Program Overview

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Global Communications MSc

The Masters in Global Communications will give you insights, experience, and a critical understanding of global communication using current and emerging media platforms. You will gain practical skills and industry contacts to enhance your future opportunities while developing your knowledge of the cultural, historical, and ethical contexts that shape international communication.

Academic Contact

• Dr. Lindsay Balfour

Teaching Start

• September

Location

• Glasgow: Gilmorehill campus

Duration

• MSc: 12 months full-time; 24 months part-time

Why this Programme

• Gain experience in communication campaigns, analysing media content, and using digital communication tools to engage diverse audiences.
• Develop a critical understanding of the intercultural communication skills needed to address global issues, alongside the opportunities and challenges introduced by emerging media platforms and digital innovations.
• Build contacts with industry professionals through projects and collaborations with media and communication organisations.
• Learn how to implement and manage communication strategies and policies, considering organisational objectives, technological advancements, and the legal and regulatory frameworks in different regions.
• Assess the complex ethical and professional contexts within which global communication professionals operate and apply this understanding to real-world scenarios.
• Identify and apply the skills and processes essential for effective global communication practice, including digital content creation, media management, and strategic communication planning.
• Glasgow is a culturally vibrant city, a UNESCO City of Music, and named the UKs top cultural and creative city by the European Commission. You will have the opportunity to work on communications issues relevant to the cultural industries through direct engagement with Glasgows international cultural scene.
• Glasgow has played a pivotal role in global communications both past and present. A distinctive feature of our programme is a rigorously historically grounded approach to communications and media studies. You will have the opportunity to utilise materials from the past to better understand contemporary communications. Our extensive collections provide access to a wide range of business and industry archives, enabling you to apply modern media approaches to their use and interpretation.

Programme Structure

You will take two core courses and four optional courses, and you will also complete an individual project.

Semester 1

Core Course

• Communications & Media: Theory and Concepts
  • Communications & Media: Theory and Concepts is a course that explores the foundational theories and key concepts in the field of communications and media studies. Students will examine the evolution of communication practices, media technologies, and their impact on society. The course covers topics such as media effects, audience analysis, digital communication, and the role of media in shaping public opinion and culture. Through critical analysis and case studies, students will gain a deep understanding of how media and communication influence contemporary social dynamics and national, international, and regional forms of engagement.
  • This course aims to:
    • Provide students with an understanding of foundational theories in communications and media studies, enabling them to critically analyse media practices and their impact on society.
    • Examine the development of media technologies and communication practices, and how they have shaped and been shaped by social, cultural, and political forces.
    • Investigate the effects of media on audiences and public opinion, focusing on how media content influences behaviour, perception, and societal norms.
    • Explore the role of media in communication, including digital media and the impact of social media, online platforms, and digital convergence on information dissemination and consumption.
    • Enable students to apply theoretical concepts to real-world media scenarios, using case studies and practical examples to understand the complexities of media in a globalised world.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to:
    • Explain key theories and concepts in communications and media studies.
    • Analyse the influence of media on public opinion, culture, and social behaviour, using relevant theoretical frameworks.
    • Evaluate the role of digital media in contemporary communication, including its effects on information dissemination and audience engagement.
    • Critically assess media messages and their implications within various cultural, political, and social contexts.
    • Apply theoretical knowledge to real-world media and communication scenarios through case studies, projects, discussions, and an independent research project or dissertation.

Optional Courses

• Two optional courses (see below)

Semester 2

Core Course

• Research Methods and Strategies for Communication
  • Research Methods and Strategies for Communication is a course designed to equip students with the essential tools and techniques for conducting research in the field of communication, including surveys, interviews, content analysis, and experimental design. Students will learn how to design research projects, collect and analyse data, and interpret results within the context of communication studies. Emphasising critical thinking and methodological rigour, the course prepares students to conduct independent research and apply research strategies to real-world communication challenges.
  • This course aims to:
    • Provide students with an understanding of research methodologies relevant to communication studies.
    • Equip students with the skills to design effective research projects, including the formulation of research questions and selection of appropriate research methods.
    • Train students in various data collection techniques, such as surveys, interviews, content analysis, and experiments, enabling them to gather reliable and valid data.
    • Encourage students to analyse critically and interpret research findings, to assess the strengths and limitations of different research strategies.
    • Prepare students to apply research methods and strategies to address real-world communication challenges, enabling them to contribute effectively to academic, professional, and industry-related projects.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to:
    • Explain key research methods used in communication studies.
    • Design research projects that effectively address communication-related issues.
    • Demonstrate proficiency in collecting, organising, and analysing data using appropriate research tools and techniques, such as surveys, interviews, and content analysis.
    • Critically evaluate the quality and validity of research findings, recognising the strengths and limitations of various research methods.
    • Apply research methods and strategies to real-world communication problems, effectively translating theoretical knowledge into practical solutions.

Optional Courses

• Two optional courses (see below)

Optional Courses

Typical optional courses taken are listed below. However, other courses from across the College of Arts & Humanities can be taken with the approval of the programme convener and subject to availability.

Media Ecologies

• How does media make worlds? From data to water, cable to cloud, this course examines the relations between elemental phenomena and communication systems, exploring the deepening relationships between environment, media, and culture. The material imprint of media weighs heavily on our climate, from the extraction of critical rare minerals, to fuel consumption and land use, the natural world affords and bears the weight of communication infrastructures. This course is informed by emergent theories from infrastructure humanities, environmental humanities, and critical media studies that understand media objects beyond their traditional role as carriers of messages. This is an interdisciplinary course that considers questions that include: How do media affects systems of perception, value, and feeling alongside their lived environments? How does media not only represent the environment but constitute it? How does thinking with elements (e.g., temperature, atmosphere, seawater) allow for an expanded understanding of media systems?
• This course aims to:
  • Assess key theories, debates, and perspectives in media ecology and environmental media studies.
  • Analyse a range of media elements, interfaces, and infrastructures shaped by social, environmental, and political forces.
  • Investigate the relation between media ecology and their affective dimensions, questioning how media influences environments.
  • Critically evaluate media forms, to rethink what constitutes media and to assess their role in systems of aesthetic representation and social organisation.
  • Apply theoretical concepts and humanities methods to material infrastructures and real-world media objects.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  • Analyse key concepts in media ecology and environmental media studies.
  • Analyse the relationships between media as environment and environmental media.
  • Evaluate the influence of media ecologies on systems of communication and affective relations, including emotions, value, and behaviour.
  • Critically interpret the role of media ecologies in structuring systems of aesthetic representation and social organisation.
  • Apply theoretical knowledge and abstract concepts to real-world environments and media forms through case studies, group projects, and field trips.

Policy Communications

• This course asks: how can policy communication be made more effective? Students will take a practice-based approach to policy communication across different media. Students will examine a range of policy communications across key areas, such as energy, food, poverty, and well-being, to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and produce alternatives. The course encourages a concretely place-based approach. Sessions will include fieldwork, assessing community responses to policy communications, and archive research to consider policy communications in the context of the past and present. The course aims to prepare students to be able to apply infrastructural humanities and critical media studies frameworks to understand problems and solutions around the material systems that shape people's lives and the social organisations that emerge in response to them, and communications that circulate from both community and policy-makers to frame and engage with these.
• This course aims to:
  • Explore the strengths and failings of contemporary policy communication through place-based methodologies, fieldwork, and creative practice.
  • Build a systemic picture of the context in which policy communications operate and their role in shaping that context.
  • Provide students with real-world experience of engaging with communities and policy-makers, translating theoretical knowledge into work experience through policy, community, and third-sector workshops and the creation of policy communication.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  • Analyse critically policy communications across a range of media with respect to wider socio-cultural and historical contexts.
  • Communicate effectively in real-world contexts with policy-makers, community, and third-sector organisations.
  • Produce effective policy communications across a range of key policy areas.

Histories of Communication

• This course examines the evolving forms and genres of communication across history and geography, beginning with inscriptions on stone and wax tablets and ending with file transfers and email. Combining current research in media and information studies with materialist approaches to bureaucracy and 'paperwork', we will consider how the development of new systems and technologies for storing, organizing, and transmitting information changes communication landscapes, affording new possibilities for both controlling and disrupting how we communicate across national boundaries. Our aim throughout the course will be to apply insights from analysing past and current media transformations to enable us to shape the future of global communication.
• This course aims to:
  • Introduce the dominant forms and genres of communication and information management in the past and today.
  • Identify how and why the material forms of communication have changed over time.
  • Isolate the logistical and ideological effects of communication genres within specific organizations and communities.
  • Enable critical reflection on how forms and genres of communication structure thought and behaviour.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  • Understand the evolution of communication genres in relation to structures of information management more broadly.
  • Analyse how the material forms of communication shape institutional, national, and multinational communication networks.
  • Make historically informed arguments about the forms of modern communication media.
  • Work collaboratively to propose innovative forms of communication that support a more equitable vision of global communication.

Communicating Culture: Arts and Media Infrastructures

• In this course, students will ask: how do we build more equitable and sustainable ways of producing the arts and culture? Students will assess, interrogate, and examine how the infrastructures that support the production, dissemination, and sustainability of arts and culture rely upon effective communication strategies. The course approaches communications through the field of infrastructure humanities. It understands infrastructure as both the technical systems of circulation that enable creativity (e.g., music venues, theatres, funding bodies) and as a political and aesthetic idea about who and what gets to participate in the creative industries. This course emphasizes case studies to explore specific real-world problems within Glasgow that are widely applicable to the larger, international cultural sphere. Our course will work with community and/or industry partners from across the Glasgow arts landscape to introduce students to immediate issues facing their organizations and to assess the role that communication plays in enabling them to continue to function.
• This course aims to:
  • Facilitate the examination of the arts ecosystem through interdisciplinary methodologies, emphasizing the political and cultural aspects of communication and media studies.
  • Assess critically the multiple ways that media infrastructure can be re-imagined in new, sustainable, and creative ways.
  • Equip students with contemporary methodologies for media and communication through disciplinary methodologies including literature, architecture, sociology, and human geography.
  • Encourage students in the exploration of the relationship between communication, art, and infrastructure.
  • Engage students with real-world experience translating theoretical knowledge into work experience through industry and third sector workshops.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  • Communicate effective strategies for supporting arts and media organizations.
  • Distinguish different methodological approaches to infrastructure drawn from media studies and communication.
  • Construct an individual research exercise based on a need of a partner organization.
  • Evaluate critical accounts of arts communication with respect to wider socio-cultural and historical concerns.

Communicating Health, Illness and Disease

• How do we communicate health, illness, and disease? This course covers health communications in a variety of scales, locations, and contexts, extending from the clinical encounter to public health communications, to the cultural authority of the medical professional. It brings to this topic the distinctive approaches and interests of humanities disciplines, offering a perspective complementary to that of health sociology.
• This course introduces students to humanities perspectives upon health communication. Students will have the opportunity to encounter a range of approaches to health communication, broadly conceived to extend from the small scale of the clinical encounter to larger public and cultural statements on health, disease, and illness. Methods examined on the course may include corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, hermeneutics, discourse analysis, narrative medicine, and book and publishing history. Students will have the opportunity to situate specific topics and methods within wider socio-cultural and historical concerns, and within frameworks of ethical and responsible research.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  • Distinguish different methodological approaches to topics within health communication.
  • Formulate a reflective analysis of ethical and responsible research within a specific area of health communication.
  • Evaluate critical accounts of health communication with respect to wider socio-cultural and historical concerns.
  • Critically analyse and evaluate strategies of health communication with respect to a defined research topic.
  • Communicate responses to the material studied on the course both orally and in written form through coherent and sustained argument.
  • Work as an autonomous group to organise a lecture from a local expert on a student-led topic in health communication.

Communication and Constructed Languages: from Esperanto to Elvish to AI

• This course examines constructed languages, their literary applications, transnational networks, the media through which they flourish, and relation to AI. It explores the history of constructed languages past and present, from Volapük and Esperanto to the languages of Tolkien to language generator platforms such as Vlgarland, and discusses the relation of these languages to global communication, cosmopolitanism, Eurocentrism, and nationalistic agendas. Students will have the opportunity to experiment with the challenges and opportunities of invented languages in the age of AI. Assessment will include a podcast and creative exercise.
• This course aims to:
  • Introduce the history and ideology of constructed languages from the nineteenth century to the present day, and their relation to IA.
  • Identify the means of communication through which these languages circulated in the past and today.
  • Enable critical reflection on how constructed languages serve practical and ideological agendas.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  • Understand the way in which constructed languages challenge assumptions about language and global communication.
  • Analyse how constructed languages work in relation to readership, transnational networks, communication media, and AI.
  • Engage creatively with digital platforms to create a constructed language and write a piece of short fiction in it; reflect critically on their attempt in relation to the concepts studied in the course.

Case Studies in Religion and Global Challenges

• This course introduces students to specific case studies involving religious participation in societal and political challenges and the impact of religion on local and international levels. Students will focus on four or five case studies presented by experts in the field and apply relevant theoretical and methodological approaches to inform their analyses. Case studies may include: inter-/intra-faith organisational forms, religious ideologies, conflicts and wars, displacement and migration of religious minority groups, religiously motivated racism and hate crimes, freedom of speech versus religious offenses, human rights violations by religious institutions or regimes, public health and scientific advice in faith communities, and religious responses to environmental crises.
• This course aims to:
  • Examine local and global case studies in relation to religion and its role in politics and international affairs.
  • Employ religious studies perspectives to analyse specific case studies of global challenges.
  • Interrogate documentary and other types of evidence (e.g., literature, newspaper reports, films) in order to study examples of religious influences in their specific socio-political contexts.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  • Analyse the role of religion in politics and international affairs using specific examples in their historical and geo-political contexts.
  • Apply theoretical and analytical religious studies and interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary global and regional issues (e.g., violent conflict, economic crisis, public health, sustainability, migration, etc.).
  • Communicate research findings effectively, applying advanced transferable skills involving cultural and religious awareness in both local and international contexts.

Summer

• Global Communications Individual Project
  • The Individual Project enables students to undertake a period of independent research on a Global Communications topic of their choosing. The research will be on a specific field, subject, or issue within the field of Communications, will demonstrate knowledge of relevant scholarship in the field, and will apply methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation appropriate for the subfield(s) researched. The project will normally be undertaken after the end of Semester 2 and will be submitted at the end of the academic year.
  • This project aims to provide:
    • An opportunity to conceive, develop, and execute a piece of independent research in the field of communications.
    • A research focus for students to test ideas and arguments of the academic and professional communities and develop their own arguments and insights.
    • A framework to put their project into the wider context of their professional field.
  • By the completion of the project, students will be able to:
    • Identify scholarship relating to their chosen topic.
    • Situate their research in the wider context of Communication studies.
    • Compile and critically analyse relevant evidence.
    • Display relevant, detailed, and informed knowledge of the chosen topic.

Career Prospects

The programme places a strong emphasis on equipping students with the skills employers are looking for. You will gain practical competencies and real-world problem-solving abilities that prepare our graduates for roles across diverse sectors, including:

• International organisations
• NGOs
• Multinational corporations
• Digital marketing
• Government

Fees & Funding

MSc

Home & RUK

• Full-time fee: Ł11,367

International & EU

• Full-time fee: Ł27,720

Fee Status

• Fee status guidance

Deposits

International and EU applicants are required to pay a deposit of Ł2,000 when an offer is made.

Deposits: Terms & Conditions

The following guidelines will apply in determining whether a deposit will be refunded. Where the deposit is refunded, a 25% administration fee will be deducted unless otherwise stated.

Additional Fees

• Fee for re-assessment of a dissertation (PGT programme): Ł370
• Submission of thesis after deadline lapsed: Ł350
• Registration/exam only fee: Ł170

Funding Opportunities

• University of Glasgow African Excellence Award
• University of Glasgow Caribbean Excellence Award
• World Changers Glasgow Scholarship
• World Changers Glasgow Scholarship PGT (EU)
• Global Leadership Scholarship
• GREAT Scholarships 2026
• The Humanitarian Scholarship
• India Excellence Award
• Postgraduate Student Loan (Scotland and EU)
• Postgraduate Loans for Welsh Students
• Postgraduate Tuition Fee Loans England only (PTFL)
• Colfuturo Fundacion para el Futuro de Colombia
• Commonwealth Scholarship Schemes
• DAAD-University of Glasgow 1-year Masters grant
• Sanctuary Scholarships
• Alumni Discount
• The Clan Gregor Society Prize
• Travel Bursary for Forced Migrants
• The Dima Alhaj Scholarship
• Glasgow Highland Society Scholarship

Entry Requirements

• 2.1 Hons (or non-UK equivalent) in any subject.
• A 2.2 Honours degree will be considered where supported by relevant experience. Substantial, directly relevant experience may be considered in place of formal qualifications.

English Language Requirements

For applicants from non-English speaking countries, as defined by the UK Government, the University sets a minimum English Language proficiency level.

• International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic and Academic Online (not General Training)
  • 6.5 overall with no subtest less than 6.0
  • IELTS One Skill Retake Accepted
  • Tests must have been taken within 2 years 5 months of the programme start date. Applicants must meet the overall and subtest requirements using a single test.
• Common equivalent English language qualifications accepted for entry to this programme:
  • TOEFL (ibt, mybest or athome)
  • Pearsons PTE Academic
  • Cambridge Proficiency in English (CPE) and Cambridge Advanced English (CAE)
  • Oxford English Test
  • LanguageCert Academic/Academic Online
  • Password Skills Plus
  • Trinity College Integrated Skills in English II
  • Kaplan Test of English

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 their final year 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 and 3+1 degrees from majority-English speaking country (as defined by the UKVI including Canada if taught in English)
  • Students must have completed their final year of study in that majority-English speaking country within the last 6 years.

Pre-sessional Courses

The University of Glasgow accepts evidence of the required language level from the English for Academic Study Unit Pre-sessional courses.

How to Apply

To apply for a postgraduate taught degree, you must apply online. We cannot accept applications any other way.

Documents

As part of your online application, you also need to submit the following supporting documents:

• A copy (or copies) of your official degree certificate(s) (if you have already completed your degree)
• A copy (or copies) of your official academic transcript(s), showing full details of subjects studied and grades/marks obtained
• Official English translations of the certificate(s) and transcript(s)
• Evidence of your English language ability (if your first language is not English)
• Any additional documents required for this programme (see Entry requirements for this programme)
• A copy of the photo page of your passport

Application Deadlines

International & EU Applicants

Due to demand for degree places on this programme, the University has an application process with application rounds which recognises that different geographical areas complete and submit their applications at different times of the year. This process aims to ensure fairness and equity to applicants from all geographic regions.

Round 1 Application Dates: 1 October 2025 to 5th November 2025

All International and EU applications submitted within these dates will be reviewed with no priority given to any geographic region. You will receive our decision on your application by 16 January 2026.

Round 2 Application Dates: 6 November 2025 to 17 December 2025

All International and EU applications submitted within these dates will be reviewed with no priority given to any geographic region. You will receive our decision on your application by 25 February 2026.

Round 3 Application Dates: 18 December 2025 to 4 February 2026

Priority will be given to under-represented geographic regions. You will receive our decision on your application by 8 April 2026.

Round 4 Application Dates: 5 February 2026 to 25 March 2026

Priority will be given to under-represented geographic regions. You will receive our decision on your application by 6 May 2026.

Round 5 Application Dates: 26 March 2026 to 13 May 2026

Priority will be given to under-represented geographic regions. You will receive our decision on your application by 17 June 2026.

Round 6 Application Dates: 14 May 2026 to 8 July 2026

Priority will be given to under-represented geographic regions. You will receive our decision on your application by 29 July 2026.

All international applications submitted by 17 December 2025 will be reviewed and processed normally with no priority given to any geographic region. From 18 December 2025, priority will be given to applications from geographic areas which have been unable to submit applications before that point.

Home Applicants

• 21 August 2026

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