Digital Screen Cultures

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Discuss the weekly readings and apply their critical frameworks to the screenings, seminar discussions, and Final Project
• Evaluate and apply a range of theoretical and historical frameworks to a variety of digital, screen-based media

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Present analytical skills and research findings in an appropriate format
• Complete a Final Project that demonstrates analytical thinking and ability to carry out and process independent research
• Translate complex theories, histories, ideas, and research findings in a coherent, concise, and effective manner
• Write effectively, critically, and accurately in an appropriate academic style
• Organise time successfully by respecting and meeting deadlines

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The digital shift in media and communications since the late twentieth-century, and how it represents both a continuation of and departure from analogue media and communications
• The globalised, converged, and conglomerated media landscape of the twenty-first century
• The proliferation of screens in the twenty-first century, and how users engage with them
• The theories and histories of new and emerging media

What differentiates the cinematic screen from the other screens that permeate our everyday lives? This module explores the proliferation of screens in the digital era by chronicling a “history of the screen” that understands digital screen cultures as technologies, media, and interfaces – and as the many uses thereof. It asks us to consider how the present abundance of ambient screens represents both a continuation of and departure from older and analogue understandings of new and emerging media as art, entertainment, and communication. Amongst other possible topics and approaches, we will explore the digital shift in cinema, television, video games, music, virtual reality, and social media to arrive at an understanding of how these digital screen cultures reflect, represent, and interrogate the converged, conglomerated, and globalised media landscape of the twenty-first century.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

• Seminars, centred on peer-support learning in a collaborative environment used to introduce and unpack themes, theories, histories, debates, concepts, and ideas
• Screenings of selected films
• One-to-one consultation with the module tutors

Learning activities include:

• Independent study, research, writing, and viewing
• Critical and analytical thinking, reading, and writing
• Contributing to seminar discussions as speaker, listener, and leader
• Preparation of a Final Project
• Independently developing and completing a Final Project

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Florini, Sarah (2019). Beyond Hashtags: Racial Politics and Black Digital Networks. New York: New York University Press.

Lobato, Ramon (2019). Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution. New York: New York University Press.

McCarthy, Anna (2001). Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space. Durham: Duke University Press.

Friedberg, Anne (2009). The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Scheible, Jeff (2015). Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Galili, Doron (2020). Seeing By Electricity: The Emergence of Television: 1878-1939. Durham: Duke University Press.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Class discussions

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: In-class feedback from the seminar tutor, based on their conversation with the students.
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: Yes

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

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.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External