Bachelor of Arts in Media, Communication and Culture

Purpose

The purpose of the Bachelor of Arts in Media, Communication and Culture is to provide learners with a well-rounded, broad education that equips them with the knowledge base, theory, and methods appropriate to work or further study in the media, communication, and culture fields. The qualification is designed to support the development of media, communication, and culture (MCC) practitioners who can think critically, apply analytical methods to various forms of communication and media, understand and work within the contested MCC space, and who can create written and visual content. The qualification is designed to develop critical and creative independence, flexibility, and reflexivity in critical and production work.

Rationale

With the pervasive nature of media, its power to shape perceptions, its availability to "amateur" content creators via various social media platforms, and the increasing occurrence of "false news" the qualification is designed to both empower graduates to critically engage with the media, and to develop a new generation of content creators with the ability and passion to develop in-depth, reflective, and critical analysis of contemporary politics and everyday life.

The qualification has been designed for employability, especially within the host Province. Data show that the media, communication, and cultural industries are significant areas of employment in the Mpumalanga province and across the Republic. The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) 2020 List of Occupations in High Demand Report listed the following: (Social) Media Management and Multimedia Designer/Specialist. The qualification thus provides learners with skills and techniques required by the media and communications industry thereby contributing significantly towards producing learners who will contribute to the national economic growth via these essential professions.

The Mpumalanga Economic Growth Agency Report of 2018 as well as the Mpumalanga Socio-Economic Review Outlook (2018) identified the need to explore the local cultural activities perceived as informal within the context of the provincial economy. The province earmarked a special grant for the sole purpose of creating jobs by harnessing the potential within what it terms the "Environment and Cultural Centre". The cultural studies content of the qualification is set to contribute meaningfully to the provincial goals by training learners who will play key roles in making sense of the prevailing creative cultural potential within the public communicative life of the surrounding society.

The curriculum blends a strong theoretical foundational, contextual knowledge in media, communication, and culture, with applied modern technology skills of media and communication practice that is up to date, but also sensitive to context. The qualification will provide learners with extensive specialist resources, including a dedicated 'digital lab' with industry-standard software suites to foster critical thinking and help learners develop technical and creative abilities to become both professional producers of and critical consumers of media and cultural products.

Although the qualification is learning-focused, it integrates technological education that is largely focused on practical technological aspects of media, communication, and cultural practices. This is in response to the shifting patterns of the fast-paced industry, in particular the widespread use of everyday digital media technologies and other emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Big Data that are rapidly transforming media and communication practice. This is consistent with the digital skills ecosystem being cultivated by the Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT SETA). The SETA has recently restructured itself towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) by establishing a new 4IR division and new strategies focused on digital culture and general digital infrastructure to mitigate the skills gap that currently exists and contribute to the development and growth of the future workforce. The prioritisation of digitised forms of media and communication and culture in the qualification is supported by two years of Language Studies such that graduates will be well qualified to work in a range of specialised areas in media and communication including but not limited to television and radio, recording and editing, script writing and film. This balance of theoretical and relevant career orientation is in line with the institution's orientation as a Comprehensive institution.

In addition, the focus on culture, which includes both traditional and contemporary culture, will provide graduates with the necessary knowledge to function within multicultural systems. Graduates will be enlightened, responsible and constructively critical citizens able to contribute to the creation, sharing, critical analysis and evaluation of knowledge, as well as to the advancement of transformation, social cohesion, non-discrimination and freedom of speech and association. Graduates of the qualification will have a high level of language competence, together with expertise in intercultural communication, practical skills for the communications industry, and the technical know-how to keep pace with continually moving global trends and technology.

Although the link between the qualification and the government's 2019-2024 Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) may seem tenuous, we argue for a central and crucial role in mediating each of the eight priority areas of the MTSF. For example, expertise in media, communication and culture will assist the nation to achieve quality basic education and a diverse, socially cohesive society with a common national identity and an appreciation and understanding of varying cultures.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

The Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is central to the notion of lifelong learning and, by providing alternative access to higher education, will play a role in redress of past inequities. RPL is the process through which informal learning is measured, evaluated, and translated into perceived formal equivalents for recognition across different contexts. The goal of RPL is the facilitation of alternative access and admission to higher education, or progression within a qualification.

The National Policy and Criteria for the Implementation of Recognition of Prior Learning (Amended March 2019) indicates that there are two types of RPL, RPL for access and RPL for credit. Both are applicable to this qualification.

RPL for access

• RPL for access will be used to provide alternative route/s into the qualification.
• To be considered for admission in the qualification based on RPL, applicants should provide evidence in the form of a portfolio that demonstrates that they have acquired the relevant knowledge, skills, and competencies through formal, non-formal and/or informal learning to cope with the qualification expectations should they be allowed entrance into the qualification.
• In line with the RPL and Credit Accumulation and Transfer (CAT) Assessment Policy [Council on Higher Education (CHE), 2016:1], no more than 10% of any cohort will be admitted through RPL.

RPL for credits

• Learners may also apply for RPL for credit for or towards the qualification, in which they must provide evidence in the form of a portfolio that demonstrates prior learning through formal, non-formal and/or informal learning to obtain credits towards the qualification.
• RPL for credits is applicable to learners looking to articulate horizontally into the qualification will be granted credits for equivalent level-5 and higher modules passed at the institution or another institution.

Entry Requirements

The minimum entry requirement for this qualification is

• National Senior Certificate (NSC), NQF Level 4 granting access to bachelor's degree studies.

Or

• National Certificate (Vocational), NQF Level 4 granting access to bachelor's degree studies.

Or

• Senior Certificate with endorsement, NQF Level 4.

Or

Higher Certificate in Communication Practices, NQF Level 5.

Or

Higher Certificate in Digital Media Arts, NQF Level 5.

Or

Higher Certificate in Film and Media Production, NQF Level 5.

Or

Higher Certificate in Social Media and Communication, NQF Level 5.

Or

• Diploma, NQF Level 6 in an appropriate field.

This qualification consists of the following compulsory and elective modules at NQF Level 5, 6 and 7 totalling 364 Credits.

Compulsory Modules, Level 5, 76 Credits

• End User Computing, 12 Credits.
• Introduction to Film Theories and Analysis, 10 Credits.
• Introduction to Media, Politics and Development in South Africa, 10 Credits.
• Introduction to News and Feature Writing, 10 Credits.
• Introduction to Script Writing, 10 Credits.
• Introduction to Critical Communication, 12 Credits.
• Introduction to Contemporary Culture Theory, 12 Credits.

Elective Modules, Level 5, 24 Credits (Choose one of the following options)

• English IA, 12 Credits.
• English IB, 12 Credits.

OR

• SiSwati IA, 12 Credits.
• SiSwati IB, 12 Credits.

AND

Elective Modules, Level 5, 24 Credits (Choose only one stream from the following options)

Stream One

• Communication Studies IA, 12 Credits.
• Communication Studies IB, 12 Credits.

Stream Two

• Culture and Heritage Studies IA, 12 Credits.
• Culture and Heritage Studies IB, 12 Credits.

Stream Three

• Business Management IA, 12 Credits.
• Business Management IB, 12 Credits.

Stream Four

• Political Science IA, 12 Credits.
• Political Science IB, 12 Credits.

Stream Five

• Economics IA, 12 Credits.
• Economics IB, 12 Credits.

Stream Six

• Sociology IA, 12 Credits.
• Sociology IB, 12 Credits.

Stream Seven

• Psychology IA, 12 Credits.
• Psychology IB, 12 Credits.

Stream Eight

• Industrial Psychology IA, 12 Credits.
• Industrial Psychology IB, 12 Credits.

Compulsory Modules, Level 6, 40 Credits

• Media and Society: Theory and Analysis of Media and Film in the Global South, 10 Credits.
• Critical Communication Studies II, 10 Credits.
• Creative Communication: New Media Production II, 10 Credits.
• Cultural Studies: Contemporary South African Media and Society, 10 Credits.

Elective Modules, Level 6, 50 Credits (Select any two streams from the following options)

Stream One

• Principles of Production: Film, Video and TV, 15 Credits.
• Introduction to Production Management: Film, Video and TV, 10 Credits.

Stream Two

• Written Media Production 2: News and Features, 15 Credits.
• Script Writing II, 10 Credits.

Stream Three

• Principles of Design and Layout, 15 Credits.
• Copywriting for Advertising, 10 Credits.

AND

Elective Modules, Level 6, 30 Credits

• English IIA, 15 Credits.
• English IIB 15 Credits.

Or

• SiSwati IIA, 15 Credits.
• SiSwati IIB, 15 Credits.

Compulsory Modules, Level 7, 45 Credits

• Advanced Research and Investigative Methods for Media, 15 Credits.
• Final Integrated Project, 30

Elective Modules, Level 7, 75 Credits (Select one stream and choose any five modules in each stream)

Stream One

• Advanced Video Film and TV Production, 15 Credits.
• Advanced Production Management: Film, Video and TV, 15 Credits.
• Advanced Visual Communication: Design and Layout, 15 Credits.
• Advanced Audio-Visual Presentation Design, 15 Credits.
• Advanced Critical Communication Studies, 15 Credits.
• Advocacy and Documentary Film Theory and Analysis, 15 Credits.

Stream Two

• Advanced Contemporary Culture, 15 Credits.
• Identity and Representation in Contemporary South African Literature, 15 Credits.
• Advanced Creative Communication: Copywriting for Advertising, 15 Credits.
• Advanced Multimedia Communication and New Media Production, 15 Credits.
• Advanced Analysis and Investigative Commentary for News and Magazine Features, 15 Credits.

1. Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the central role that media, communication, film, and cultural agencies play at individual, local, national, and international levels of economic, political, and social organization, and critically explore and articulate this in written work and media productions.
2. Demonstrate a deep understanding of and critical insight into the principles, theories, and methodological approaches at the forefront of Media, Communication and Culture Studies, and apply this in all written work and productions.
3. Demonstrate the ability to critically analyse the intersections between media, communication and culture and apply this knowledge in their creative work.
4. Apply deep rational reflection and critical analytical skills to a range of complex political, socioeconomic, cultural, and everyday issues and use this to develop creative work.
5. Demonstrate the ability to engage and communicate rationally, critically, and, analytically in a language of choice.
6. Undertake desktop and field or community-based research to inform the creative process.
7. Demonstrate the ability to use routine and advanced technology (software and hardware) to support creative processes and practices in an area of specialisation.
8. Demonstrate the ability to discuss and apply advanced knowledge and understanding of the processes linking preproduction, production circulation, reception and use in a media specialisation of choice.
9. Demonstrate the ability to engage in a professional manner with clients to establish their needs, develop, present, and refine a brief and create a final product that fills the brief.
10. Demonstrate the ability to create media products (videos, films, advertisements, written work, blogs, vlogs, and others) that are perceptive and sensitive to heritage, culture, identities, and history.
11. Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of professional ethics in media culture and communication studies and apply this in their work, decisions, and actions.
12. Demonstrate the ability to work productively in a group showing abilities at different times to listen, contribute and lead effectively.
13. Demonstrate the ability to work in flexible, creative, and independent ways showing self-discipline, self-direction, and reflexivity.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 1

• Critically analyse the ways in which the various forms of media shape economic, political, and social organization at various levels drawing on examples from Africa and beyond.
• Critically evaluated the ways in which people's lives are shaped by communicative, cultural, and aesthetic systems and practices with reference to relevant examples.
• Discuss the notion that media can be both liberating and constraining with reference to recent literature, theory, and contemporary examples.
• Develop media productions that clearly demonstrate an understanding of the power of media to shape opinion.
• Correctly identify and critically evaluate the economic forces that influence and shape the media, film, cultural and creative industries.
• Describe and critically analyse the social, cultural economic and political histories from which different media, film and cultural institutions, modes of communication practices and structures have emerged with reference to relevant examples.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 2

• Discuss and apply a range of concepts, theories, and approaches to the study of selected objects and processes in writing and media productions.
• Critically review and use relevant theories, principles, procedures and practices, research methodologies, methods, and techniques to support the development of convincing arguments and positions in assignments, creative productions, and examinations.
• Inform critical discussion of current issues in the field of specialisation by an advanced understanding of and supported by reference to current literature and case studies and draws on examples from the world with an emphasis on Africa.
• Critically analyse the diversity of approaches to understanding communication, media, film and culture in both historical and contemporary contexts and the uses, misuses, and implications of these approaches.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 3

• Analyse and discuss ways in which forms of media and cultural consumption are embedded in everyday life and serve as ways of claiming and understanding identities, drawing on relevant theory and case studies.
• Describe and discuss the different roles that media, film and cultural organisations play in different societies with reference to relevant examples and recent literature.
• Discuss ways in which different cultural groups use cultural texts and products in the production of social and cultural realities.
• Critically analyse the ways in which access to media and communication is distributed along axes of social division, and the impact of this with reference to relevant examples from Africa and the world.
• Construct the cultural and social ways in which aesthetic judgements and aesthetic processes experienced are described and apply the knowledge successfully in the production of creative products.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 4

• Critically analyse research, production, and communication.
• Critically analyse and discuss case studies with reference to established theory and current literature.
• Draw on a deep understanding of the issues at hand to debate and discuss current issues in specialisation and support by recent literature.
• Consider critical, analytical, and ethical views, other than their own and make independent and informed judgements.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 5

• Engage with forms of critical analysis and express argument and debate through an appropriate command of oral, written, and other forms of communication.
• Communicate information to both professional and lay audiences using appropriate language and technology.
• Clearly communicate complex concepts, ideas, and theories in a convincing manner.
• Complete and present engaging and clear presentations within the given time.
• Undertake interactions with clients and providers using appropriate language and where necessary audio-visual tools.
• Use appropriate language in all assignments, present in the approved style and adhere to norms for writing in specialisation.
• Avoid plagiarism in assignments.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 6

• Conduct research involving sustained independent enquiry as an integral part of essays, projects, and creative productions.
• Formulate and clearly present appropriate research questions.
• Select, justify, and correctly apply appropriate research paradigms, practices, procedures, and traditions demonstrating an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses.
• Conduct a comprehensive literature review to support the research question, use a range of information sources and critically evaluate each source.
• Include timeframes and budgets, goals, targets, and indicators in the project plan.
• Consider ethical issues and seek approval if necessary.
• Successfully collect, collate, and analyse information.
• Interpret and discuss information/ data in the context of the available information gathered in the literature review.
• Adapt results for presentation in a chosen form of media.
• Manage contradictory information, consider alternative viewpoints, and reach a balanced conclusion.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 7

• Select, justify, and correctly use a range of routine and advanced software and hardware to create aesthetically pleasing media productions.
• Critically inform competencies in the management and operation of production technologies including adherence to all health and safety requirements.
• Describe the ways in which specific media and their associated technologies make possible different aesthetic effects in creative productions.
• Successfully apply audio, visual, and verbal conventions through which sounds, images and words make meaning in productions.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 8

• Discuss the processes linking pre-production, production distribution, circulation, and reception and successfully apply them in the integrated production project.
• Critically inform competencies in the management and operation of production procedures and processes.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 9

• Use professional and appropriate language in interactions with potential clients.
• Keep comprehensive notes from all meetings with clients.
• Develop a brief that captures the expectations of the client.
• Present and revise the brief based on feedback and a final brief approved by the client.
• Create a final product that meets the brief.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 10

• Creative work demonstrates a critical awareness of the history and context of the objects of study.
• Engage with and advance creative processes in one or more forms of media or cultural production.
• Adhere to legal, ethical, and other regulatory frameworks, including intellectual property and POPIA in all production activities.
• Organise and manage work such that agreed-on deadlines and the client brief are achieved in the creative production process.
• Keep a full record of all activities, research, interviews and meetings and store, protect and organise data such that data retrieval is possible when access has been granted.
• Apply narrative processes, generic forms, and modes of representation in creative works.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 11

• Identify ethical issues in the specialisation area discuss them in assignments and implement them to address them in the final integrated production project.
• Obtain ethical approval prior to starting any research.
• Actively seek the views of multiple stakeholders and accommodate different views in all activities.
• Avoid plagiarism in submitted work.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 12

• In group work, agree on and execute responsibilities within the group.
• Successfully plan, execute, and complete group assignments and research within the time provided.
• Provide effective leadership with due regard to individual differences, such that all team members function optimally.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 13

• Include research journal positive and constructive reflections on the learning process and own work.
• Critically consider and successfully incorporate feedback into iterative drafts of creative work.
• Avoid plagiarism in written assignments.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT

The institution's assessment policy (Assessment and Moderation of Student Learning Policy) informs and guides assessment.

Formative assessment.

Learners will be provided with a range of assessment opportunities throughout the module and the feedback will be used by learners to improve their learning. In this developmental approach to assessment, assessment tasks are provided regularly and are closely aligned with the learning outcomes of a module; comprehensive feedback is provided to help learners learn; and opportunities are provided for learners to demonstrate that their learning has developed or progressed. Through this, learners are empowered in the assessment process and are assisted in monitoring their own learning.

For formative assessment, learners will be provided with a variety of different types of assessment tasks including assignments, desktop research projects small creative media productions, and written assignments of different lengths and styles. Where tests are used the nature of the test will change from a focus on content knowledge in 1st year to a focus on higher-level thinking in 2nd and 3rd year.

Summative assessment

The extent to which learners have achieved the outcomes will be assessed at the end of a module either with an examination or with a creative production portfolio.

At third year level, learners complete an original creative media production appropriate to the stream they are working in. This is underpinned by substantial research and could be considered a capstone project or module. The final creative product will be assessed by a group of internal staff and external experts and is an excellent form of integrated assessment.

Where an assessment is continuous, the provision will be made to support learners who do not meet the required level of performance. Group assessment will include one or more mechanisms to assess individual contribution and support will be available from the Academic Support Division.

The balance between formative and summative assessment varies between modules and is provided in the module templates that have been uploaded to this application. In addition, the weighting of the various assessment tasks is also indicated in the module templates.