Objectives
This programme combines the internationally recognised research and teaching strengths of the Department of Culture, Media and Communication with the expertise of the University's internationally renowned School of Management. It will prepare you for a wide range of careers in the areas of communication and intercultural consultancies in multinational and international business, in particular in the fields of intercultural training, human resource management, communication and marketing. It will also provide you with valuable preparation for careers in government overseas agencies and organisations for international cooperation, the voluntary sector, local government community initiatives and business consultancies, as well as in the communication and media industries. Some of our past students and their current jobs include: Dana Oweis works as a programme assistant in the Capacity Building in Migration Management project for the UN; Sara Orthaber works at the Faculty of Logistics, University of Maribor; Petra Trifkovic works for an Austrian advertising agency in Ljubljana; Linda McKay works as an intercultural consultant in South Africa; Chris Stam is doing her PhD here at the University of Surrey. The programme combines linguistic, cultural/media studies and international business components. You will take six core modules and two optional modules which range across the three components, giving you the opportunity to specialise according to your personal interests. You will also take a module in Research Methods to prepare you for the Masters stage. Students taking the Masters stage will also complete a dissertation of 10,000 to 15,000 words in an approved subject of particular interest.
Course description
MA/PGDip/PGCert in Intercultural Communication with International Business Module overview
Core Modules
Strategic Communication
This module provides an advanced understanding of strategic communication, focusing on communication strategies in a changing public sphere and the responses of governments, NGOs and major news corporations.
Organisational Behaviour
This module evaluates individual, group and organisational behaviour.
International Business Management
This module includes integrating and applying the concepts of marketing, strategy, staff and financial management to the international workplace.
Interpersonal Communication
This module considers conversational implicature, speech act theory, frames and footing, politeness, conversation analysis and conversational style.
Intercultural Communication
This module aims to develop insights into the relationship between linguistic, cultural and psychological signals, and an increased awareness of communication as both a linear and circular mode of information transfer.
Media Cultures
This module examines the role of the mass media in shaping identities.
Optional modules include:
European Economics and Economic Integration
This module analyses both international economic integration, using the EU as the frame of reference, and aspects of European economies which are of prime contemporary relevance.
Multiculturalism
This module analyses the issue of stereotyping in the media and the relation between the media and the notion of politics of difference. It explores the relationship between multiculturalism and linguistic plurality. The idea of multiculturalism itself will also be subjected to critique and we shall compare and contrast manifestations of multiculturalism in both European and non-European cultures.
Globalisation, Communication and Postmodernity
This module investigates the ideological, social and historical moorings of communication that shapes today's globalised world; it interrogates definitions of modernity and post-modernity and, finally, it aims to assess the formation of public awareness in several different types of modern society.
Introduction to Research Methods: Answering Questions with Evidence
This module provides an accessible introduction to some of the principal tools of social research.
Global Diversity in Language and Communication
This module investigates the ideological, social and historical moorings of communication that shapes today's globalised world.
Rethinking Communicative Understanding
This module adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of theories of communication universals and the risks of interaction. It investigates whether social meanings are universally shared or constructed by social subjects in such a way as to render them 'at risk' and require constant renewal.
The Politics of Mobility
This module explores how mobility reconfigures social relations, the figure of the stranger, borders, homes, and citizenship today.
Programme length
12 months full-time
24 months part-time
