Sport, Media and Culture

Our BA in Sport, Media and Culture offers a dynamic blend of critical theory and hands-on experience, equipping you with the tools to analyse, create, and innovate across sports journalism, public relations, digital media, and film.

This programme embeds critical thinking, media literacy, and research-led learning from the outset. You’ll benefit from expert-led teaching dedicated to cutting-edge media research, alongside real-world projects and authentic assessments that reflect industry practice.

You will develop the essential skills to become an adaptable, reflective media professional - ready to navigate and contribute to the fast-changing media landscape.

This degree also offers deeper understanding into how sport, sporting culture, and sports journalism have shaped social and cultural life in contemporary Britain and beyond. You'll explore the growing socio-economic influence of sport on a global scale.

Through the study of concepts such as fandom, national identity, sports narratives, and media representation, you'll gain a critical understanding of how sport is framed and experienced through media and culture today.

Our Sport, Media and Culture degree has been designed to allow you to develop and apply a practical interdisciplinary skillset to real life situations. Upon completion, you will know how to find interesting and compelling sports news stories, write stories for publication, film and/or record that story for broadcast or for podcasts, edit the package so that it can be broadcast in various formats, and know how to drive audiences and promote that story.

In Year 1, you will typically study areas including: Introduction to Media Communication; Delivering and Decoding the News; Pitch Invasion: Sport and its Impact on Society; Principles of Mediation; Creative Media Platforms; Public Relations: Strategic Communications.

In Year 2, you will typically study areas including: All Ears - an Introduction to the Art of Podcasting; Social Media Cultures; Pitch Perfect: Sports Commentary and Punditry; Digital Content Creation; Theorising the Media; Misinformation, Fake News and Fact-Checking; Activist PR: The Democratisation of Public Relations; Introduction to Film Production; Investigating Text, Process and Audiences; Media Law.

In Year 3, you will typically study areas including: Sports Public Relations; Dissertation Preparation; Documentary and Fiction Filmmaking; Reporting the 21st Century; Game Over - Press Start to Continue: Critical Game Studies; Professional Sports Communication Placement; Strategy, Marketing and Branding; Practical Web Technologies; Journalism in Practice; Dissertation; PR: Contemporary Issues and Challenges.

We are proud to provide an outstanding educational experience, using the most effective learning and teaching approaches, carefully tailored to suit the specific needs of your course. Apart from a small number of online-only courses, most of our courses consist of in-person, on-campus teaching, enabling full engagement with your lecturers and fellow students.

Practical skills sessions, lab work seminars, and workshops predominantly take place in person, allowing for group working and demonstrations. We also operate virtual labs and Simulated Learning Environments which will facilitate greater access to training opportunities in the future. However, our approach also includes the use of some online learning to support and enhance traditional face-to-face teaching.

Online learning may take place ‘live’ using software such as Zoom, allowing you to interact with the lecturer and other students and to ask questions. Lecture recordings also allow for more flexibility to revisit material, to revise for assessments and to enhance learning outside of the classroom. Some modules have extra resources in Canvas, such as videos, slides and quizzes enabling further flexible study.

This course may offer some modules taught through the medium of Welsh or bilingually for students who consider themselves to be fluent Welsh speakers. For more details on the provision available see the Welsh Provision expander below.