Course summary

The MSc Strategic Communications and Society moves beyond a purely vocational approach to the making of messages to offer you an understanding of strategic communication that reflects: the changing means of communication, image making and storytelling in the organisational environment today; the expanding strategic ends of selling not only products and ideas/ideals but also places and experiences in an increasingly mediated and networked world; and the increasingly complex consequences for all types of organisation of the interaction of these changes. The programme will focus on the study of different forms of strategic communication across markets, civil society and in politics, especially in the context of changes associated with digitalisation and globalisation. You will examine the ways organisations, informal groups and individuals communicate strategically, and how communication contributes to shaping discourses and practices within organisations and more widely across society. You will reflect on the role of digital technologies in strategic communications, the links between discourse and power, and how these relate to the way public discourse and symbolic resources are unevenly distributed and controlled through strategic communications practices. Overall, you will develop an understanding of the power of strategic communications as an organisational, but also a social practice that privileges certain institutions and ideologies as it contributes to the evolution of society.