Centre for International Communications and Society

The Department of Sociology at City University has a distinguished record in Media Sociology and Communications. The pioneering work of Jeremy Tunstall during the 1970s provided the Department international prominence in this field from its earliest days. Seminal studies such as The Westminster Lobby Correspondents (1970), Journalists at Work (1971), and The Media are American (1977), set an enviably high standard of research that continues with Professor Tunstall's latest work, The Media Were American (2007). Books and articles continue to pour from members of today’s much-expanded department, ensuring it a leading role in the study of media and communications.

The Department boasts two of the longest established Masters degree programmes, International Communications and Development and Communication Policy Studies. These bring students together from around the world – from North America, Africa, Europe and in the U.K. the Far East. To these enormously successful postgraduate degrees have recently been added MA programmes in Political Communications, Media and Human Rights and Transnational Media and Globalisation. The Department introduced an MA in Media and Communication (in 2006) that has proved to be highly popular. This gives students the opportunity to study the broad field of media and communications at postgraduate level. A new MA Surveillance Studies that draws together expertise in Communications, Criminology and Sociology was begun in 2008.

City’s location in and around Islington, Clerkenwell and Barbican puts the Department at the heart of media and communications affairs in what is unarguably one of the world’s leading cities. London is a hub of global, national and international communications – and researchers at City capitalise on this situation. Key players are close by: journalists and web designers, fashion designers and entrepreneurs, advertising agencies and political advisers, diplomats and deal-makers, NGOs and established interest groups. These are concentrated and congregate in the immediate area, giving researchers ready access to 24/7 activities that truly connect all round the globe in real time. Step out of the door of City University and you are immediately into one of the most vibrant and stimulating parts of London, where intense cosmopolitanism, the creative industries and sheer style are inescapable. And just a few minutes walk takes you into one of the world’s greatest financial centres. It is hard to imagine a better place to study communications and media issues.

Today at City a group of scholars continue and extend Professor Tunstall’s work in the Centre for International Communications and Society. A major focus of research is the global (international as well as transnational), political and policy aspects of media and communications, though the work of the Centre covers many more areas. There are particular interests in video gaming, media occupations, journalism and news production, media and conflict as well as new media technologies and their social consequences. Recent work has taken members into study of Human Rights, Democratisation and Globalisation, Crime and Media, where they find support from other colleagues in the Department.

Publications from the group include:

The Department of Sociology at City University has an eviable reputation for its expertise in teaching research methods. Such support ensures that Masters students in the Communications domain are especially well equipped to undertake sophisticated and rigorous research for the dissertations that are a vital part of all the degrees.

Media and communications are not only fast-changing, they also permeate and are increasingly crucial to all dimensions of the Information Society. Whether the issue is one of the restructuring of broadcasting services or the development of web-based teaching and learning in universities, the rise of ‘public relations democracy’ or the mobilisation of new forms of political protest, London’s role as an ‘information city’ or the professional values and practices of journalists, researchers at the Centre for International Communications and Society have an expert interest.

MA Programmes

Staff associated with the Centre for International Communications and Society play core roles in the following MA Programmes: