Digital Cultures

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

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

• contexts, issues and debates relating to the cultures of digital technologies, their use, practices, historical and contemporary discourses;
• a selected range of critical concepts with applications to the analysis of digital cultures;

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• demonstrate a depth of critical and analytical thinking in relation to digital cultures, their theories and philosophies;
• analyse, evaluate and make informed judgements regarding theoretical perspectives on topics such as networks and the internet, mobile media, screen culture and the relation between the analog and the digital.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• articulate complex ideas at an advanced level through a variety of oral, written and digital formats;
• effectively manage your own workload, meet deadlines and work independently.

This module offers grounding for a critical analysis of digital cultures by engaging with debates, concepts, historical and contemporary examples. As such, it offers a cultural approach to networks, digital environments and technologies, arguing that digital cultures are underpinned but cannot be reduced to these dimensions. Possible concepts and themes of the module include technologies of the self, debates around knowledge and power in networked media, resistance and digital activism, cyber-feminism(s) and techno-feminism, digital screen cultures, digital sonic environments, games and gaming cultures, the post-digital, virtual reality, interactive documentaries.

You will be encouraged to independently access and select material from online sources to assist you in determining an appropriate perspective from within an art and design context.

You will learn through a range of learning activities such as:

Teaching Methods

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Tutorials
• Practice-research workshops

Learning Activities

• Lectures
• Tutorials
• Contributions to group discussions
• Online research and reading
• Peer group learning

Relationship between the teaching, learning and assessment methods and the planned learning outcomes

This module’s learning and teaching methods are designed to challenge you and help you broaden your critical understanding of a range of key issues associated with digital cultures in order to enable you to explore them further as part of your subject-specific practice.

The formal assessment will be a digital illustrated essay on the university digital resource- efolio. In addition, you will keep a digital learning log (also on efolio) in which you reflect on your learning and practice in relation to the themes discussed, as part of your formative development. Formative feedback will be given on the logs to help you prepare for the final assessment.

The Digital illustrated essay will be an academic piece of writing (using Harvard referencing) responding to one of the twelve essay questions linked to different topics of the module. The blog format will enhance the kind of visual materials students can use when responding to the question. You will be encouraged to embed videos, hyperlink to sources, add illustrations, infographics and any other illustrative material you find useful. Workshops and tutorials will be provided during the module to help you develop the skills to complete the illustrated essay assignment.

Formative

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

Peer Group Feedback

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback:
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

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.