University of Silesia in Katowice

It is an interdisciplinary degree programme focusing on multimedia, modern communication processes, and new competencies in digital media and the so-called participatory culture.

The degree programme combines elements of social, political, and cultural history, culture, media, communication, visual arts theory, and culture practice in new media and new media communication with the knowledge of direct links between those issues and technology, traditional arts, communication forms, culture anthropology, aesthetics, spoken arts and mass gatherings.

The curriculum presents issues of many various generations of media and different cultures connected with them.

The studies allow students to understand how culture changes under new technologies, present trends in media types and media communication, provide the fundamental skillset to work in media and the creative industry.

In the academic year 2023-2024, the studies are carried out only full-time.

1ST CYCLE STUDIES

In the 1st cycle studies within the New Media major, students participate in classes combining knowledge in several programme blocks: history (social and political history, history of the humanities, and history of various arts) – classes provide propaedeutic knowledge of multimedia and contemporary communication processes; theory (theory of culture, broadly understood media and communication phenomena, theory of various arts); multimediality (knowledge of forms, types and typologies of electronic media, their social and professional use contexts and their connections with other fields of science, technology, cultural trends, and extra-cultural processes); new communication competencies (knowledge of the behaviour of new media users in various communication situations and cultural contexts and of practices in the field of the so-called ‘participatory culture’); transformations in everyday technology (knowledge and practical skills in networks of cultural phenomena: technology – communication – consumption, cyberculture – creative practice – social life and play – ritualisation – new linguistics).

2ND CYCLE STUDIES

In 2nd cycle studies, students pursue a group of compulsory courses and a group of optional courses. The first group includes, among others, the following courses: Law in Social Communication, the Art of Public Speaking and Self-Presentation, Psychology of Communication, and Project Management. Also worth mentioning are the subjects taught in English: Crisis Communication and Intercultural Communication. The latter includes classes in cultural text analysis, creative writing workshops, digital tools in social communication, and economics and entrepreneurship.