The qualifications and exam results you'll need to apply for this course.
You'll need to demonstrate competence in the use of English language, unless you’re from a majority English speaking country .
We accept a variety of international language tests and country-specific qualifications .
International applicants who do not meet the minimum required standard of English language can complete one of our Pre-Sessional English courses to achieve the required level.
Do you need to complete a Pre-sessional English course to meet the English language requirements for this course?
The length of Pre-sessional English course you’ll need to take depends on your current level of English language ability.
If you don’t meet our English language requirements, we can use your most recent IELTS score, or the equivalent score in selected other English language tests , to determine the length of Pre-sessional English course you require.
Use the table below to check the course length you're likely to require for your current English language ability and see whether the course is available on campus or online.
If you’ve completed an alternative English language test to IELTS, we may be able to use this to assess your English language ability and determine the Pre-sessional English course length you require.
Please see our guide to Pre-sessional English entry requirements for IELTS 6.5 overall, with no component below 6.0, for further details.
The MSc in Data Science and Communication teaches you to apply AI tools, machine learning, and data analysis to questions about media, communication, and policy, and to critically assess their impact.
You will learn to program in Python, work with large language models, collect, and analyse digital data, apply statistical and machine learning methods to large datasets, and present results to non-technical audiences. Whether you want to investigate how online debates, political and social discourse, and persuasion strategies unfold at scale, or design and evaluate a chatbot, this programme will give you the skills to do it.
We teach AI, machine learning, and data analysis from the perspective of computational social science rather than computer science. You will combine theories from communication science, political communication, and linguistics with computational methods, learning to design and evaluate studies that answer social science research questions and to assess how algorithms shape public debate, political power, and culture.
We devote substantial attention to quantitative methods, so you learn to work with big data, particularly from social media and AI-generated data. You will also study AI-mediated communication – how communication changes when computers and AI systems take part in it – and learn the fundamentals of human-computer interaction through chatbot design.
We teach AI, machine learning, and data analysis from the perspective of computational social science rather than computer science. You will combine theories from communication science, political communication, and linguistics with computational methods, learning to design and evaluate studies that answer social science research questions and to assess how algorithms shape public debate, political power, and culture.
We devote substantial attention to quantitative methods, so you learn to work with big data, particularly from social media and AI-generated data. You will also study AI-mediated communication – how communication changes when computers and AI systems take part in it – and learn the fundamentals of human-computer interaction through chatbot design.
Study in a department ranked in the world’s top 75 and 4th in the UK for Communication (ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2026).
The programme is structured around three core modules that provide a comprehensive foundation in the theory and practice of data-driven communication and research. You will learn to: