Communications Challenges
| Module title | Communications Challenges |
|---|---|
| Module code | CMM1002 |
| Academic year | 2025/6 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | Dr Amelia Morris (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 90 |
|---|
Module description
This is a challenge-led module, which focuses on an aspect of social inequality in Western society from one of the following: class; race and ethnicity; gender and sexuality; disability; or digital inequality. The module will introduce you to key aspects that define social inequality, such as media representation, histories of under-representation and omission, and the relationship between politics and language, uneven access to technologies and other resources, and unjust and exclusionary infrastructures. Using a combination of workshops, lectures (including guest lectures from industry professionals), and tutorials, students you will work in small groups to devise a campaign to address a specific, current problem or issue of social inequality. Examples could include: diversifying the representation of the female body in the local media; raising awareness of mental health issues amongst young men locally (18-21); a campaign to address gender stereotypes in university sports societies; a campaign to raise awareness of rural broadband initiatives. The module will guide students you step-by-step in developing practical digital design skills and applied skills including identifying a target audience, social media campaign strategies, determining appropriate voice and language, and how to judge the ethics of campaigning.
Module aims - intentions of the module
This module will provide you with a grounding in the practical skills and experience integral to creating a media campaign. It will teach you a range of practical skills in production design, schedule-building and give you guided experience of small-group teamwork in a variety of roles, with each student scheduled to spend time as a production manager, production designer, researcher, and communications director, over the course of the module.
Development of these skill sets will be embedded in the lecturer-guided and independently-guided exploration of a social issue (revealed at the start of the course), which each group will develop a campaign on. The course aims to give you a hands-on experience of negotiating issues of audience, tone, format, as you develop your outputs, which may include a podcast, an infographic, and a short video.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Identify and execute an effective campaign strategy, taking account of the target audience and aims
- 2. Apply the practical skills necessary to put a campaign into practice using relevant online tools and applications.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. Synthesize and explain the tenets of a social issue
- 4. Interrogate and select evidence to build a case
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Demonstrate leadership and effective teamwork
- 6. Critically reflect on work processes
- 7. Communicate clearly and imaginatively in written and/or verbal form
- 8. Generously engage with methods and people who represent opinions and viewpoints different from your own
Syllabus plan
Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that the focal topic each year will be a pertinent issue related to social inequality from one of the following areas: class; race and ethnicity; gender and sexuality, disability.
The module will cover some or all of the following topics:
- How to organize and execute a campaign
- The ethics of social campaigning
- How to make a podcast
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 33 | 267 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 11 | Lectures |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 22 | Seminar/Workshop |
| Guided independent study | 245 | Private study, preparation for lectures and seminars, reading etc |
| Guided independent study | 22 | Campaign group meetings and preparation |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group presentation | 10 minutes | 1-6 | Verbal |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group creative portfolio | 60 | Students collaborate in groups to create portfolios that comprise numerous creative outputs that amount to a coherent creative portfolio. Outputs include: an exhibit in the Forum, 10-minute documentary; 5 minute podcast; an infographic; website. | 1-5 | Written |
| 6-page Zine | 40 | Students individually create a Zine on the subject of their creative portfolio, outlining a) why the topic is important, b) how students can get involved with the cause and c) the scholars and activists writing/protesting the issue. | 1-5 | Written |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio of campaign outputs | Portfolio of campaign outputs (individual rather than group-based) | 1-4, 7, 8 | Referral/Deferral period |
Re-assessment notes
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Social justice activism (general):
Bennett, W. 2003. Communicating global activism. Information, Communication & Society, 6(2), pp.143-168.
Harrison, E.E. 2020. Activism, refusal, expertise: responses to digital ubiquity (Doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex).
Norris, P. 2004. Young people & political activism. Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.(32p).
Anti-racism activism:
Bell, M.P., Berry, D., Leopold, J. and Nkomo, S. 2021. Making Black Lives Matter in academia: A Black feminist call for collective action against anti?blackness in the academy. Gender, Work & Organization, 28, pp.39-57.
Dhamoon, R. 2015. A feminist approach to decolonizing anti-racism: Rethinking transnationalism, intersectionality, and settler colonialism. Feral Feminisms, 4(1), pp.20-37.
He, B., Ziems, C., Soni, S., Ramakrishnan, N., Yang, D. and Kumar, S., 2021. Racism is a virus: Anti-Asian hate and counterspeech in social media during the COVID-19 crisis. In Proceedings of the 2021 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (pp. 90-94).
McVey, J.A. and Woods, H.S., 2016. Anti-racist activism and the transformational principles of hashtag publics: from #HandsUpDontShoot to #PantsUpDontLoot. Present Tense, 5(3), pp.1-9.
Nummi, J., Jennings, C. and Feagin, J. 2019. #BlackLivesMatter: Innovative Black Resistance. In Sociological Forum (Vol. 34, pp. 1042-1064).
Srivastava, S., 2006. Tears, fears and careers: Anti-racism and emotion in social movement organizations. Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, pp.55-90.
Srivastava, S., Johnson, A., Luhmann, S. 2019. There’s more than one way to save a baby: Navigating activism and anti-racism. Feminist praxis revisited: Critical reflections on university-community engagement, pp.55-72.
Environmental activism:
Bond, S., Thomas, A. and Diprose, G., 2023. Stopping Oil: Climate Justice and Hope. Pluto Press.
Fernandes-Jesus, M., Lima, M.L. and Sabucedo, J.M. 2020. “Save the climate! Stop the oil”: actual protest behavior and core framing tasks in the Portuguese climate movement. Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Journal of Social and Political Psychology. p.2195-3325
Jones, O. 2021. Insulate Britain’s protests are disruptive, annoying – and justified. Retrieved from: The Guardian.
Kutner, L.A. 2000. Environmental activism and the internet. Electronic Green Journal, 1(12).
O'Brien, K., Selboe, E. and Hayward, B.M. 2018. Exploring youth activism on climate change. Ecology and Society, 23(3).
Park, C.S., Liu, Q. and Kaye, B.K. 2021. Analysis of ageism, sexism, and ableism in user comments on YouTube videos about climate activist Greta Thunberg. Social Media Society, 7(3), p.20563051211036059.
Pulido, L. 2018. Racism and the Anthropocene. Future remains: A cabinet of curiosities for the Anthropocene, pp.116-128.
Feminist activism:
Broad, K.L. 2017. Social Movement Intersectionality and Re-Centring Intersectional Activism. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice, 38(1), pp.41-53.
Carr, J.L. 2013. The SlutWalk movement: A study in transnational feminist activism. Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 4(4), pp.24-38.
Chazan, M. and Baldwin, M. 2016. Understanding the Complexities of Contemporary Feminist Activism. Feminist Formations, 28(3), pp.70-94
Faye, S. 2021. The transgender issue: An argument for justice. London. Penguin.
Hooks, B. 1997. Sisterhood: Political solidarity between women. Cultural Politics, 11, pp.396-414.
Koyama, E. 2013. Whose feminism is it anyway?: The unspoken racism of the trans inclusion debate. In The transgender studies reader (pp. 698-705). Routledge.
Worker’s rights activism:
Gourevitch, A. 2018. The right to strike: A radical view. American Political Science Review, 112(4), pp.905-917.
Mahase, E. 2022. Nurses vote to strike over pay, as other health workers are balloted. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 379, p.2740.
Platform, T.S.S. 2019. Strike the giant: Transnational Organisation Against Amazon. Transnational Social Strike Platform Journal. Available at: https://www.transnational-strike.info/app/uploads/2019/11/Strike-the-Giant_TSS-Journal.pdf
Seidman, G.W. 2007. Beyond the boycott: Labor rights, human rights, and transnational activism. New York. Russell Sage Foundation.
Disability rights activism:
Barnes, C. 2007. Disability activism and the struggle for change: Disability, policy and politics in the UK. Education, citizenship and social justice, 2(3), pp.203-221.
Davis, L.J. 1999. Crips strike back: The rise of disability studies. American Literary History, 11(3), pp.500-512.
McRuer, R. 2018. Crip times: Disability, globalization, and resistance (Vol. 1). New York. NYU Press.
Scotch, R.K. 1989. Politics and policy in the history of the disability rights movement. The Milbank Quarterly, pp.380-400.
Soldatic, K. and Grech, S. 2014. Transnationalising disability studies: Rights, justice and impairment. Disability Studies Quarterly.
Trevisan, F. 2016. Disability rights advocacy online: Voice, empowerment and global connectivity. New York. Taylor & Francis.
Waldschmidt, A., Kara?i?, A., Sturm, A. and Dins, T. 2015. “Nothing about us without us” disability rights activism in European countries–A comparative analysis. Moving the Social, 53, pp.103-138.
CRAFTIVISM READINGS:
Fountain, D. 2023. Introduction: Crafting Identity and Community. In Crafted With Pride (pp. 1-12). Intellect.
Greer, B. ed. 2014. Craftivism: The art of craft and activism. Arsenal Pulp Press.
Mageary, J., 2020. Zines, the DIY ethic, and empowering marginalized identities. In Craft in Art Therapy (pp. 177-189). Routledge.
Schilt, K., 2003. “I'll Resist with Every Inch and Every Breath” Girls and Zine Making as a Form of Resistance. Youth & Society, 35(1), pp.71-97.
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
Key words search
Communication, Community, Exclusion, Inequality, Digital infrastructures, Campaign Management, Social Media, Audiences, Media Messaging. Teamwork
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 4 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 07/01/2020 |
| Last revision date | 07/02/2025 |
