Background to the program

The Sri Palee Campus of the University of Colombo, the Senate and the Council of the University of Colombo has recognized the course “MA in Media Research” as an interdisciplinary advanced post graduate degree program that combine with the liberal arts courses in media and communication with a 16 credit research component.  The Sri Palee Campus of the University of Colombo has strength to offer the said post graduate degree program with adequate in-house resource persons, laboratory capacities, library resources and offer required facilities.

The course contents of the “MA in Media Research” and the resources of the university will benefit to develop independent researchers and professional mediologists. Further the MA in Media Research will provide research training of the highest standard to postgraduate researchers and professionals in different fields and train the next generation of professional researchers. It is intended to enable scholars to widen their skills and competencies through the spectrum of research methods, balancing the acquisition of specialist knowledge with the research practice in a realistic environment. By bringing together the intellectuals and professionals from a range of subject areas and a diversity of cultures, the course affords a stimulating environment to enhance traditional and innovative research competencies.

Why MA. in Media Research?

The Master of Social Sciences in Media Research (MA in Media Research) is an interdisciplinary advanced program on communication and media research. Due to the development of technology in the world, the communication systems, coding and decoding patterns of the message, its origin and creation pattern and the dissemination systems with global connectedness has changed dramatically. Information is the most vibrant factor in this current globalization era. Research is a human activity that refers to a search for knowledge, based on the intellectual exploration, aimed at discovering, interpreting, and revising human knowledge on diverse facets of the globe. Accordingly this MA post graduate course provides students with an opportunity to gain a broad knowledge on media and communication research including ethical, legal, and social dimensions.

According to some intellectuals, research can be considered as a movement, a movement from the identified to the unidentified. Most probably research is encouraged by the vital sense of inquisitiveness. Inquisitiveness encourages people to explore the things they face and attempt to attain in full consideration on the unidentified things. The inquisitiveness of the people compels to search for knowledge. Accordingly people attempt to obtain the knowledge of whatever unknown to them.

Intellectuals’ contributions show that the research is an original involvement into the existing stock of knowledge to make for its advancement. In short, the search for knowledge through objective and systematic method of findings and solutions to a problem is research. Accordingly research is an academic discipline and the term should be coined in a technical sense.

Thus, the Department of Mass Media of Sri Palee Campus, University of Colombo has decided to offer the advanced methods and procedures of media and communication research through the course of “MA in Media Research”.