Communication, Culture & Technology MA
Communication, Culture & Technology is designed as a challenge-led programme to give you the tools to not only understand the world of media, technology and culture around you, but to actively intervene. It will apply communications theories and methods to real life challenges including emerging technologies and digital access, equality and inclusion, climate change, conflict, migration, healthcare, poverty and more.
Glasgow is a vibrant, multicultural and engaged city, with many opportunities for networking, experiential learning and work placements and diverse future career paths.
- September start
- Session dates
- Communication, Culture & Technology MA (Hons): W500 4 year degree
Programme structure
This four-year programme offers a progressive and skills-building structure.
Year 1: Foundations
You will study these core courses in year 1:
- Contemporary debates in communication, culture & technology
- Approaches to communication, culture & technology.
Year 2: Development
You will study these core courses in year 2:
- Communications infrastructures
- Community, culture & identity.
You will also study other subjects in years 1 and 2: see Flexible degrees.
Year 3 and 4: Application.
If you progress to Honours (years 3 and 4), you will take courses designed as a series of “Challenge Labs” in which you will work collaboratively to apply learning to real-world challenges using core communications studies theories and methods.
In years 3 and 4 your first semester options will include theoretical and methodological training which will prepare you for application in Semester 2. If you complete a year or semester abroad you will be encouraged to enrol in similar methodological courses.
Courses may include:
- Qualitative Methods in Media and Communication Studies
- Advanced Research Design in Media and Communications
- Research Creation
- Digital Methods
- Netnography
- Field Methods
- Speculative Futures
- Challenge Lab: Climate Crisis
- Challenge Lab: Migration
- Challenge Lab: Health Inequalities
- Challenge Lab: EDI in Global Communications
- Challenge Lab: Privacy and Surveillance
- Challenge Lab: Safety, Wellbeing, and Media Literacy
- Challenge Lab: Misinformation and Post-truth
- Challenge Lab: Algorithmic Cultures, and Automation.
You will also complete a dissertation project in year 4. This allows you the opportunity to study a topic in Communication, Culture & Technology of your own choosing and alongside consultation with a specialist supervisor.
Course details
Year 1
Core Courses
- L1A Contemporary Debates in Communications, Culture & Technology
This course offers an introduction to Communications Studies, drawing from current news headlines and social, cultural and political media phenomena to begin developing a critical awareness and language around how communications shape our contemporary society. - L1B Approaches to Communication, Culture & Technology
This course offers a survey introduction to foundational theories and lenses for approaching the study of media and communication. We will discuss approaches such as cultural studies, media ecology, critical theory, political economy, feminist, and discursive/post-structural lenses to apply to media and communications texts.
Year 2
Core Courses
- L2A Communications Infrastructures
In this course, communication, culture and media are explored as material and technical artefacts. We enquire how the content and symbols of communications is dependent on infrastructures. The course will critically engage with the ethics and politics of communication technologies as material objects. It will ask questions, such as: Why does it matter how much water AI consumes and where the internet cables that connect the globe run? What politics are in the design of digital technologies? Whose labour and which value chains enable digital culture? - L2B Community, Culture, and Identities
In this course, we engage with the symbolic power of communication, media and technology. We will ask how communications and media technologies structure, support, and hinder identities, cultures and solidarities – intersectionally ranging across race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, class, age or generation. We ask questions, such as: How are communicative resources unequally distributed affecting voice and recognition of social groups? How do digital technologies shape global symbolic flows and identities? Which ethical frameworks are relevant to critique representations and mediated identities?
Years 3 and 4
- L3 Methods and Strategies in Communication Studies
In this course, you will learn about traditions and practices of methodology and knowledge-production in media and communication studies. You will learn how to conduct qualitative methods, such as discourse analysis or ethnography, as well as reflect on the conceptual grounding of what it means to make truth claims: how reality and experience are constructed, how “data” is relational, and how researcher integrity and positionality matters. - Challenge Lab: Health Inequalities
This course engages the challenge of health inequalities from a communications studies perspective. It is designed as a hands-on, practical and workshop based course where students will work together on projects meant to address challenges within the healthcare ecosystem including health communications and misinformation, emerging health technologies, intersectional disparities in access and level of care, and more. The course is designed around the central question: how can media and communications studies positively impact health outcomes for people in the UK and beyond? - Challenge Lab: Migration
This course engages with challenges and questions around migration and border regimes from a communications perspective. It is designed as a hands-on, practical and workshop based course where students will work together on projects meant to address challenges within global migration, pertaining to new technologies employed for border control and migration management, increasing exclusion and attacks on the rights of migrants and refugees in media and communications ecosystems, or the role of communication technologies in facilitating and experiencing migration. The course is designed around the question: how do global migration and border regimes need to be understood in relation to communication and technology, and what can alternative, more just worlds look like? - Senior Honours Dissertation
This course allows you the opportunity to study a topic in Communication, Culture, and Technology of your own choosing and alongside consultation with a specialist supervisor. You will undertake an extensive and independent research project and will be supported by a suite of training sessions and individual supervision to ensure you have the guidance you need.
Programme alteration or discontinuation
The University of Glasgow endeavours to run all programmes as advertised. In exceptional
circumstances, however, the University may withdraw or alter a programme. For more information,
please see: Student contract.
Our international links
You will have the opportunity to study abroad at one of our partner universities as part of your degree. This won’t add any extra time to your studies. See Study abroad
Entry requirements
for entry in 2027
You should refer to the entry requirements for both subjects and the degree award when applying for a joint honours degree programme. The higher entry requirement (where applicable) and additional requirements must be met for both subjects.
Summary of entry requirements for Communication, Culture & Technology
Scottish Higher entry requirements
- BBBB is the minimum requirement from S5 to be reviewed for an S6 offer
- Offers are not guaranteed to applicants who meet the minimum from S5
- Typically offers will be made at AAAAB by end of S6. B at Advanced Higher is equivalent to A at Higher
- Additional requirements: Higher English and a Higher Humanities subject at AA. (AB or BA may be considered).
Scottish Higher adjusted entry requirements* (by end of S5 or S6)
- MD20: BBBB (also other target groups*)
- MD40: AABB*
- Additional requirements: Higher English and a Higher Humanities subject. Successful completion of Top-Up or one of our Summer Schools.
* See Access Glasgow for eligibility.
A-level standard entry requirements
- ABB – BBB
- Additional requirements: A-level English or another Humanities subject.
IB standard entry requirements
- 34 (6,5,5)
- Additional requirements: English HL6 or Humanities HL6 with English SL6.
Admissions guidance
English language
For applicants from non-English speaking countries, as defined by the UK Government, the University sets a minimum English Language proficiency level.
English language requirements
International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic and Academic Online (not General Training)
- 6.5 with no subtests under 6.0
- IELTS One Skill Retake Accepted
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
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Common equivalent English language qualifications for entry to this programme
TOEFL (ibt, mybest or athome)
Tests taken up to 20 January 2026
- 90 Overall, no subtest lower than Reading 20; Listening 19; Speaking 19; Writing 21
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of programme start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test, this includes TOEFL mybest.
Tests taken from 21 January 2026
- 92 Overall, no subtest lower than Reading 22; Listening 20; Speaking 23; Writing 21
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of programme start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test, this includes TOEFL mybest.
Pearsons PTE Academic
- 59 with minimum 59 in all subtests
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
Cambridge Proficiency in English (CPE) and Cambridge Advanced English (CAE)
- 176 overall, no subtest less than 169
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
Oxford ELLT
- 7 overall with no subtest less than 6
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
LanguageCert Academic SELT
- 70 overall with no subtest less than 60
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
Password Skills Plus
- 6.5 overall with no subtest less than 6.0
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
Trinity College Tests
- Integrated Skills in English II & III & IV: ISEII Distinction with Distinction in all sub-tests
- Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
University of Glasgow Pre-sessional courses
- Tests are accepted for 2 years following date of successful completion.
School Qualifications
- IGCSE English First Language, grade C
- IGCSE English Second Language, grade A
- A Level English, grade C
- International Baccalaureate English A SL5 or HL5
- International Baccalaureate English B SL6 or HL5
- SQA National 5 English or ESOL, grade B
- SQA Higher English or ESOL, grade C
International School Qualifications
- Brunei: O-Level English Language 1120 grade B and above
- Denmark: Studentereksamen English at 7
- European Baccalaureate: English as Language 1 pass, if taken as Language 2 grade 7, if taken as Language 3 grade 7.5
- Finland: Ylioppilastutkinto / studentexamen English grade C or 4
- France: International Option Baccalaureate (OIB) / Baccalauréat Français International (BFI) grade 12
- Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone: West African Examination Council (WAEC) / Senior Secondary School Certificate English grade C6
- Germany: German Abitur English Grade 11
- Hong Kong: Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education, English Language grade 4
- India: Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) / All India School Certificate (ISC) English at 80%
- Kenya: Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) English grade B
- Netherlands: Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs (VWO) grade 7
- Norway: Vitnemal English grade 4 or above
- Singapore: Cambridge International O Level English Language (1128 Singapore only) at Grace C; Singapore Integrated Programme Secondary 4 English Language at grade B
- South Africa: National Senior Certificate (NSC) / Independent Exam Board (IEB) Grade 4 (English as Home Language) OR Grade 4 (English as First Additional Language)
- Sweden: Avgangsbetyg / Fullständigt Slutbetyg fran Gymnasieskolan English grade VG
- Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe General Certificate of Education at English at Ordinary Level grade C
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Alternatives to English Language qualification
- Degree from majority-English speaking country (as defined by the UKVI including Canada if taught in English)
- students must have studied for a minimum of 2 years at Undergraduate level, or 9 months at Master's level, and must have completed their degree in that majority-English speaking country within the last 6 years.
- Undergraduate 2+2 degrees from majority-English speaking country (as defined by the UKVI including Canada if taught in English)
- students must have completed their final two years study in that majority-English speaking country within the last 6 years.
For international students, the Home Office has confirmed that the University can choose to use these tests to make its own assessment of English language ability for visa applications to degree level programmes. The University is also able to accept UKVI approved Secure English Language Tests (SELT) but we do not require a specific UKVI SELT for degree level programmes. We therefore still accept any of the English tests listed for admission to this programme.
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Pre-sessional courses
We would strongly encourage you to consider the pre-sessional courses at the University of Glasgow's English for Academic Study (EAS) Unit. Our Pre-sessional courses are the best way to bring your English up to entry level for University study. Our courses give you:
- direct entry to your University programme for successful students (no need to take IELTS)
- essential academic skills to help you study effectively at University
- flexible entry dates so you can join the right course for your level.
For more detail on our pre-sessional courses please see:
- English for Academic Study: Pre-sessional courses
We can also consider the pre-sessional courses accredited by the below BALEAP approved institutions to meet the language requirements for admission to our postgraduate taught degrees:
- Heriot Watt
- Kingston Upon Thames
- Middlesex University
- Manchester University
- Reading University
- Edinburgh University
- St Andrews University
- UCL
- Durham
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FAQs
What do I do if...
my language qualifications are below the requirements?
The University's School of Modern Languages and Cultures offers a range of Pre-sessional courses to bring you up to entry level. The course is accredited by BALEAP, the UK professional association for academic English teaching.
my language qualifications are not listed here?
Please contact External Relations
If you require a Tier 4 student visa, your qualification must be one of the secure English language tests accepted by UK Border Agency:
- UK Border Agency Tier 4 English Language requirements
- UKBA list of approved English language tests [pdf]
Visa requirements and proof of English language level
It is a visa requirement to provide information on your level of English based on an internationally recognised and secure English language test. All test reports must be no more than 2 years old. A list of these can be found on the UK Border Agency website. If you have never taken one of these tests before, you can get an initial idea of your level by using the Common European Framework self-assessment grid which gives you a level for each skill (e.g. listening B1/writing B2 etc.) However, please note that this is not a secure English language test and it is not sufficient evidence of your level of English for visa requirements.
Further information about English language: English for Academic Study
Career prospects
This programme will provide you with relevant and employable skills, necessary to navigate a world of new technologies, “post-truth,” and media-saturated life and work. Practical skills will be built alongside theories, strategies and methods for communication and will prepare you for careers in the public and cultural sectors, marketing and advertising, journalism, public relations, governance, policy and regulation, technology and innovation, not for profit, content creation and more.
Degrees and UCAS codes
When applying you will need to know the UCAS code for the subject or subject-combination that you wish to apply to:
MA (Hons)
Fees and funding
Tuition fees
How and when you pay tuition fees depends on where you’re from: see Tuition fees for details.
Scholarships
The University is committed to supporting students and rewarding academic excellence. That's why we've invested more than £1m in additional scholarship funding in recent years.
The scholarships above are relevant to this programme. For more funding opportunities search the scholarships database
How to apply
Full-time students must apply through the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
SQA applicants who are eligible for our Widening Participation programmes are encouraged to participate in one or more of these programmes, including Summer School, to support your application and the transition to higher education.
International students to Arts, Engineering, Law, Nursing, Science, and Social Sciences can also apply using The Common Application: however, if applying to more than one UK university, we recommend using UCAS. Applications to Dentistry, Education, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine must be made through UCAS.
Application deadlines
- 15 October: if including Dentistry, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine or also applying to Oxford or Cambridge
- 13 January: all other UK applicants (unless otherwise stated on the UCAS website)
- 30 June: international students.
We do not usually accept any applications after these deadlines.
It's your responsibility to ensure the accuracy of your application before submission. Requests to correct application content, change degree programme or change college of entry, will not be accepted after these deadlines. This policy is in place to ensure fairness and consistency to all applicants, and no exceptions will be made.
- Apply at www.ucas.com or through your school or college
- Contact UCAS on 0871 468 0468
- Apply at commonapp.org (international students to certain areas only)
How to apply for Advanced Entry
Apply for year 2 (Y2) on your UCAS application. If the specific subject is unavailable for Advanced Entry or your application for year 2 entry is unsuccessful, you will be automatically considered for year 1 entry. You do not have to submit a separate UCAS application.
