Digital Media and Society MA

What you'll study

The modules on our Digital Media and Society MA are designed to help you gain a systematic and critical awareness of current issues and debates in communication and media studies, and related disciplines.

Modules

Our MA in Digital Media and Society covers a wide range of topics; to give you a taster we have expanded on some of the core modules affiliated with this programme and the specific assessment methods associated with each module.

• Semester 1
• Semester 2

Digital Economies (15 Credits)

Digital Economies (15 Credits)

This module aims to examine the relationship between new social practices and old economic structures; it offers students an introduction to the economic sociology of digital media. The Internet is playing an increasing role in the lives of people around the globe and in the process is transforming many aspects of the ways in which we interact; yet this is a landscape that is contoured in other respects by the structure of the global economic system. The material will be approached by examining the variety of roles that are implicated in the creation, delivery, and consumption of cultural/media products over the Internet, and by examining the symbolic struggles that have occurred over legitimacy in digital culture: for example, we can trace a continuing tension and indeed interaction between the growth of the digital market economy and advocacy of the Internet as a de-commercialised space. While the primary focus will be on contemporary cases, the module will also seek to relate these back to classic issues in economic sociology.

Researching Communications 1: Media Users and Cultural Institutions

Researching Communications 1: Media Users and Cultural Institutions

The aim of this module is to develop knowledge and understanding of a range of methodologies for the analysis of media users and institutions. The module focuses on critically discuss how qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodologies are applied, identifying their strengths and shortcomings.

Understanding Modern Media

Understanding Modern Media

The aim of this module is to develop a critical understanding of key concepts and advanced debates relevant to the understanding of modern media, with a focus on the role of media and communications systems in both the historical formation of modern societies and their contemporary transformations under the impact of the Internet and digital platforms.

Key Debates in Digital Media and Society

Key Debates in Digital Media and Society

The aim of this module is to introduce students to key popular, economic, regulatory and political debates and issues relating to the role of digital media in society. The module will consider some of the challenges and opportunities that digital media afford social groups and organizations by taking current issues as case studies for exploration. This involves (but is not limited to) exploring and discussing new policy documents/frameworks, current debates and arguments about digital media as featured in news and other media, and analysing popular and emerging new digital platforms. The module will include learning on the topics such as: digital media and privacy; debates relating to the changing digital economy; changing forms of personal digital communication; access and exclusion in relation to digital culture; emerging digital socio-economic practices; commercialisation and digital culture.

Dissertation (50 credits)

Dissertation (50 credits)

The aim of this module is for the student to develop employability and academic skills relevant to conducting an individual research project and to undertake a piece of research on a communication or cultural topic of their choice, and pursue this research in depth and with rigour. The final project should build on methodological skills developed in earlier projects. The module comprises of different components 1. Study and Employability skills: This is a series of ten lectures running in term one. 2. Media Landscapes: A series of guest lectures from media professionals running in terms 2 and 3 (Feb-June); 3. The Dissertation project conducted in Term 3. Taught sessions will include topics such as referencing, plagiarism, critical thinking, academic writing, research design, finding employment, applying for work, using academic skills in the workplace. Weekly seminar sessions will include regular visits and talks by people working in media industries. The dissertation itself will be based on a topic proposed by the student and subject to the approval of the programme team.

Optional modules

Media and Cultural Industries (15 Credits)

Media and Cultural Industries (15 Credits)

The aim of the module is to outline the major conceptual and empirical questions raised by work on the political economy of the cultural and media industries and on the sociology and anthropology of cultural and media production, to examine the changes that have taken place in the cultural and media industries under the impact of technological change and marketisation since the 1970s and to explore the questions these changes raise for public policy.Students will be introduced to the major themes and arguments in the political economy of culture and media, the sociology and anthropology of cultural and media production. Changes in the organisation of the cultural and media industries over the last 25 years will be explored.

Marketing Politics (15 Credits)

Marketing Politics (15 Credits)

The aim of this module is to introduce students to the marketing of politics by exploring and analysing election campaigns from a contemporary as well as an historical perspective. A major focus is on appreciating and understanding the increasingly important role of advertising, public relations and market research techniques, approaches and personnel in attempts to win and maintain voter support for candidates vying for public office. This will be done through close analysis of developments in countries with some of the most high profile elections, notably the United States and United Kingdom. The US hosts a large and globally influential industry of campaign consultants and their impact both at home and abroad will be reviewed and scrutinized. Here particular consideration will be devoted to the ethical and democratic consequences of the growing use of this kind of 'packaged politics'. The module will include learning on the following topics: theoretical and empirical approaches to political marketing; the selling of the US president in historical perspective; the evolution of British election campaigns; ethical and democratic consequences of 'marketization' of democracy.

Researching Communications 2: Texts and Digital Platforms

Researching Communications 2: Texts and Digital Platforms

The module is designed to introduce students to state-of-the-art research methods that are applied for the analysis of media and communication content and output, both on traditional as well as on new, digital platforms. Apart from providing the students with critical overview and discussion of strengths and weaknesses of these methods, both quantitative and qualitative, the module enables them to explore their practical application in adjacent workshops.

Digital Cultures (15 Credits)

Digital Cultures (15 Credits)

This module fosters students' ability to critically analyse current research and advanced scholarship about digital cultures. It familiarises students with major debates, theories and latest studies on issues, such as young people and digital media, social networking, identities, communities and relationships and online consumption. An indicative list of topics covered in lectures includes the internet and identity, online communities, mobile media, social networking, digital media and romantic/sexual relations, digital media and consumption.

Dissertation (50 credits)

Dissertation (50 credits)

The aim of this module is for the student to develop employability and academic skills relevant to conducting an individual research project and to undertake a piece of research on a communication or cultural topic of their choice, and pursue this research in depth and with rigour. The final project should build on methodological skills developed in earlier projects. The module comprises of different components 1. Study and Employability skills: This is a series of ten lectures running in term one. 2. Media Landscapes: A series of guest lectures from media professionals running in terms 2 and 3 (Feb-June); 3. The Dissertation project conducted in Term 3. Taught sessions will include topics such as referencing, plagiarism, critical thinking, academic writing, research design, finding employment, applying for work, using academic skills in the workplace. Weekly seminar sessions will include regular visits and talks by people working in media industries. The dissertation itself will be based on a topic proposed by the student and subject to the approval of the programme team.

Key Debates in Digital Media and Society

Key Debates in Digital Media and Society

The aim of this module is to introduce students to key popular, economic, regulatory and political debates and issues relating to the role of digital media in society. The module will consider some of the challenges and opportunities that digital media afford social groups and organizations by taking current issues as case studies for exploration. This involves (but is not limited to) exploring and discussing new policy documents/frameworks, current debates and arguments about digital media as featured in news and other media, and analysing popular and emerging new digital platforms. The module will include learning on the topics such as: digital media and privacy; debates relating to the changing digital economy; changing forms of personal digital communication; access and exclusion in relation to digital culture; emerging digital socio-economic practices; commercialisation and digital culture.

Optional modules

Cultural Memory and Heritage Industries (15 Credits)

Cultural Memory and Heritage Industries (15 Credits)

The aim of this module is to introduce students to the politics of cultural memory and cultural heritage in the modern period. The module examines debates around the temporal structures of modernity and the manner in which the past is used as a rhetorical and commercial resource in the cultural industries. The module will critically evaluate the rise of the heritage industries from national and global perspectives. The module will include learning on the following topics: theoretical and empirical approaches to mediated/cultural memory, key debates in memory studies, the structure of the heritage industries from a national and global perspective, the communicative practices of heritage industries (film, television, new media, museums), the impact of digital technologies on cultural memory and heritage industries, the politics of commemoration.

Global Communications (15 Credits)

Global Communications (15 Credits)

The aim of the module is for the student to become familiar with the different theoretical perspectives underpinning the study of the media in the international environment; analyse and summarise existing arguments and critically evaluate evidence provided in course material on global communications; acquire knowledge of key concepts, issues and debates within the literature. An indicative list of topics covered in lectures includes: the media, democratization and political culture; global news and news agencies; global politics of human rights; transnational communities and media consumption; the media and transnational social and revolutionary movements; conflict and communication; the global media and the challenge to the nation state; the struggle for a New World Information and Communication Order.

Media and Cultural Work (15 Credits)

Media and Cultural Work (15 Credits)

The aim of this module is to acquire an understanding of the major conceptual and empirical questions raised by research of media and cultural work; the changes that have taken place in media and media cultural work under the impact of technological change, marketisation and internationalisation since the 1970s; the extent and nature of inequalities and discrimination in media and cultural work. An indicative list of topics covered in lectures includes the growth in employment in media and cultural industries; the changing character of that employment; the internationalisation of media and cultural labour; the extent and nature of inequalities and discrimination in media and cultural work (for example, on the grounds of gender and ethnicity).

Politics of Representation (15 Credits)

Politics of Representation (15 Credits)

The aim of this module is to develop a critical understanding of current debates and advanced research about the politics of representation and to develop the skills relevant to the analysis of the involvement of media and cultural forms in social inclusion and exclusion. An indicative list of topics covered on the module includes discourse, power, knowledge; Stereotyping and the Other; Spaces of identity and belonging; Nationalism, racism and imperialism; Orientalism; Migration and the media.