Social and Behavioural Science (Media, Languages and Cultures) MPhil/MRes/PhD

University of Nottingham Malaysia

The School of Media, Languages and Cultures offers research degrees that are interdisciplinary that broadly covers the fields of media, communications and culture. Under this umbrella are options focusing on media democracy, media reform, Southeast Asian cinema, youth and new media, internet governance, civil society, creative industries, digital media, and film. Other areas of expertise include music, food culture and identity, migration, cross-cultural and intercultural issues, and multiculturalism and sociology.

In a globalized world where constantly evolving technology becomes the basis and medium of socio-cultural and political communication, the school’s research degrees tap into a much-needed understanding of our common urban modern world, providing a critical understanding of the inner workings and meanings of objects, media and everyday cultural artefacts that we take for granted.

PhD in Media, Languages and Cultures offers training in various types of research methodologies in the social sciences to obtain data. Through mentoring and supervisory guidance from our research-active faculty members, students acquire analytical and critical skills to help them analyse the collected data and learn to be independent researchers. Graduates will be equipped to be active researchers and educators in university, or in the relevant sectors.

Our research covers areas including:

comparative literature, Japanese literature, literary translation
digital cultures, youth and social networks
food, identity and transnationalism
international information flows – questions of imbalance, cultural and media imperialism and dependency
media and human rights – these include communication rights, media and gender relations, and media and minority groups
performing arts: music, drama, performance, applied creative practices
Southeast Asian cinema, particularly Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean films
the history, policies and structures of the culture industries - these encompass structural analysis, political economy and post-colonial development studies

Careers

Our PhD graduates have gone on to work as academics in higher education and the civil service, research institutes and NGOs while the MRes is a path to further study or work in research institutes and the fields of film, media and communications.