Bachelor of Communication (Honours)

The Bachelor of Communication (Honours) is a one- year full-time program that contains both theory and practice. It is designed to allow students to produce a major project with the assistance of an academic supervisor. 

Studying Honours will equip you with the critical thinking, creativity and professional project skills to pursue careers in a number of communication and creative industries. Specific career options depend on the core discipline you study. Graduates are also well-prepared to undertake postgraduate research degrees or begin a career as a researcher.

For their honours project, students can choose their own project or work on an existing project. In each case we advise them to discuss their options and ideas with a relevant supervisor before they apply.

I chose to do honours because it’s been a long-term goal of mine to work in the USA in the audio industry, in either film or games and I felt that Honours would help to achieve that goal. – Michael Zaluzny, Bachelor of Communication (Honours) in Music and Sound Design

My Honours thesis focused on heat stress and labour organising in the NSW building and construction industry. It was about how we can understand climate-inducted heat stress as a site of class struggle, that is internal to labour relations. – Freya Newman, Bachelor of Communication (Honours), recipient of the 2019 University Medal

Read about some of our student experiences and how Honours helped them with their endeavours.

Applicants must have a completed UTS recognised bachelor's degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline at an appropriate level. Applicants are admitted to the honours program only if appropriately qualified UTS: Communication academic staff are available for supervision for the thesis component.

Applicants must nominate a supervisor as part of the application process (see the list below). The supervisor you choose should be within your chosen discipline and have suitable experience for the type of research you are conducting for your project. You can nominate up to two supervisors on your application as supervisor availability can differ.

We would also like you to contact your preferred supervisor before submitting your application to ensure they are aware of your project needs and can start to assist you with any questions.

Having a supervisor agree to assist you does not guarantee entry into the Honours course.

Digital and Social Media

• Dr Amelia Johns (Youth digital culture; Literacy and safety; Mis-disinformation and hate speech)
• Associate Professor Bhuva Narayan (User Experience of Technologies including Voice and AI; Digital Access; Social Justice)
• Associate Professor Heather Ford (Wikidata and collaborative knowledge production; Algorithmic bias and digital media ethics)
• Dr Natalie Krikowa (Media studies; Audience engagement; Australian cultural histories of lesbian and queer media)
• Mr Suneel Jethani (Critical Data Studies and Data Ethics; Design of socio-technical systems; Critical and artistic uses of data)
• Dr Tisha Dejmanee (Social movements; Cultural studies; Feminist media studies; Critical food studies)

Journalism

• Dr Belinda Middleweek (News media constructions of gender; Mediations and technologies; Digital activism and biodigital politics)
• Dr Catriona Bonfiglioli (Media studies; Reality TV; Journalism; Fandoms; Audience studies; Social media)
• Ms Christine Kearney (International; Multimedia and digital journalism)
• Professor Monica Attard (Redefinition of journalism; Multimedia journalism; Intersection of media policy and practice)

Media Arts and Production

• Associate Professor Alex Munt (Microbudget cinemas; Auteur and durational art cinema; VR media arts forms)
• Dr Bettina Frankham (Moving image aesthetics; Digital media production; Traditional and expanded documentary practice)
• Dr Gregory Ferris (Immersive narrative; Emerging and future media technologies; Microbudget feature filmmaking)
• Dr Justin Harvey (Documentary film; experimental and media arts installation)
• Ms Margaret McHugh (Documentary film; Feminism; Screen production) 
• Mr Matthew Dabner (Screenwriting; Screen Production; Script Development)

Music and Sound Design

• Dr Brent Keogh (Environmental Humanities; Popular Music; Ethnomusicology; Ecomusicology; Composition)
• Dr Felicity Wilcox (Non-traditional outputs in interdisciplinary composition; Scholarly writing in film music)
• Dr Ian Stevenson (Sound design; Digital music systems; Soundscape analysis; Sound recording)
• Dr Liz Giuffre (Popular Music; Screen Sound; Audience and Reception Studies; Genre Studies)
• Dr Timothy Laurie (Critical and cultural theory; Popular music studies; Gender and sexuality studies)

Social and Political Sciences

• Associate Professor Anna Clark (Australian History; Nationalism; History in schools; Historical consciousness)
• Dr Archie Thomas (Sociology of Indigenous education; policy, reform and social change; gender and sexuality)
• Associate Professor Chongyi Feng (Modern Chinese history; Politics and social change; Rights lawyers and constitutionalism in China)
• Associate Professor Christina Ho (Migration; Urban studies; Muslim diasporas and gender; Segregation and schooling)
• Dr Elizabeth Humphrys (Labour; Unions; Climate change; Work health and safety; Social movements; Anti-politics)
• Professor James Goodman (Social movements in Australia and internationally; Sociology and politics of climate change)
• Dr Jeremy Walker (Science and technology studies; Political economy; Political ecology; Political theory and history)
• Associate Professor Kyungja Jung (North Korea; NESB/CALD issues; Gender politics; Women's policy; Female sexuality and sexual violence)
• Dr Lai-Ha Chan (Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific; Great-Power Rivalry; Global Governance; Australia's Foreign Relations; China's Foreign Relations)
• Dr Lucy Fiske (Forced migration; Citizenship; Social and gender relations; Justice)
• Associate Professor Michael Fabinyi (Environmental studies; Fisheries; International development; Food security; Agrarian change)
• Dr Olga Oleinikova (Democratization; Diaspora politics; Migration; Ethnicity; Post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe)

Strategic Communication

• Dr Flora Hung-Baesecke (Stakeholder engagement; Corporate social responsibility; Relationship management)
• Dr Kate Delmo (Crisis communication; Crisis decision-making; Disaster risk resilience; Digital influencers)
• Dr Sameera Durrani (Semiotics; Critical Discourse Analysis; Gender Studies; Public Diplomacy)

Writing and Publishing

• Dr Claire Corbett (Fiction; Australian literature; Post-colonial literature; Science fiction; Fantasy)
• Dr Delia Falconer (Creative nonfiction; Short fiction; Australian literature; Literary criticism)
• Dr Sarah Attfield (Working class literature; Australian poetry; Class and higher education)

1. Find and contact a suitable supervisor for your chosen research topic (Read information under "Find a supervisor" above).
2. Complete an application form through the UTS Online Application portal
3. Upload the required documents referred to in the Admissions Information Sheet, Bachelor of Communication (Honours) (PDF, 126kB)
4. Submit your application before the closing date (Sunday 15 December 2024 at midnight).

Apply now

By completing an Honours course, students will have the skills and knowledge to potentially complete a postgraduate research degree such as a Master of Arts (Research) or a Doctor of Philosophy.