Film & Television Studies/Sociology

Film and television studies is concerned with the moving image as a form of art, culture, and industry. It asks how films and television programmes are made, what aesthetic and formal choices shape the experience of watching them, how they reflect and influence the societies that produce them, and how they are funded, regulated, and distributed. Combining this with sociology adds a powerful analytical layer, bringing social theory and empirical methods to questions about media institutions, audiences, representation, and cultural power.

At the University of Glasgow, this four-year full-time joint degree benefits from a department whose staff are active researchers in the field, bringing their specialist knowledge directly into teaching. You will develop skills in close reading, textual analysis, and cultural criticism alongside sociological frameworks for understanding inequality, identity, institutions, and social change. The programme has strong connections with Glasgow's creative and cultural organisations, and practitioners from the screen industries contribute to teaching, giving you insight into how policy, funding, and industry structures shape what gets made and shown.

In your third year you will spend a year abroad, which broadens your intellectual and personal horizons and develops the kind of adaptability that media and creative industries value highly. With a typical entry tariff of 168 UCAS points, this is a competitive programme at a research-intensive institution.

The critical and analytical skills developed through this combination are highly transferable. Graduates move into journalism, publishing, television production, documentary making, cultural policy, arts administration, and communications roles in the public, private, and third sectors. The sociological dimension also opens paths into research, social policy, and community-facing organisations.

Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in film studies, media and communications, sociology, or cultural policy, and some pursue research degrees focused on screen culture, media industry, or related questions.