Global Media and Digital Communications

The MA Global Media and Digital Communications is unique in that it offers a critical appraisal and critique of Western Media and Communication theories and approaches through focusing on the complex specificities of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and their diasporas. Drawing on the grounded expertise of staff, it offers a specialised study of the global media environment in relation to Asian, African and Middle Eastern societies and cultures, together with rigorous training in and questioning of contemporary media and communication theory.

We ask what concerns and hopes the people of the regions we study have; how should we address comparatively the global role of mass and digital media in contemporary politics and conflict, as well as processes of exclusion, inequalities, development, participation and empowerment.

By considering how, where and by whom media is produced, consumed and used, you will develop advanced knowledge and understanding of the theoretical, methodological and empirical issues involved in the analysis of non-western media and communications within historical and contemporary contexts.

You will address alternative ways to situate mediated articulations of agency and subjectivity in non-Western contexts through engaging with various texts challenging the hegemonic claims of mainstream Western media theory that insists the rest of the world subscribe to a narrow exclusive vision of the world.

Our research in film and media has been ranked in the top 20 in the UK in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, with more than a third of our research publications assessed as 4* (world-leading).

The SOAS MA Global Media and Communication will appeal to students with a variety of backgrounds and objectives:

• those coming from a media or journalist background who wish to engage more deeply with global media and communication theory in relation to regional specialisation, especially, but not exclusively, the societies of Asia, Africa and the Middle East;
• those coming from Asian, African or Middle Eastern Studies who wish to incorporate the study of global media and communication into their own areas of expertise; and
• those having previously trained in other disciplines, such as Anthropology, politics, international relations, Religious Studies, History, etc.
• those wishing to pursue further study through doctoral research