Introduction
The MA in Consumption, Culture & Marketing is an interdisciplinary masters programme that draws together content and teaching from both marketing and sociology. It is aimed at individuals who want to think intellectually about the world, enjoy being challenged and are curious about business practice. The knowledge and skills gained could help develop a range of professions including policy development, publishing, academia and, of course, marketing and commercial management.
This course looks in-depth at our consumer culture and seeks to understand it and will engage in a number of theoretical areas: branding, marketing, bio-power and neoliberalism. You will explore claims that our contemporary world can be best understood as a consumer society and a brand culture, as well as how marketing and consumerism increasingly define our experiences, social relationships and civic infrastructure. As such we seek to analyse marketing behaviour and consumption practises with a view to better understand how marketing connects with society and culture.
You will join an intellectually stimulating, friendly and supportive research environment and work closely with our expert and experienced academic staff.
Distinctive from other marketing programmes in that it combines teaching and research from marketing and sociology.
Innovative programme inviting students to critically explore their lived experiences within the consumer society.
Flexibility to tailor your studies to suit your specific areas of interest, such as; consumption, markets and culture, marketing communications children and consumption, crime and consumerism, social identities, consumption and difference.
Latest thinking and exciting intellectual challenges provided by academics who are at the frontiers of their subjects.
From time to time, we make changes to our courses to improve the student and learning experience, and this is particularly the case as we continue to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. If we make a significant change to your chosen course, we’ll let you know as soon as we can.
Course structure
Core modules
Consumers and Brands
In this module, you will develop an understanding of how consumers consume brands. You will look at current ideas within marketing and consumption scholarship and practice, considering the centrality of brands to commercial practice and everyday living. With a focus on critical engagement, you will learn about branding and consumption theory, incorporating current thinking on the strategic management of brands, consumer behaviour and its role within general marketing practice, recent theoretical formulations concerning brand culture and consumer culture, and how personal experiences, relationships and identities are partly organised and mediated by the consumption of brands and their immanence in a constantly evolving symbolic order.
Sociology of Consumption
In this module, you will develop an understanding of the theoretical analysis of consumption in modern society. You will look at the development of consumption and consumerism in society, examining the foundational sociological ideas and arguments concerning the role of culture in promoting a sense of belonging and identity-formation. You will also consider how consumerism and cultural production are socially-contingent, shaped by historical conditions and political-economic arrangements.
Consumption Research Methods
In this module, you will develop an understanding of core marketing concepts in order to help you develop a thorough understanding of marketing. You will apply marketing theories and frameworks to assess the effectiveness of strategic approaches. You will explore and critically evaluate the theory and applications of marketing concepts. You will also develop a solid working knowledge of the strategic marketing concepts, methods and practices, and apply this knowledge to practical problems and variety of contexts in analytic and creative ways.
Dissertation
The dissertation provides you with an opportunity to learn and practise researching and writing skills for your future career. You will apply the analytical and problem-solving techniques you have acquired throughout your studies to explore a specialist interest in greater depth. You will critically evaluate academic literature, collect data systematically, organise your findings, and present your research results in a clear and logical and manner. To help, your research proposal will be read by the programme director, who will select an appropriate member of staff to act as your dissertation supervisor. Your final submission will be between 12,000 and 15,000 words in length.
Optional modules
Optional modules in Marketing include:
In addition to these mandatory course units, there are a number of optional course units available during your degree studies. The following is a selection of optional course units that are likely to be available. Please note that although the College will keep changes to a minimum, new units may be offered or existing units may be withdrawn, for example, in response to a change in staff. Applicants will be informed if any significant changes need to be made.
Arts Marketing
This module will introduce you to the basic marketing theories and practices necessary for the successful running of art galleries. You will look at how art is consumed, its consumers, and how arts organisations operate across the private, public, and voluntary sectors. You will consider the particularities of ‘marketing for the arts’, such as audience development, corporate sponsorship, and philanthropy, and how they are addressed alongside conventional marketing concerns, such as segmentation, targeting, positioning, branding, intermediation, and promotions. You will also examine financial investment vehicles for theatre, film, and fine art, and the role of institutional critique by contemporary artists.
Marketing Communications
In this module, you will examine the principal means of marketing communications – advertising, promotion, public relations, direct marketing and sales teams. You will develop an understanding of the contemporary media environment and how this impacts on marketers’ efforts to communicate with stakeholders. You will examine how communications must be tailored to the market segment, and look at the impact of communication cultures, particularly overseas, on market entry.
Consumption, Markets and Cultures
In this module, you will develop an understanding of the broader socio-cultural issues relevant to marketing practice in the 21st Century. You will look at the interactions that occur between the market, consumers and the marketplace, focussing on how particular manifestations of culture are constituted, maintained and transformed by broader forces such as cultural narratives, myths, ideologies and grounded in specific socio-economic circumstances and marketplace systems. You will engage with complex theoretical concepts including consumer culture theory, symbolic consumption and the production of culture.
Children and Consumption
In this module, you will develop an understanding of the key debates in relation to childhood, children and consumption. You will look at theories of consumption and consumer culture, considering a range of theorists including Marx and commodity fetishism, Veblen and conspicuous consumption, Marcuse's critical theory, Baudrillard and consumer society, and Bourdieu and cultural capital. You will examine these theories within wider debates into conceptualisations of children and childhood, commercial enculturation, and exploitation and empowerment.
Crime and Consumerism
In this module, you will develop an understanding of the recent resurgence of interest in consumerist society within Criminology. You will look at the connections between consumerism and crime alongside the rich theoretical work of cultural criminology, focussing on the London riots of 2011 and how they were characterised, amongst other things, by a distinctively consumerist acquisitiveness. You will examine the criminalisation of sexuality, the relationship between gang cultures and consumerism, the influence of gender, the marketing of deviance, and consumerism as a motivation for the crime.
Teaching & assessment
Assessment is carried out by a variety of methods including essays, group projects and a dissertation.
Entry requirements
UK 2:1 (Honours) or equivalent
Relevant professional qualifications and relevant experience in an associated area will be considered.
A successful applicant will usually have the following qualities:
Intellectually ambitious and interested in developing readings that are inter-disciplinary and theoretically sophisticated.
Self-motivated, intellectual with a love of learning and engaging with complex ideas.
English language requirements:
IELTS 6.5 overall with a minimum of 6.0 in all subscores. For equivalencies, please see here.
If you require Royal Holloway to sponsor your study in the UK, your IELTS must be a UK government-approved Secure English Language Test (SELT).
Your future career
Graduates will have considered a wide range of theoretical issues relating to contemporary lives that form the basis of marketing practice. This knowledge may be useful to pursue a research career or to augment and progress current careers in fields such as marketing, education, journalism, development, social policy and politics. This course equips postgraduate students with the subject knowledge and expertise required to pursue a successful career or provides a solid foundation for continued PhD studies.
Graduates in recent years have entered different areas including Senior Associate at Bank of China International, Reporter at Xinhua News Agency, Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Finance Officer at Ealing Borough Council and Relationship Manager (Investments) at Barclays Bank.
Fees and funding
Home (UK) students tuition fee per year*: £8,100
EU and international students tuition fee per year**: £18,300
* and ** These tuition fees apply to students enrolled on a full-time basis. Students studying on the standard part-time course structure over two years are charged 50% of the full-time applicable fee for each study year.** For EU nationals starting a degree in 2021/22, the UK Government has recently confirmed that you will not be eligible to pay the same fees as UK students. This means you will be classified as an international student. At Royal Holloway, we wish to support those students affected by this change in status through this transition. For eligible EU students starting their course with us in September 2021, we will award a fee reduction scholarship which brings your fee into line with the fee paid by UK students. This will apply for the duration of your course.
Read more on the university website here.
