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Digital Media and Culture (MA) (2024 Entry)

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Explore our Digital Media and Culture taught Master's degree.

Digital Media and Culture MA focuses on how digital processes are transforming culture, the economy and society. Become trained in the tools to understand these core changes: use digital media creatively and critically at Warwick's Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies.


Course overview

Digital media today affect all aspects of everyday, professional and public life, and understanding its importance requires interdisciplinary knowledge. Based at Warwick's Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM), the MA Programme in Digital Media and Culture is an advanced one-year postgraduate degree that addresses the role of digital technologies, media, and infrastructures in relation to culture, economics, politics, and society.

Drawing on multiple disciplines, the degree supports critical approaches to key topics in digital culture, including:

  • Platformisation
  • Participatory culture
  • Media activism
  • Digital labour
  • Datafication, privacy and surveillance
  • The politics of design
  • Memes and digital subcultures
  • Data critique
  • Environmental sustainability

Our teaching combines theory, research methods, and creative practice. By selecting from a diverse offering of modules, students will have, for instance, the opportunity to learn data analytics and visualisation, to engage with speculative design and media art, and to discuss concepts in fields ranging from software studies to environmental humanities.

Based at a research centre promoting cutting-edge scholarship in these areas, our degree is primarily research-driven. MA students will be encouraged to select their own path through the degree and contribute to the culture of CIM by attending invited talks, participating in workshops, and organising interdisciplinary symposiums.


General entry requirements

Minimum requirements

2:1 undergraduate degree (or equivalent).


English language requirements

You can find out more about our English language requirementsLink opens in a new window. This course requires the following:

  • Band B
  • IELTS overall score of 7.0, minimum component scores of two at 6.0/6.5 and the rest at 7.0 or above.

International qualifications

We welcome applications from students with other internationally recognised qualifications.

For more information, please visit the international entry requirements pageLink opens in a new window.


Additional requirements

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

Core modules

Approaches to the Digital

Computer networks, devices and infrastructure today undergird nearly all form of societal, political and cultural life. Police and hospitals, schools and transport, traffic lights and government bodies, elections, museums and artists rely on software systems for their everyday performance.

Whether used for tracking, organising, evaluating, creating, designing or communicating, digital technology and its use irreversibly transforms the fabric of everyday life, defining the horizon of the future. Given the widespread implications of such ‘digitalization,’ this module offers an introduction to how different disciplines beyond computer science have approached the digital methodologically and epistemologically.

Digital Methods

Emerging digital research methods also become means through which such objects are sustained, thus co-creating dynamic objects, such as networks, databases, platforms, data visualizations, maps and many other new forms of social, cultural and public life.

This module offers an insight into these new and emerging societal and cultural entities and methodologies. We will take a number of digital objects relevant to the social sciences and humanities and analyse them using digital methods, including network analysis, software studies, content analysis, issue mapping, and others. Digital media research sits alongside social studies of computational technologies and cultural theory as the fields that emerging digital methods take inspiration from.

The module is open to students from all disciplines; no specific prior knowledge is required.

Dissertation

The dissertation is a piece of work (10,000 words) which addresses a single student-selected subject. The topic may concern any aspect of the subject matter of their Master's programme.

The dissertation is an exercise in independent study in which you can pursue a topic of interest. It allows you to further develop a range of independent research skills, including literature search and bibliography construction, theoretical argument, and generation/appraisal of empirical evidence.


Optional modules

Optional modules can vary from year to year. Example optional modules may include:

  • Media Activism
  • Data Visualisation in Science, Culture and Public Policy
  • User Interface Cultures: Design, Method and Critique
  • Digital Feminisms 
  • Visualisation Foundations
  • Digital Sociology
  • Platform, Economy and Society
  • Ecological Futures: Science, Culture and Media
  • Digital Commons: Transforming Software, Research and Culture 
  • Data Science Across Disciplines: Principles, Practice and Critique

Teaching

Modules in this course make use of a range of teaching and learning techniques, including, for example:

  • Online Virtual Learning Environment
  • Student Group and Project Work
  • Lectures
  • Seminars
  • Reading and Directed Critical Discussion
  • Independent Research by Students
  • Practice-Based Activities

Class sizes

A typical workshop for this course contains 20-30 students and a seminar around 16 students.


Typical contact hours

There are around 8-10 hours contact hours per week, depending on type and number of optional modules chosen.


Assessment

A combination of essays, reports, design projects, technical report writing, practice assessments, group work and presentations and an individual research project (10,000 word dissertation).


Your timetable

Your personalised timetable will be complete when you are registered for all modules, compulsory and optional, and you have been allocated to your lectures, seminars and other small group classes. Your compulsory modules will be registered for you and you will be able to choose your optional modules shortly before joining us.

Your career

Graduates from these courses have gone on to work for employers including: AXA, BaiDu, GroupM, Just Eat, Skyscanner, The Labour Party and University of Warwick. They have pursued roles such as: authors, writers and translators; business and financial project management professionals; buyers and procurement officers; data analysts and product managers; marketing associate professionals; quality assurance and regulatory professionals and researchers.

Our department has a dedicated professionally qualified Senior Careers Consultant offering impartial advice and guidance together with workshops and events throughout the year. Previous examples of workshops and events include:

  • Warwick careers fairs throughout the year
  • Careers in AI and Data Science
  • Discovering Careers in the Creative Industries
  • Discuss What’s Next After Your CIM Master’s Degree

Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM)

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM) was established at Warwick in 2012 to foster innovative and experimental forms of knowledge production through a sustained focus on methodology. CIM is dedicated to expanding the role of interdisciplinary methods through new lines of inquiry that cut across disciplinary boundaries, both intellectually and institutionally.

Method is central to the formation and transformation of disciplinary knowledges, and the challenge of working across and in between disciplines is both exciting and pressing. Our research team is drawn from across the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences, with expertise in a variety of substantive domains.

Within Warwick, CIM is an advocate of interdisciplinary research and study. Beyond Warwick and beyond the academy, CIM explores new forms of public engagement, both with potential research users and with the experts, experimenters and institutions in business, civil society and government that are at the forefront of applied methodological innovation.

Find out more about us on our website.


Our Postgraduate courses

Tuition fees

Tuition fees are payable for each year of your course at the start of the academic year, or at the start of your course, if later. Academic fees cover the cost of tuition, examinations and registration and some student amenities.

Find your taught course fees  


Fee Status Guidance

The University carries out an initial fee status assessment based on information provided in the application and according to the guidance published by UKCISA. Students are classified as either Home or Overseas Fee status and this can determine the tuition fee and eligibility of certain scholarships and financial support. 

If you receive an offer, your fee status will be stated with the tuition fee information. If you believe your fee status has been incorrectly classified you can complete a fee status assessment questionnaire (follow the instructions in your offer) and provide the required documentation for this to be reassessed. 

The UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) provides guidance to UK universities on fees status criteria, you can find the latest guidance on the impact of Brexit on fees and student support on the UKCISA website.


Additional course costs

Please contact your academic department for information about department specific costs, which should be considered in conjunction with the more general costs below, such as:

  • Core text books
  • Printer credits
  • Dissertation binding
  • Robe hire for your degree ceremony

Scholarships and bursaries

Scholarships and financial support

Find out about the different funding routes available, including; postgraduate loans, scholarships, fee awards and academic department bursaries.

Living costs

Find out more about the cost of living as a postgraduate student at the University of Warwick.

Find out how to apply to us, ask your questions, and find out more.

How to apply

The application process for courses that start in September and October 2024 will open on 2 October 2023.

Applications will close on 2 August 2024 for students who require a visa to study in the UK, to allow time to receive a CAS and complete the visa application process.

Places are often limited, so we recommend that you submit your application as early as possible.

How to apply for a postgraduate taught course  

After you’ve applied

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Admissions statement

See Warwick’s postgraduate admissions policy.

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Our hosted events run throughout the year, with a mixture of virtual and in-person sessions. These events are a great way to learn more about our courses and departments, chat to current students and staff, and find out more information about accommodation, careers, and how to apply.

Postgraduate Fairs

Throughout the year we attend exhibitions and fairs online and in-person around the UK. These events give you the chance to explore our range of postgraduate courses, and find out what it’s like studying at Warwick. You’ll also be able to speak directly with our student recruitment team, who will be able to help answer your questions.

Live chats

Join a live chat with our staff and students, who are here to answer your questions and help you learn more about postgraduate life at Warwick. You can join our general drop-in sessions or talk to your prospective department and student services.

Warwick Talk and Tours

A Warwick talk and tour lasts around two hours and consists of an overview presentation from one of our Recruitment Officers covering the key features, facilities and activities that make Warwick a leading institution. The talk is followed by a campus tour which is the perfect way to view campus, with a current student guiding you around the key areas on campus.