Science Communication
The Science Communication master's programme engages novel and artistic routes for communication, building on the theoretical and methodological groundwork necessary for communicating ethically and effectively across human and environmental phenomena.
Overview
This one-year intensive programme aims to produce science communicators who have the theoretical and methodological groundwork for communicating ethically and effectively alongside science. Students are prepared with the necessary intellectual and creative tools from across disciplines to enable them to design and implement robust communication strategies.
It will cover the following areas:
- Interdisciplinary approach: Readies students for a world of practice where different disciplines converge with multiple lifeways and knowledge systems.
- Tools: Engage tools drawn from the arts to address communication where it gets stuck and learn how to communicate the necessary complexity between science and society clearly and well.
- Story responsibly: The southern positioning of this programme provides analysis on the production of narratives and what it means to critically reflect on science scepticism and ethically act toward science communication's role in society.
- Sit alongside scientific research projects: Promote ways for doing science communication alongside scientific research projects all the way from start to finish, understanding escalations toward decision makers/policy, and shifting the discipline away from being treated as a promotional afterthought.
- Engages multiple knowledge benefits:
- Of theoretically informed, emergent and ethical communication strategies that work with plurality at multiple scales.
- For reflecting on, evaluating and explaining communication strategies for data at science and society intersections.
- Of producing research that engages narratives, the imaginary and communication.
- For analysing inter-connections, values and knowledge creation systems.
The curriculum for this degree operates from the Origins Centre at Wits and is located in a dynamic interdisciplinary setting where experts from the humanities and sciences instruct the courses.
Curriculum
The programme has two mandatory courses, and an array of elective courses to select that exist across the sciences and humanities and which make up the rest of the credits for the degree. The courses are:
Foundational courses:
- Master of Science in the field of Science Communication (30 credits): Introduces students from different disciplinary backgrounds to contemporary science communication, exposing students to key practitioners and projects through guest lectures and masterclasses
- Research Report: Science Communication (90 credits): This runs for the full year alongside the other courses and provides students with space to explore the practical aspects of science communication in project format, fostering a praxis grounded in interdisciplinarity and pluriversality that puts theory to work through various formative communication outputs, dialogical debates and constructive criticism.
Elective courses:
- Knowledge, Society, Precarity: Science and Communication in an Era of Climate Crisis (30)
- Fantasy Science Fiction and Fiction of the Unreal (30)
- Communicating for Social Change (23)
- Working Concepts in Creative Writing - Core Course (23)
- Oral and Documentary History: Theory and Practice (23)
- Foundations of Bioethics (18)
- Health and Society (15)
- Data Privacy and Ethics (9)
Entry Requirements
Honours Degree or equivalent international degree; or a relevant portfolio demonstrating adequate experience as a communicator and a motivation letter.
University Application Process
- Applications are handled centrally by the Student Enrolment Centre (SEnC). Once your application is complete in terms of requested documentation, your application will be referred to the relevant School for assessment. Click here to see an overview of the Wits applications process. Refer to Wits Postgraduate Online Applications Guide for detailed guidelines.
- Please apply online. Upload your supporting documents at the time of application, or via the Self Service Portal.
- Applicants can monitor the progress of their applications via the Self Service Portal.
- Selections for programmes that have a limited intake but attract a large number of applications may only finalise the application at the end of the application cycle.
Please note that the Entry Requirements are a guide. Meeting these requirements does not guarantee a place. Final selection is made subject to the availability of places, academic results and other entry requirements where applicable.
International students, please check this section.
For more information, contact the Student Call Centre +27 (0)11 717 1888, or log a query at www.wits.ac.za/askwits.
University Fees and Funding
Click here to see the current average tuition fees. The Fees site also provides information about the payment of fees and closing dates for fees payments. Once you have applied you will be able to access the fees estimator on the student self-service portal.
For information about postgraduate funding opportunities, including the postgraduate merit award, click here. Please also check your School website for bursary opportunities. NRF bursaries: The National Research Foundation (NRF) offers a wide range of opportunities in terms of bursaries and fellowships to students pursuing postgraduate studies. External bursaries portal: The Bursaries South Africa website provides a comprehensive list of bursaries in South Africa.