Digital Media and Society

Core modules:

Academic Skills and Literacy

This 'zero credit''module is designed to support students as they progress through semester 1 of their Digital Media and Society postgraduate degree at the University of Sheffield.

Perspectives on Digital Society

This unit examines key issues in researching digital society and the relationship between digital media and society. The unit introduces key concepts that have shaped understanding of digital developments and evaluates debates about how these developments a) have been shaped by the societies in which they have emerged and b) shape those societies. It develops students' understanding of the social, cultural, political, economic and technical contexts in which digital developments emerge,. Topics covered include, but are not limited to: key concepts; users, producers or produsers; identity, representation and self-representation; internet governance and regulation; privacy and publicness; visual digital society; big data and datafication; mobility; gaming and gamification; changing work practices; alternative digital media; health, well-being, education and work.

15 credits

Digital Methods

This unit introduces students to new and emerging methods for carrying out digital research that is, digital methods. Digital methods are natively digital techniques for researching the natively digital (for example, social media content, likes and shares; blog posts and comments; hyperlinks; tag clouds; folksonomies; search engines; recommender culture) (Rogers 2013). Digital methods include social media insights and analytics, social network analysis, issue network analysis, data visualisation, and data sprints, amongst others. As well as learning how to use these tools, techniques and processes, students on this module will evaluate them, the context of their emergence (and sometimes rapid decline). They will develop an understanding of how digital methods are used to create knowledge. In this way, the module addresses questions of web epistemology, information politics, ethics, device critique, and the social life of methods.

15 credits

Researching Society

This unit introduces students to key theories, principles and practices in social research. It provides an overview of the research process in the social sciences, with direct consideration of research design, different methodological approaches, a range of methods available and good ethical standards. It provides students with theoretical understandings and the practical skills required to design and develop a small-to-medium scale research project.

15 credits

Digital Media in a Datafied Society

This unit examines the social consequences of widespread use of social media, a key characteristic of digital society. It explores what happens as a result of the digitised and networked sharing of personal information and life experiences of all kinds, in times of datafication (that is, the transformation into data, numbers and statistics aspects of social life which formerly did not exist in such forms). The unit reviews theoretical literature on social media, data and society and addresses specific debates and issues, including: social media data mining; social media surveillance; the economic value of social media data; data tracking, privacy, rights and data subjects; governing social media data mining; data activism and open data; data visualisation; new forms of data work; data and everyday life.

15 credits

Dissertation in Digital Media and Society

This unit enables students to undertake an in-depth study on a topic of their own choice, which relates to digital media and society, and is guided by one-to-one academic supervision. It aims to enable students to develop and demonstrate skills in the planning, definition and management of a substantial piece of enquiry on digital media and society. The dissertation may take the form of a theoretical literature-based analysis, an empirical exploration, either through primary or secondary research, a work-experience-based piece of work, or it may incorporate elements of digital media production.

60 credits

Optional modules - two from:

Digital Identities

This module explores how gender, age, race, class and other identities are being reimagined in what various commentators have called a `social media age. It provides students with an understanding of social media platforms roles in peoples identity negotiations, examining users social media identities in different global contexts, and paying close attention to the intersections between different identities. It reviews debates about identity formations from the earliest digital media moments and considers contemporary concerns, such as: anonymity and agency; selfies and sexting; censorship, resistance and collective identities; social media fandoms; masculinity and gaming.

20 credits

Global challenges in the digital society

Global challenges in the digital society explores in depth a series of contemporary issues that affect the relationship between digital media and society in the global context. Topics include, among others, digital labour and international digital labour platforms and markets; disinformation, misinformation and the challenges to traditional forms of expertise; mainstream social media platforms and cross-cultural contamination; decentralised digital networks and transnational collective action; digital media and transnational governance; AI and machine learning; urban automation and smart cities; blockchain and the politics of diffusion.

15 credits

Contemporary Challenges: Refugees and Asylum  

Contemporary Challenges explores a key contemporary challenge in depth and applies key concepts in Sociology (e.g. class, race, nationalism, democracy) in analysing it. The focus of the challenge will change on a 3-4 yearly basis.
In its first iteration, the module focuses on Brexit: ideas of class and `the left behind¿, English nationalism, nostalgia for empire, the media, and some of the impacts of Brexit in relation to everyday life. In doing so the module will develop a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the vote for the UK to leave the EU, as well as some of its consequences.

15 credits

Digital Practices

This unit provides students with practical skills in digital media production, covering the following areas: creative media content; visual design; web design (including areas such as usability and user experience design, web accessibility, search engine optimisation). It introduces students to software and processes relating to these areas in a workshop environment, and students proceed to develop their skills through the production of portfolio work. It focuses on digital media in society by highlighting the importance of users, usage and use contexts of digital media products.

15 credits

Digital Health

This module looks at the social implications of digital technologies in health, considering what these mean for our experiences of health and illness as patients and as citizens, for the work of health care professionals, and for the provision of health care. The module will consider a range of contemporary areas such as self-tracking and gamifying health, telemedicine and care at a distance, health information on the net, electronic patient records, illness death and dying on the web, and health activism and online patient groups. Drawing across these, the module will consider questions about changing representations and cultures of health and illness, whether we can all be medical experts now, who has responsibility for health, how we relate to health care professionals, the commodification of health data and the relative benefits for state and industry.

15 credits

Advanced social media research

This module focuses on innovative techniques that move beyond the traditional distinction between quantitative and qualitative approaches in the analysis of social media data. Students will critically discuss and apply some of the most contemporary digital methods developments. These include:
- interface methods, that is, methods combining analytical traditions from digital media, social studies of science and technology (STS) and sociology;
- app walkthroughs, that is, methods to explore the intersections of apps¿ original purposes, normalised meanings and implied users and usages;
- techniques to detect bots and botnets in social media platforms;
- techniques to investigate the circulation of fake news on social media platforms;
- digital methods for visual research.

15 credits

Sociology of Genders, Sexualities and the Bodies

Why are gender, sexuality and the body important areas for sociological study? How can these domains be seen to be political as well as personal? How have understanding around gender, sexuality and the body changed across time and cultures? How might experiences and practices of gender, sexuality and the body be impacted by intersectional factors such as race and ethnicity, ability and disability, faith, social class, age, and space and place? These are some of the key questions explored on this module, which will consider the diverse ways in which gender, sexuality and the body are understood and practiced at individual, collective and structural levels.

15 credits

Visual Methods for Social Scientists

The module explores different approaches to understanding social reality by collating, creating and analysing images. The course will cover several methods such as compositional analysis, content analysis, and discourse analysis. It will also cover the use of different media such as magazine images, video and photography in social research. Ethical and intellectual property issues will also be dealt with such as copyright, anonymity and consent during the research process. Including the visual as part of a mixed methodology in research will underpin much of the material. The students will be expected to take photographic images during the course.

15 credits

Information Governance and Ethics

The purpose of this module is to investigate topics related to the handling and governance of digital information and data in organizational and networked contexts. This will include an exploration of a) substantive issues and concerns e.g. accountability, decision-making, freedom, identity, intellectual property, openness, privacy, risk, security, and surveillance; b) the design and use of relevant technologies e.g. Internet, DPI, digital rights, open source, P2P, social media and c) systematic approaches and frameworks used in the regulation, governance and use of information in organizational and networked contexts e.g. copyright/left, data protection, freedom of information etc. Examples from business, government, health, law, and technology illustrate the topics investigated.

15 credits

Digital Advocacy

This module will examine how digital media are used to facilitate and promote the campaigns of contemporary advocacy groups and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Theoretical perspectives such as connective action and the clicktivist critique of online activism are introduced in order to explore the effectiveness of online campaigns. Students will also consider the criteria by which such campaigns can be considered successful, drawing on a range of case studies including the Occupy Wall Street movement and the so-called `Arab Spring' in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011.

15 credits

Guided Module Choice - you can take a maximum of 15 credits from the following:

The Japanese Empire in East Asia, 1895-1945

Between 1895 and 1945 Japan joined the ranks of imperial powers in East Asia, acquiring Taiwan, Korea, and ever greater portions of China. This module examines how the Japanese empire was built, run, and resisted. We will ask whether approaches to colonialism honed by historians of Western imperialism work in the Japanese context, and will consider too how Japan's rapid modernisation, political development, and diplomatic and ideological engagement with rival great powers shaped its colonial policy. No prior knowledge of East Asian history is required to take the course.

15 credits

Black Power: Race, Gender, and Liberation in the United States and Beyond

During its time in the 1960s and 1970s and in its immediate aftermath, the Black Power movement was often caricatured and castigated as a violent, misogynistic, incoherent and self-destructive betrayal of the Civil Rights movement. But in recent years, scholarship which Peniel Joseph has termed “Black Power Studies” has situated the movement within the longer history of the Black freedom struggle. These works suggest that Black Power was not a break from the recent past, but part of the long history of Black armed self-defence and transnational activism, and an important contribution to Black American identity making, political thought, and political power. The movement called for racial solidarity, cultural pride, and self-determination, and connected its work at the local and national level to the global struggle against racial oppression and exploitation. In this module, we will explore the historiography of the Black Power movement, as well as key primary sources. We will seek to understand the development of the movement’s political power at the local level; the emergence of the Black Panther Party in the United States and the United Kingdom, and the Black Power movement in the Caribbean; the relationship between Black nationalism and internationalism; the Black Arts Movement and Black identity in the 1960s and 1970s; Black women’s role in the development of the movement’s political power and contribution to Black feminist thought in the 1970s and beyond; and the legacies of these events in the era of the Movement for Black Lives.

15 credits

Managing Climate Change

This module aims to engender a detailed understanding of the development of ideas and theories of climate change, integrating the core social and physical science behind our understandings of climate change with a critical analysis of how this is interpreted and communicated. This understanding is then applied to consider the challenge of living with climate change in the Global South. The module is taught through seminars and lectures. Lectures introduce and impart factual knowledge while seminars allow discussion and an emphasis on applying key concepts to practical situations. Together these structure students' learning, and provide an environment in which they can develop their skills in researching, presenting and debating arguments drawn from the wide ranging literature on climate change.

15 credits