British University Launches £4000 Social Media Master Degree

Birmingham City University's decision to launch a Master degree devoted to the study of social media and related services including Twitter and Facebook, is bound to attract some level of scepticism.

The university, which currently ranks second in the Guardian's Media studies, communications and librarianship table, says that the students will be able to explore the use of those new platforms to communicate.

Other interesting modules on the £4400 one year MA course will see students start a blog and learn more about podcasting techniques and according to the course convener, Jon Hickman, the course has already attracted a good response.

Those likely to be interested in the course include students looking to work in Journalism and PR but the course has already been labelled as being too simplistic. Some students have already said that virtually all the content can be self-taught.

The news come a few days after a draft document containing the new primary school curriculum was circulated showing that young pupils are expected to learn about Wikipedia and Twitter.

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The course will be available from September 2009 although it is "still subject to validation".

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Our Comments
You are more likely to get the core of this MA course online for free elsewhere. But as the course convener puts it, it is not for freaks or IT geeks who are more likely to turn up at the exams door or just work out on the project to get the MA recognition. The other issue as well is the freshness of the course since by the time students will finish their courses, something else could already crop up.

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