Program Overview

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Effective communication is key when developing your distinctive journalistic style. This course gives you a thorough grounding in the English language alongside expanding your multimedia knowledge. In the digital age, where demand for news is at an all-time high, a key part to becoming a successful journalist is the ability to find and tell a story that is engaging and powerful. You explore the origins of the English language through a wide spectrum of topics from sociolinguistics to learning how language is constructed. This will be intertwined with the practical journalism component of this course; where you develop your skills in using multi-media channels such as radio, television and online media, and will deepen your knowledge of journalism on an international scale. This course gives you the flexibility to choose the areas of the subject that interest you. You can study topics including:

• propaganda in film and literature
• how language is used in conversation
• how the pronunciation of speech varies
• the role of new media in shaping mass culture
• how questioning in broadcast interviews has changed over time
• how politicians use rhetorical devices to generate applause from audiences
• how the media is used for marketing purposes
• how people use language on social media to construct identities for themselves

During your final year, you will have the opportunity to bring all aspects of the course together in a final multimedia project on a subject linked to the English language element of your studies. As a student at one of the UK’s leading social science institutions, you are uniquely placed to acquire a deep understanding of the world you report on. You will join our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies and our Department of Languages and Linguistics where you will join our diverse community of students from all corners of the globe. Why we're great.

• Our journalism teaching staff have a broad range of up-to-date hands-on industry experience.
• You create and broadcast your own online content, radio and TV programmes.
• You can build your knowledge of multimedia journalism whilst also specialising in your favourite subject.

Study abroad

Your education extends beyond the university campus. We support you in expanding your education through offering the opportunity to spend a year or a term studying abroad at one of our partner universities. The four-year version of our degree allows you to spend the third year abroad or employed on a placement abroad, while otherwise remaining identical to the three-year course. Studying abroad allows you to experience other cultures and languages, to broaden your degree socially and academically, and to demonstrate to employers that you are mature, adaptable, and organised. If you spend a full year abroad you'll only pay 15% of your usual tuition fee to Essex for that year. You won't pay any tuition fees to your host university

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Our expert staff

At Essex you learn from the best. Our course director Tim Fenton , is a former managing editor of the BBC News Online website and a journalist with more than 35 years' industry experience ranging from sports reporting for local radio to presenting and producing national current affairs programmes on TV and radio. Other core journalism staff include:

• Penny Wrout, a former BBC correspondent and producer who is currently a freelance documentary film-maker and multimedia arts producer.
• Paul Anderson , former editor of Tribune and deputy editor of the New Statesman , who now works as a print/online subeditor on the Guardian .
• Dr Fatima el Issawi , an international correspondent with more than 15 years’ experience covering conflict zones for a wide range of broadcast and online outlets including Agence France Press and the BBC.
• Dr Alexandros Antoniou , lecturer in media law and a specialist in communications regulation, intellectual property and cybercrime.

Throughout the course you’ll also have the opportunity to meet visiting lecturers and teachers who are leading figures in different branches of journalism, and who provide an important link to an extended network of industry practitioners. In the Department of Languages and Linguistics, our staff are internationally renowned, and their books dominate the reading lists at other universities; Florence Myles authored the best-selling Second Language Learning Theories , and Bob Borsley wrote both Syntactic Theory: a Unified Approach and Modern Phrase Structure Grammar.

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Specialist facilities

As a journalism student at Essex, your material is published on a dedicated website , and you also spend time gaining on-the-job experience with a range of professional news operations, creating and publishing real stories and building up a portfolio of published and broadcast work. You work in a purpose-built newsroom with access to television, radio studios, and computer software that allows journalists to create and edit content across all media and platforms quickly and professionally. The University’s Media Centre is equipped with state-of-the-art studios, cameras, audio and lighting equipment, and an industry-standard editing suite. You can also gain experience with our Students’ Union media platform Rebel , and benefit from access to our language and linguistics facilities:

• A Linguistics Lab with specialist equipment for analysing sound
• Our ‘Visual World’ Experimental Lab records response times and eye movements when individuals are presented with pictures and videos
• Our Eye-Tracking Lab monitors eye movement of individuals performing tasks
• Our Psycholinguistics Lab measures how long it takes individuals to react to words, texts and sounds

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Your future

Studying English language allows you to deepen your understanding of the language and how it is constructed. You develop your research and IT skills by collecting and analysing linguistic data, as well as enhancing your communication style. Combined with the practical journalism elements of the course mean that our graduates are equipped to embark on any one of a number of career paths. You compile an impressive portfolio of published work and complete a detailed multimedia project linked to English language in your final year, offering real evidence of your range and capabilities to future employers. You become a multi-skilled story-teller, familiar with production techniques in television, radio, online and newspaper journalism, and with the option to gain advanced skills in specific areas in your final year.