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  • DeadlineStudy Details: MA 1 year full-time; 2 years part-time

Course Description

This MA programme will give you the opportunity to explore the use of the arts and cultural approaches to local and global development challenges. It examines the impact of arts and culture in a range of contexts in ‘advanced’ and ‘developing’ countries across the world, with particular attention to innovations in cities, local districts, communities and creative enterprises. 

You will investigate the strategy models and creative potential in using arts and culture within development contexts, and explore how they can be used to further social and environmental justice as well as economic growth. You will develop your vocational skills and build your capacity to contribute to development projects around the world. 

The MA consists of four core modules:

  • Culture and Global Sustainable Development
  • Creativity, Communication and Enterprise
  • Project Management for Cultural Enterprise
  • Research Design

Plus:

  • One option module

Plus:

  • Major Project (a written dissertation of 12,000 words on a research topic of your choice)

Entry Requirements

2:1 undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject

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Fees

For fees and funding options, please visit website to find out more

Programme Funding

We offer a variety of postgraduate funding options for study at the University of Warwick, from postgraduate loans, university scholarships, fee awards, to academic department bursaries.

Student Destinations

Graduates from the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies have gone on to work in television, film, communications, data analysis, theatre, museums, art galleries, events, festivals, UN agencies, NGOs, charities, arts and educational organisations, research, PR, publishing and have even set up their own businesses.

Employers for our graduates include: UNESCO, UNCTAD, BBC, UK government, local arts in Coventry, Birmingham and London, and around the world, city government, and start-up creative enterprises.

We have a dedicated professionally qualified Senior Careers Consultant offering impartial advice and guidance together with workshops and events throughout the year. Previous examples of workshops and events include:

  • Discovering Careers in the Creative Industries
  • Careers in Radio Film and Television
  • Warwick careers fairs throughout the year
  • A history and DIY Guide to setting up and running a Theatre Company

Module Details

Core modules

Culture and Global Sustainable Development

This module examines the global policy frameworks for culture, arts and development: the ideas, aspirations, ethics and policy strategies for using the arts, culture and creative industries within human, social and urban development- from local communities to the United Nations-level development programmes globally. 

We will explore the place of culture, art and creative enterprise specifically within the global discourses of Sustainable Development. We will assess how development projects have always had a ‘cultural’ dimension, whether this has been acknowledged or not. We use case studies to look at how global ideas and policies are interpreted "on the ground" — using business enterprise, arts curating and administration, project management and political protest.

Creativity, Community and Enterprise

This core module considers the practical potential for using creativity, the arts and culture in socially-based Development. In this module we will examine creative enterprise and local realities. How does enterprise work? What is creativity in practice? 

To do this, the module tackles questions around how enterprise and culture have been proposed as a solution to ‘development’ problems. What does this type of creativity offer that more established approaches to development do not? What can the creative economy do that the mainstream economy cannot?  

We will explore the opportunities of creative/arts and/or cultural models of development, whilst examining the limitations of these theories, policies and practices. The central purpose of this module then is to critically explore the tensions and contradictions in the use of economic models, models of business enterprise and entrepreneurialism for social, local and community development. You will be encouraged to develop both your theoretical knowledge and practical skills to understand the complexities involved with engaging the arts in community development problems. 

Project Management for Cultural Enterprise

In this module, the student group will engage in collaborative practical work and 'apply' the academic learning of the MA course to address a real-world development problem. The subject of this module is Project Management (PM) as an established range of methods and tools, but applied to a cultural event. The event will be situated either on the Warwick campus or the City of Coventry, and will offer students a practical opportunity to devise a PM methodology appropriate to the cultural industries (a creative process as well as experience), and learn the skills required to apply their methodology. The cultural event will be developed in dialogue with a tutor(s), who will open the module with a series of coordinated lectures and seminars on PM and the challenges of cultural enterprise.

Research Design

This module aims to prepare you for your Major Project, which is a substantial piece of independent research on a topic of your choice. The module will equip you with a broad understanding of relevant research methods from which to select an appropriate approach for your own project. It will introduce you to ethical dimensions of research. It will provide you with the skills to write an effective proposal (including research questions, rationale, explanation and justification of research methods, identifying relevant literature and data sources).

By the end of the module, you should be ready to submit your proposal and have a broad understanding of research methods in the cultural, creative and media industries.

Plus the following:

Major Project

The Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching and research in the fields of cultural and media policy and the creative industries. The commitment to interdisciplinarity is reflected in our Major Projects, where you will be encouraged to draw on approaches from across the humanities and social sciences in producing your work. Successful projects can emerge from creative engagement with scholarly debates, from the design and analysis of original empirical work, or from some combination of these. This openness of approach is also reflected in how Major Project research can be represented.

Optional modules

Optional modules can vary from year to year. Example optional modules may include:

  • Cultural Entrepreneurship
  • Developing Audiences for Cultural Organisations
  • Marketing and Markets
  • Media, Policy and Markets
  • Managing Creativity for Sustainable Development
  • Museums and Cultural Policy
  • Working in the Cultural and Creative Industries

All students will take one optional module.

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