Film & Television Studies

Film and television studies is a discipline that takes moving-image culture seriously as an art form, an industry, and a social force. Cinema and television have been among the most powerful shapers of twentieth and twenty-first century culture, reaching audiences of a scale and diversity that other art forms cannot match, and generating a rich body of theory, criticism, and historical scholarship that rewards sustained engagement. The discipline asks how films and television programmes work aesthetically, how they are produced and distributed, and what their relationship is to the societies and moments that create and consume them.

At Aberystwyth, this three-year full-time programme approaches moving images from both critical and technical angles, giving you the space to explore different interpretive and creative approaches in an environment that takes both the artistic and the industrial dimensions of screen culture seriously. You will study film and television history, theory, and criticism, engaging with texts from different national traditions, genres, and historical periods. You will develop the close analytical skills needed to discuss what you see with precision and the contextual knowledge to situate individual works within broader currents of film and television history.

The programme's engagement with technical as well as critical approaches reflects the reality that understanding how films are made enriches the understanding of what they mean.

Graduates from film and television studies go on to work in broadcasting, film production, journalism, arts administration, cultural policy, education, and the growing digital content sector. The analytical and communication skills the degree develops are also valued more broadly. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in film, media, cultural studies, or journalism, and some move into academic research and teaching.

The discipline is particularly suited to people who bring to their subject a combination of intellectual curiosity and genuine passion for the moving image.