Course summary

The MSc Strategic Communications moves beyond a purely vocational approach to the making of messages to offer you an approach to 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, especially through branding; and the increasingly complex consequences for all types of organisation of the interaction of these changes. The programme will focus on the study of organisations as communicators across the governmental, non-governmental and corporate sectors, especially in the context of change associated with digitalisation and globalisation. In particular, it will examine the ways organisations communicate strategically, both internally and externally; and how communication contributes to shaping discourses and practices associated with leadership within organisations and across them. It will also consider the role of digital technologies, the links between discourse and power, and how these relate to the way public discourse and symbolic resources are unevenly distributed and controlled, privileging certain institutions and ideologies.