FS30240 Digital Media Cultures

Academic Year 2022/2023

Digital media cultures wield an enormous influence on 21st-century life. This module equips students with the theoretical means to evaluate the role of digital media within contemporary culture and understand its history. Students will engage with a variety of perspectives on digital media. They will look beyond pervasive discursive constructions of digital utopianism and critique the infrastructures and institutions that shape the use and creation of digital media content. The module will adopt a non-Eurocentric approach to addressing some critical debates in contemporary lives, including access and representation, inequalities, and transnational communities and diasporas. Students will engage with the main discussions around the role and impact of global media players, including the "big tech" companies, on digital economies and futures. Throughout, students will investigate and critically reflect on how class, race, place, and gender shape contemporary digital cultures.