Module overview
Digital media shape the world around us, but they emerge from longer histories rooted in specific social, cultural, industrial, and technological contexts. This module will introduce students to these contexts and histories, and provide a critical understanding of the ways in which contemporary forms of digital culture expand and develop our traditional media landscape.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- Academic debates and theories concerning digital media and their histories and contexts
- The historical evolution of the social, cultural, industrial, and technological contexts of digital media
- Digital media as objects and texts
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Clearly and persuasively present an argument
- Produce assessed work that meets academic conventions
- Meet assignment deadlines
- Plan and prioritise learning and research activities using appropriate resources
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Demonstrate the skills and methods required for a critical engagement with scholarship on digital media and communications: such as, how to embark on research, how to write a critical essay, or how to reference your scholarly sources and archival research findings
- Engage with and apply critical methodologies covered in the module to produce a reasoned and convincing argument in written work
- Research and engage with scholarship on digital media
Syllabus
This module will provide a historical overview of the social, industrial, cultural, and technological contexts that shaped the emergence of digital media at the turn of the twenty-first century. The module will introduce you to scholarly debates, methods, and research skills for the critical analysis of a range of media forms, formats, and objects. Emphasis will be placed on the historical evolution of modern mass media and how these developments both enable and shape the digital shift.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching Methods
- Lectures – introducing key themes, debates, concepts and historical materials
- Seminars – allowing you to debate and clarify key themes, debates, concepts and materials
- Screenings – engaging with digital media texts and objects relevant to an understanding of weekly themes, lectures, and readings
- Tutorials – allowing you to discuss module content and assignment details with the lecturer and seminar tutor
Learning Activities
- Classroom discussion in seminars, critical thinking, peer engagement
- Teacher-led learning in lectures, with an interactive element
- Independent research, home viewing and reading
Type | Hours |
---|---|
Lecture | 20 |
Completion of assessment task | 150 |
Preparation for scheduled sessions | 80 |
Seminar | 20 |
Practical classes and workshops | 30 |
Total study time | 300 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Geard Goggin (2012). New Technologies and the Media. New York: Palgrave.
Paul McDonald, et al., eds. (2021). Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines. New York: New York University Press.
Nick Couldry (2012). Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jihoon Kim (2016). Between Film, Video, and the Digital: Hybrid Moving Images in the Post-Media Age. London: Bloomsbury.
Jentery Sayers (2018). The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities. London: Routledge.
Bruce Block (2020). The Visual Story: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV, and Digital Media. New York: Routledge.
Assessment
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Essay | 60% |
Individual project | 40% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Essay | 100% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Essay | 60% |
Individual project | 40% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External