociological expertise to influence policy, education, health and more. This combined Media Communications and Sociology degree is designed to give you valuable transferable skills and practical experience as well as a deeper understanding of the social forces that shape the world you'll be working in.

In Media Communications, you'll develop expertise in creative strategy, digital marketing, journalism, social media management, and campaign design. In Sociology, you'll build analytical frameworks to examine how power, inequality, identity and institutions shape everyday life and how they can be challenged and changed. This combination opens doors across a growing range of careers, including communications, PR, policy and research positions.

Throughout the degree you'll work on live, real-world projects. In Media Communications, you'll produce cross-platform campaigns, investigative journalism features, social media content and PR packs. In your final year you'll join The Studio, Bath Spa's city-centre innovation hub for creative media technology, collaborating directly with arts, media and communications organisations on live briefs. In Sociology, you'll engage with external partners including community organisations, healthcare providers, and refugee and youth support services, with opportunities for volunteering, applied projects and placements that connect your studies directly to professional practice.

At Bath Spa, we pride ourselves on our commitment to combining theory and practice, working across disciplines, and with practitioners, communities, and local organisations to bring Media Communications and Sociology to life.

Combined Honour Awards
At Bath Spa University many of our undergraduate programmes can be combined, so you don’t have to limit yourself to one subject. If you choose to study a combined award then in Year One you’ll start by studying both subjects in equal depth. From Year Two you can choose whether to continue with equal numbers of modules from each subject, or whether you want to select additional modules in one or the other. Upon successful completion of the programme you will graduate with a joint degree.

More about the Professional Placement Year
A Professional Placement Year (PPY), traditionally known as a sandwich year, is where you undertake a period of work with an external organisation for between 9-13 months. The placement occurs between your second and final years of undergraduate study. You can engage in multiple placements to make up the total time and are required to source the placement(s) yourself, with support from the Careers team.

Year one

You’ll gain grounding in key sociological ideas to support your development of practical media skills in research, marketing, social media management, creative campaign strategy, and journalism. Media and communications theory will support analytical and critical thinking and you'll be introduced to sociological ideas as practical tools for analysing real-world problems, giving you a richer understanding of the communities and your media work will engage with.

Year two

You'll explore marketing, influencer, and branding practices, develop web design skills, examine grassroots community media, and develop cross-platform communication strategies, deepening your awareness of media ethics along the way. Your sociological studies shift towards debate, critical thinking, and analytical engagement with social problems so that the ethical questions you encounter in media practice have deeper real world context.

An optional Professional Placement Year between your second and final year gives you the chance to gain extended experience in the workplace.

Year three

You'll join The Studio, our innovation hub for creative media technology, collaborating with arts and cultural organisations on live projects exploring immersive media, feminist activism, the impacts of AI on society, and public exhibitions. Supported by the sociological grounding you've built throughout the course, you'll become a communications professional with a vision for a more inclusive media landscape, applying sociological ideas to complex social problems through community engagement, digital or practice-based projects, or extended independent inquiry, evaluating interventions and developing ethical and sustainable responses.

You'll produce the kind of media content that defines the 'communications for change' ethos, including creative media campaigns, marketing strategies, investigative journalism features, political media-making, social media content, and PR packs, all shaped by the critical and sociological perspectives developed across the course. Sociology assessment methods include essays, case studies, reports, policy briefings, practice-based projects, Wiki pages, critical reflections, and practical work experience, with variation depending on modules chosen.