Students will cover live news, features and real issues in the city, the administrative centre of Lancashire, and the North West region which demographically has the same size population as Scotland. A semester will be spent producing their own magazines, targeted for specific audiences such as business or consumer lifestyles.

Throughout the course students will be learning and developing new skills. These include sub-editing, typography and design and more advanced writing styles for features and specialised reporting.

Students will also learn how the magazine industry works, the readers they serve and the business of freelancing as well as the practical journalism skill of shorthand and an introduction to online and interactive media.

Modules on the course include:

Project
Building upon skills acquired during Semesters 1 and 2, students can choose to undertake a substantial piece of research, project planning and production by producing a prototype magazine. The original proposal must be completed before the end of Semester 2 and the printed prototype including media kit and critical analysis before the end of Semester 3.

Dissertation
This gives students the change to develop their knowledge and understanding in a defined area of magazine journalism and demonstrate their abilities to undertake self-directed learning. Students will need to source, study and analyse a considerable range of literature and findings in their area of interest before undertaking research. This is a Masters level dissertation that should look at an original area and show a high level of analytical ability.

Law and Public Administration for Journalists
These two subjects are tailored to give students the theoretical and practical knowledge they will need to carryout their jobs as journalists. Students will learn about the legal constraints within which they have to work, with special emphasis on the laws of defamation and contempt. Students will also study the politics of a range of decision-making bodies, from parish councils to parliament and the European Union.

Shorthand
An essential skill for any journalist, not least as back-up for recording interviews. Most of the course every day will include one and a half hours of Teeline shorthand.

In the law and public administration modules students will be continuously assessed on coursework with final exams in each subject. The magazine journalism, production and issues modules will be assessed on coursework. To exit with a Postgraduate Diploma, students must pass the coursework and exam components in all modules and achieve 100 words a minute in shorthand.

To gain the Masters award, students must pass the coursework and exam components in all modules, achieve 100 words a minute in shorthand, produce a 2,000-word dissertation proposal and a 15,000-word piece of research or research and produce a prototype magazine.

Extra and related information

Our print and broadcast courses are accredited by the The Broadcast Journalism Training Council and the National Council for the Training of Journalists. Our MA Magazine Journalism is accredited by the Periodicals Training Council.