The Postgraduate Diploma in Media Management (PGDip in Media Management) is an intensive programme accredited at the honours degree level (NQF Level 8) by South Africa's Qualifications Authority (SAQA). The programme is offered annually by the Sol Plaatje Institute for Media Leadership at Rhodes University and as a distance programme, which runs over two academic years.
The entrance requirements for the PGDip in Media Management is an undergraduate degree in any discipline. However, for the distance course, consideration will be given to admitting some students based on the recognition of their prior learning and other conditions to encourage greater access by previously disadvantaged students.
The course is the only formal qualification in media management in Africa and the developing world, having been launched in 2004. It provides an insider view of how successful and sustainable media organisations operate in rapidly changing and discontinuous contexts that mark our media landscape today.
The programme develops the strategic knowledge, understandings and work competencies which media managers and leaders need to apply to run media organisations in the public, commercial and community sectors sustainably and ethically in the ‘age of participatory and transient journalism’.
It focuses on the management of people, media markets and media audiences, the role and place of digital and social media technologies in the multiplatform media industry and what all of these mean not just to the industry but to our globalising world. The programme focuses on outcomes-based learning and fast-tracks graduates into mid-level media management positions by giving them an edge in terms of their work competencies and applied knowledge of the media industry in Africa and internationally.
Below are the eight core modules of the PGDip in Media Management, which is popularly known at Rhodes University as the PDMM:
- Media Management Contexts, Policy and Institutions
- Media Management and Leadership
- Human Resources Management
- Managing Markets, Audiences and Advertising
- Financial Management and Media Economics
- Managing Media Content
- New Media and Convergence
- Media Distribution and Circulation
Prospective students are encouraged to apply early by visiting the Rhodes University Postgraduate portal at https://www.ru.ac.za/postgraduategateway/.
For more information: Please check details on the website of the Sol Plaatje Institute (SPI) for Media Leadership (www.ru.ac.za/spi) at Rhodes University. Or email Sibo Mbengashe, the administrative coordinator of the course, at s.mbengashe@ru.ac.za