PGDip in Race, Media and Social Justice

Goldsmiths, University of London

The Postgraduate Diploma in Race, Media and Social Justice offers a rigorous and academic approach to this subject to deepen your understanding of contemporary issues regarding race and ethnicity. This will enable you to form your own interventions that can contribute to social justice and equality.

The programme will provide an in-depth exploration of research and scholarship into race and ethnicity across the overlapping fields of sociology, media and cultural studies. An interdisciplinary approach is employed to give you the analytical tools and skills to explain and critique why contemporary understandings and representations of race take the shape that they do. The programme is broadly framed in terms of issues social justice, specifically the social ideals of equality, valuing diversity, and the right to live in dignity, and how this relates to the formation of racial and ethnic identities.

The Postgraduate Diploma has two main components:

The conceptual basis

You will be given a foundation in sociological and critical cultural approaches to race and ethnicity, offering a strong conceptual basis for understanding matters of race and racialisation historically and with regard to contemporary contexts and debates. This includes a critical analysis the social/political theory of the liberal/ multicultural/postcolonial/cosmopolitan settlements of ‘race’. The aim is to deepen your understanding of the formation of ethnic and racial identities, racism and multiculturalism in relation to issues of social justice.

Context within the media

The second component situates the study of race and racism more explicitly within the context of the media, looking at issues of representation and the persistence of historical constructions of Otherness. The unique intervention of the PGDip is in drawing attention to the context of production, exploring the experience of people of colour working in the cultural industries. This component will be enhanced by be a series of industry talks from BAME practitioners working in the creative, cultural and communication industries, which will give students a practical insight into the experience of race in the media.

Aims of the programme

• Demonstrate an informed understanding of the complexities of race, social justice, activism and research;
• Understand the formation of ethnic and racial identities in relation to social justice specifically the social ideals of equality, valuing diversity, and the right to live in dignity;
• Understand how modern understandings of race and ethnicity are shaped by history and the legacies of empire and colonialism, as well as contemporary forces of commercialism and global capital;
• Develop a systematic understanding of key theoretical approaches to race and ethnicity and media apply them to critically examine current debates on race, ethnicity and racism;
• Recognise the media as a key site where understandings of race and ethnicity are simultaneously reinforced and challenged;
• Develop the critical and analytical skills to identify, explain and evaluate discourses of race and ethnicity, particularly in the media;
• Develop knowledge and/or skills that can be applied in a practical work context.