Compulsory modules

Understanding Inequalities  
How can we mobilise our sociological imagination to make sense of the social divisions and inequalities that persist across time and are reproduced in different cultures and societies? This module introduces the theoretical foundations of sociological thinking, tracing its origins as a 'science of society' to its contemporary applications in understanding inequality. You will learn to recognise how classical theories illuminate social divisions around race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, through a discussion of the causes and impacts of wide-ranging forms of discrimination. 

Understanding and Producing Digital Media 
The role of digital media in contemporary politics and society is a hotly debated topic, and one that aspiring digital content producers need to be aware of. This module will allow you to think critically about the challenges and possibilities of a digital world and your place and responsibilities within it, enabling you to think critically and creatively about the social context for digital content production. The module provides a transition to University study by developing foundational study skills. 

Media Industries 
This module introduces you to key tools you can use to analyse the social contexts, cultures, politics, and economics of media industries. From huge corporations to content creators, go behind the scenes to find out how media is produced, funded, regulated, distributed, and made across the globe. You will learn how media ownership, profit, and work are changing, and the role they play in shaping the media that gets made. The module further develops your academic skills needed for success in your degree.

Becoming a Social Scientist 
This module transitions you to university scholarship and introduces the employability and professional skills that a social science degree provides through a range of action-focused activities. You will learn vital academic and professional skills and competencies that will allow you to thrive in the first year of your undergraduate studies and throughout your degree. 

Optional modules

Imagining Social Order and Deviance 
Imagining Social Order and Deviance explores societal norms, values, and the construction of deviance through a series of real-life case studies. You are invited to engage with diverse perspectives on what constitutes social order and deviant behaviour and consider the complexities of social control mechanisms, the stigmatisation of marginalised groups, and the dynamics of power in shaping perceptions of deviance. By fostering a deep understanding of the intricacies of social order and deviance, this module empowers you to challenge prevailing narratives and envision more equitable and inclusive societies. 

Compulsory modules

Redefining Social Theory: Digital and Global Perspectives  
How can we mobilise our sociological imagination to understand the complexities and challenges of the modern world and our place within it? This module rethinks classic sociological theories for the global digital world, considering post-structural, intersectional and non-Western perspectives. You will gain a critical appreciation of how competing sociologies have emerged as our understanding of positionality and difference has developed, and look to the ways in which the sociological project has been stretched to incorporate debates about our non-human world. 

Researching Audiences and Users 
Understanding media audiences and users is fundamental to analysing how meaning is communicated and negotiated. This module provides you with the concepts and tools you need to understand how audiences interpret and participate in media. You will learn about the methods and approaches media researchers use to find out about audiences’ perspectives and experiences while gaining hands-on audience research skills. If you would like to do an independent research project in your final year, this module provides essential preparation. 

Optional modules

The Mediated Self 
How do we draw on media texts, practices, and technologies to understand, construct, and represent who we are? This module develops your critical engagement with central questions in media studies about the mediation of identity, from the power of representation to selfies and self-branding. You will learn about how key concepts of the mediated self can be applied to analysis of media texts, participants, and creators, and even help you better understand your own mediated identity. 

Difference and Division: Race, Class and Belief 
In this module we explore how socio-cultural narratives and practices around the intersections of race, class and belief influence notions of selfhood, belonging, and social cohesion. You will investigate the role of ritual in shaping individual and collective identities and explore faith, spirituality and the occult in diverse historical and cultural contexts. You will develop critical skills to understand these debates through an analysis of the influence of multiculturalism, secularism and counter and sub-cultures in challenging mainstream beliefs and prejudices.  

Social Design 
Social Design is an interdisciplinary module exploring the interplay between societal structures, human behaviour, and crime, that equips you with the knowledge and skills to critically analyse, design, and implement interventions that foster safer and more inclusive communities. You will explore how social factors influence crime patterns and the efficacy of preventive measures. Depending on your subject interest you may explore the role of social policies in shaping community dynamics or design principles for crime prevention strategies, as a means to address complex social challenges. 

Social Sciences Placement 
This module gives students studying subjects in the School of Social Sciences the opportunity to contribute to the world beyond the University, in any workplace where the specialist knowledge, research, analytical, and communication skills developed as part of your Social Science degree can be used and can make a difference. The chosen workplace or volunteering opportunity may be, for example, with a local government agency or third sector organisation, a charity, a community group, a criminal justice agency, a campaign group, a public service, a school or education provider, or another suitable opportunity identified by the student and approved by the module leader. 

Professional Experience for Media (Year 2) 
This module offers you the chance to contribute to the world outside Keele either through completing a work placement, a project for a client (or a series of projects for different clients), or working as a team to deliver a successful festival or event. You will be trained to showcase your creative and collaborative skills and abilities effectively before applying for an opportunity advertised through the module (or you can source your own, subject to it meeting the module’s requirements). 

Pathways with Media: Developing Your Profile 
This module broadens your knowledge of the variety of career pathways open to you, enabling and enable you to identify, analyse, and showcase your degree skills and experiences effectively. Through completing and reflecting on problem-based tasks relating to different sectors, such as telling the story of a business, or writing a funding proposal to support a film festival, you will build your creative and collaborative skills and learn how to articulate them in ways that will be attractive to employers. 

The American South: US Summer School (Level 5) 
Study Southern US culture on location! The American South is a distinctive but difficult to define geographical and cultural entity, and attitudes to the South range from celebration to derision. Studying with others from a range of disciplines, you will think through historical and current constructions of the US South through its history, literature, film, and wider culture. You spend four weeks at one of our partner universities taught by Keele staff, shaping your own research project with their support. 

Compulsory modules

Social Futures 
What is society in a world governed by data and algorithms? How do we adapt to and influence social change? In this module, you will analyse how societies respond to and resist transformations wrought by the technological revolution. Considering a series of case studies relating to the big social challenges of our time, from the spread of misinformation and rise of conspiratorial thinking to the human response to climate change, you will apply your knowledge of sociology to provide a roadmap for navigating the changing world and suggest optimistic alternatives for the future. 

Optional modules

Digital Media Project  
Your project is the culmination of everything you’ve learned on your degree, where you’ll have the freedom to develop a project on a topic of your choosing. You can select from two pathways: a research project or professional content creation. On both, you’ll develop independent project management skills. Guided by an expert supervisor, you’ll be supported to communicate your ideas and content to high academic and professional standards, putting into practice what you’ve learned, showcasing your voice and skills. 

Independent Study Project in Sociology 
The Independent Study Project, or dissertation, is the culmination of your sociological journey. You will work with a supervisor to design and produce an original sociological study on a topic of your choice. The dissertation allows you to apply your theoretical and methodological understandings of sociology to a research problem in either sociological literature or the social field. You can also choose to collaborate with an external organisation, conducting research that provides valuable insights to benefit their work. 

Gender, Sexuality and Power 
This module explores the cultural construction of gender and sexuality norms. Through diverse case studies, we deconstruct how femininities, masculinities, and sexualities are shaped by societal expectations and power dynamics. You will analyse how gender and sexuality intersect with other systems of privilege and oppression, such as race, ethnicity, class, and age. Additionally, we will explore debates surrounding beauty standards, including the impacts of multimedia and emerging technologies on gendered embodiment.  

Music and Social Movements 
This module explores music as a tool for conflict transformation through activism and its darker aspects, such as manipulation, power, and violence. It examines how music can acknowledge trauma, understand conflict roots, facilitate debate, preserve memory, and subvert the status quo, while also being used for political power, population manipulation, torture, and maintaining hegemonies. Additionally, it considers how music technology and the industry impact music’s potential to inspire resistance or submission. 

Podcast and Radio Production  
This practice-based module gives you the opportunity to develop your own podcast and learn audio storytelling techniques, production skills, and social marketing strategies to enable you to produce your own podcast and promote it to your target audience through an online platform, with advice and feedback from practitioners in an industry pitching session. We’ll also analyse podcast trends and explore the impact of podcasting on the media landscape, including its influence on public service broadcasting and podcast adaptation for TV. 

Beyond Human 
Beyond Human explores social behaviour, structures, and interactions among non-human entities, such as animals, artificial intelligence, and other forms of non-human life, seeking to understand the social dynamics present in non-human societies and their interactions with human societies. From examining the ethics of Artificial Intelligence to exploring the implications of environmental degradation on crime patterns, you will critically explore the complexities of human and non-human interconnectedness in shaping societies. 

News Politics and Power 
News appears to be a neutral product but there are powerful relations underpinning its construction. You will learn about the global ownership of news, journalism’s professional codes, and the changing technologies of news production. This will build on your previous knowledge of the media industries and representation. You will be encouraged to reflect on this by producing your own news content. This module will be of interest if you wish to pursue career pathways across news media. 

Social Media Work 
From Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to live streamers, influencers, and crowd workers, on this module you will explore what work really looks like in the global digital economy. You will deploy critical tools to understand the role that digital work plays in contemporary political and economic structures and apply this to analysis of working lives by engaging with guest Q&A sessions with workers. The module allows you to communicate your critical ideas about social media work in a creative format. 

Engaged Social Science 
Moving on from the previous skills modules, you will further consider how your degree can link to a range of life skills and careers through engagement with community groups, activists and people working in public and private sectors. You will be supported in your next steps either through transition to the workplace or postgraduate study. 

Work Placement for Social Sciences Final Year Students 
This module is designed to give students studying subjects in the School of Social Sciences the opportunity to contribute to the world beyond the University, in any workplace where the specialist knowledge, research, analytical, and communication skills developed as part of your Social Science degree can be used and can make a difference. The chosen workplace or volunteering opportunity may be, for example, with a local government agency or third sector organisation, a charity, a community group, a criminal justice agency, a campaign group, a public service, a school or education provider, or another suitable opportunity identified by the student and approved by the module leader. 

Professional Experience for Media (Year 3) 
In your final year we offer you another opportunity to complete a work placement, a project for a client (or a series of clients), or work as part of a team to deliver a successful festival or event. Completed during the final stages of your degree, the module gives you cutting-edge experience of the sector you wish to enter following graduation as well as valuable employer contacts, thereby providing you with an effective career launchpad. 

Employing Media: Putting Your Subject into Practice 
Now you are preparing for life after graduation, this module enables you to put your degree skills into practice and work with employer-clients on a series of real-life projects. Enhancing the creative and collaborative skills you developed on ‘Pathways with Media’, Employing Media will train you to work effectively with clients from a variety of settings, such as charities, publishers, museums, or even the construction sector, and will gives you the opportunity to present your work to your chosen employer-client.  

The American South: US Summer School (Level 6) 
Study Southern US culture on location! The American South is a distinctive but difficult to define geographical and cultural entity, and attitudes to the South range from celebration to derision. Studying with others from a range of disciplines, you will think through historical and current constructions of the US South through its history, literature, film, and wider culture. You spend four weeks at one of our partner universities taught by Keele staff, shaping your own research project with their support.