Outline

The MA programme teaches multimedia journalism to graduates who are determined to pursue a career in the news industry. You learn to reportfor newspapers, websites, radio and television in a live newsroom environment. Using state-of-theart technology and working to real deadlines, you upload your work to the internet. Your tutors areaward-winning journalists with decades of front-line experience in national and international news.Every day starts with an editorial conference and the programme balances intense focuson journalism as practical reality with intense academic study and reflection.

Programme structure

Course content

Core modules in Reporting and Writing, Media Law and Ethics and Principles and Practicesof Convergent Journalism introduce you to the professional challenges of modern reporting and prepare you to pass the National Council for the Training of Journalists' Diploma in Journalism (this involves passing papers in shorthand, public affairs, law and reporting). You choose academic modules from a range including History of Journalism, the Reporter in Fiction and Communication and Humanitarianism. Students may choose to complete a dissertation.

For further information see the School site.

Assessment

The degree is taught by a combination of lectures, seminars, masterclasses, news days, tutorials and editorial conferences. Assessment is by coursework (including essays, reporting exercises and presentations) and examinations. The optional dissertation counts for a third of the final grade.

Funding

A unique Daily Mail scholarship offers one student per year on the MA in Multimedia Journalism £10,000 and a work placement at the Daily Mail. Details are available at our website. The University of Kent has established a studentship fund of £1.5 million to support research students. This fund allows the University to provide support for more than 100 students in an academic year.

The studentships cover tuition fees at the Home/EU rate and, depending on the terms and conditions of the award, a maintenance grant up to the full Research Councils' rate.

For further details of postgraduate funding see Postgraduate funding.

Further information:

• Scholarships website
• Funding website
• Finance Office

Resources and facilities

The Centre is based in state-of-the-art multimedia newsrooms equipped with the latest audio and video-editing technology, a radio studio and broadcast-quality television facilities. A dedicated postgraduate newsroom opened in September 2010. Newsroom computers offer a wide range of software for teaching and research support.

Students have access to Press Association news wires, Sky News Radio and Reuters World Television News feeds. They use the Centre's dedicated multimedia website, www.centreforjournalism.co.uk which offers live publishing facilities in text, audio and video. The site is a forum for debate about issues in journalism and the news industry involving students and practitioners in Britain and abroad.

The resources for journalism research at Kent are led by the Drill Hall Library at Medway. The journalism collection includes a comprehensive range of texts on the history, principles and practice of journalism. Specialist resources include a complete microfiche archive of popular newspapers of the Second World War. Students have access to online full-text journals plus extensive online newspaper resources. The Centre subscribes to all relevant UK journals. Research students have access to the SCONUL access scheme to visit and borrow from other UK libraries.

The Drill Hall Library contains more than 250 study spaces, 370 computers and more than 150,000 items.

Further information:

• School website
• Medway campus

Staff research

Professor Tim Luckhurst: Professor of Journalism; Head of Centre for Journalism
A former editor of the Scotsman and former BBC News and Current Affairs editor. His research interests include the history of journalism and in particular the reporting of conflict from the Spanish Civil War to the present day. He is the author of This is Today – A Biography of the Today Programme. He has written thousands of articles in publications ranging from the British Journalism Review to the Daily Mail and he writes frequently for the Guardian and the Independent. His academic work has appeared in journals including the British Journalism Review and Ethical Space, and in thousands of newspaper articles and publications.

Dr Suzanne Franks: Senior Lecturer; Director of Research
Suzanne has written for Media History and Political Quarterly, as well as contributing to newspapers and magazines. She previously worked on the BBC History Project (Volume 6 1974-87). Her research interests include foreign reporting, disaster relief and political communications. She began her career as a producer on BBC Current Affairs programmes including Newsnight and Panorama. Her current research is directed towards a book provisionally entitled Reporting Disasters.

Ian Reeves: Director of Learning and Teaching
A former editor of Press Gazette, he was responsible for developing the Student Journalism Awards, the Magazine Design and Journalism Awards, and the innovative Press Cadets project. He was weekly business writer of the year in 2003's Periodical Publishers Association awards. He continues to write about business and media and has a particular interest in how technology is changing journalism. He designed the Centre for Journalism's live publishing website and built the first iPad app for any UK university department- now available on the Apple Store.

Richard Pendry: Lecturer Broadcast and Online Journalism
A BAFTA award-winning television producer with 20 years' experience as a freelance, working in documentaries, news and current affairs. During most of the 1990s Richard was a member of Frontline News Television, an agency which specialised in reportage from war zones. A fluent Russian speaker, Richard filed stories for Frontline from all over the former Soviet Union, including Chechnya. He has recently been researching in the Caucasus and Iraq into how independent reporters gather news.

Sarah Lonsdale: Lecturer in Reporting and Writing
After graduating, Sarah trained for two years on the Reading Chronicle, during which time she was highly commended in the Young Journalist of the Year category at the British Press Awards, before joining the Observer as a general reporter. In 1993 she went freelance and has been writing features for national newspapers and magazines ever since. She writes a regular environmental column, Greenpiece, in the Sunday Telegraph, for which she has been shortlisted as Journalist of the Year at the British Environment and Media Awards. She has also won the Industrial Journalist of the Year award in the magazine category. Her research interests include the depiction of journalism in literary fiction and reporting the environment.

Lesley Phippen: Lecturer in Law and the Media
Originally qualified as a solicitor, Lesley has been teaching Law for over 20 years on programmes for both professional and academic qualifications. In 2001 she joined the Kent Law School as Director of Legal Studies. During her time at the Kent Law School, Lesley developed a Media Law module and was the driving force behind the first crossdisciplinary conference at the Medway campus on Privacy and the Individual. Lesley moved to the Centre for Journalism in July 2010 to deliver the academic law teaching.

Further information:

• School website
• School staff profiles

Contact details

T: +44 (0)1227 827272
E: information@kent.ac.uk

Professor Tim Luckhurst
University of Kent, Centre for Journalism, Gillingham Building, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4AG
T: +44 (0)1634 202913
E:
journalism@kent.ac.uk

Further information:

• School website
• Graduate School

Find out more

• School website
• Staff profiles
• Graduate School
• Open Days
• Order or download a prospectus