MA Digital Media, Culture and Society

This unit introduces students to the histories and cultures of digital media as well as to the key approaches and contemporary debates in the study of digital media, culture and society. The thematically structured lectures and seminars will be centred on key readings, both of a theoretical and empirical nature, that familiarize students with state-of-the-art concepts and research at the intersection of digital technology, culture and society. Topics include digital histories and cultures, key digital developments and trends, and major theoretical frameworks (e.g. technological determinism, technological affordances, political economy, Actor-Network Theory). The unit may include debates about digital labour, digital divide, fake media, surveillance and privacy. For the assessment, students will work individually to give an oral presentation on the history and culture of a chosen digital media platform or service and write an academic essay on the topic of their choice.

To introduce students to the key developments in digital histories and cultures so they can critically reflect on the contemporary role of digital media in culture and society

To equip students with major theoretical frameworks to think creatively and inclusively about digital media

To help students develop an ability to actively participate in contemporary debates about digital media, culture and society

The first weeks will be devoted to the discussion of key developments in digital histories and cultures such as the invention and popularization of the internet and other digital technologies (software and hardware), gradual visualisation, commercialisation and datafication of the internet as well as the recent developments and trends related to digital media in a global perspective. The following weeks students will learn about (1) major theoretical frameworks to think creatively about digital media and (2) key contemporary debates about digital media, culture and society. The former may include such topics as technological determinism, technological affordances, political economy, Actor-Network Theory, encoding and decoding model, and culture of connectivity framework. The latter may include such topics as digital labour, digital divide, fake media, surveillance and privacy.

The unit consists of 1h-long lectures and 2h-long seminars. During the lectures, students will learn about particular theoretical frameworks to think about the role of digital media in culture and society and familiarize themselves with the key debates related to digital media. During the seminars, students will give their presentations and will engage in diverse activities to meet the unit’s learning objectives, including group and individual work, plenary discussions, case studies analysis, mini-research projects, and debates. They will also discuss recent news related to digital media, which they will be able to access through library services. All the relevant materials will be available on Blackboard or in the library.

Show systematic comprehension of key developments in digital histories and cultures in relation to larger processes of capitalism, neoliberalism and globalization

Synthetize and apply key theoretical approaches to analyse digital media from a range of diverse perspectives

Demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of major contemporary debates about the role of digital media in culture and society at the national and transnational levels

Frame cultural and social problems related to digital media in a fashion that is amenable to their solution

Compare and evaluate key theoretical approaches to analyse digital media to draw conclusion about their utility in relation to particular questions

Make a reasoned argument for a particular point of view in debates about the role of digital media in contemporary culture and society, and for the future of the digitized world

Use library and digital resources to enhance the depth and complexity of the discussion about digital media, culture and society

Plan and present a convincing argument about a particular aspect of digital media’s role in culture and society

Independently gather, synthetize and present material from various sources

Plan and give an oral presentation on a complex cultural or social challenge

Constructively work in a team to jointly deliver an output on time

Andrejevic, M., & Volcic, Z. (2020). ‘Virtual empathy’. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 13(3), 295-310.

Arora, P. (2019). The Next Billion Users: Digital Life Beyond the West. Harvard University Press.  

Barbrook, R., & Cameron, A. (1996). The Californian ideology. Science as Culture, 6(1), 44-72.

Curran, J., Fenton, N. & Freedman, D. (Eds.) (2012). Misunderstanding the Internet. Routledge.  

Fuchs, C. (2021). Social Media: A Critical Introduction. Sage.

Meikle, G. (2022) Deepfakes. John Wiley & Sons.

Naughton, J. (2016) ‘The evolution of the Internet: from military experiment to General Purpose Technology’, Journal of Cyber Policy, 1:1, 5-28, DOI: 10.1080/23738871.2016.1157619

Parikka, J. (2015). A Geology of the Media. University of Minnesota Press

Peters, B. (ed.) (2016). Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information, Society & Culture. Princeton University Press.

Qiu, J. L. (2017). Labor and social media: The exploitation and emancipation of (almost) everyone online. In: J. Burgess, A. E. Marwick & T. Poell (Eds.) The SAGE handbook of social media (pp. 297-313). London: Sage.

Selwyn, N. (2004) Reconsidering political and popular understandings of the digital divide. New Media & Society, 6(3), 341-362.

Shaw, A. (2017). Encoding and decoding affordances: Stuart Hall and interactive media technologies. Media, Culture & Society, 39(4), 592-602.

Vaidhyanathan, S. (2017). The incomplete political economy of social media. In: The SAGE Handbook of Social Media, 213-230.

Van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford University Press.

Willems, W. (2021). Beyond platform-centrism and digital universalism: The relational affordances of mobile social media publics. Information, Communication & Society, 24(12), 1677-1693.

Zuboff, S. (2019). Chapter 3 ‘The Discovery of Behavioural Surplus’ in The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power (First edition.). Public Affairs.