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IS30500

Academic Year 2024/2025

Digital Media & Climate Crisis (IS30500)

Subject:
Information Studies
College:
Social Sciences & Law
School:
Information & Comms Studies
Level:
3 (Degree)
Credits:
10
Module Coordinator:
Dr Patrick Brodie
Trimester:
Spring
Mode of Delivery:
On Campus
Internship Module:
No
How will I be graded?
Letter grades

Curricular information is subject to change.

How do we make sense of climate breakdown through digital media? In contemporary public life, it is impossible to avoid the discourses (and realities) of the planetary climate crisis. This module will confront the many ways in which digital media and its technologies, infrastructures, and institutions interacts with, communicates, exacerbates, and/or alleviates the collapse of environmental systems. Students will engage with formative theories of environmental media, climate communication, infrastructure studies, and science and technology studies to understand the role that digital media has played and will continue to play in the social, political, and environmental transformations required to manage the effects of climate change. From the global unevenness of environmental burdens being reproduced in the transition to “smart” and “green” technological efficiencies, to environmental impacts and carbon emissions of digital infrastructures like data centres, to the “culture wars” raging in public media debates over the climate crisis, this module situates our current moment within the complex landscape of climate change’s mediation in and through digital technologies. In doing so, it will demonstrate how digital media remains a field of struggle around how we are to imagine different environmental futures.

About this Module

Learning Outcomes:

On successful completion of the course students will be able to demonstrate:

1) A historical and contemporary understanding of the role of digital media within climate politics.
2) A meaningful engagement with the material and environmental impacts of digital media technologies and infrastructures.
3) Recognition of the challenges and conflicts surrounding how climate and environmental issues, policies, and transitions are communicated and mediated across uneven global divides.
4) A familiarity with various methodologies for researching and confronting the intersections of digital media and climate.
5) Critical reflection on how digital media represents a site of struggle and possibility in the formation and creation of alternative climate futures beyond collapse.

Indicative Module Content:

Indicative module content (topics/schedule subject to change):

Media and the Environment
Understanding Climate in Space and Time
Media and Fossil Fuels
Digital Infrastructures
E-Waste
Climate Change in the Public Sphere
Social Media Activism
Mediating Sustainability and “Greenwashing”
Mediating Environmental Struggle
Living Digitally in a Climate-Changed World

Student Effort Hours:
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24
Autonomous Student Learning

201
Total

225

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
This module will use a combination of lectures, case studies, peer group discussion and guest presentations.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Incompatibles:
IS30480 - Digital Media & Climate Crisis


 

Assessment Strategy
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Participation in Learning Activities: Participation in learning activities Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12 Graded No
10
 No
Assignment(Including Essay): Mid-term essay Week 8 Graded No
40
 No
Individual Project: Final project Week 12 Graded No
50
 No

Carry forward of passed components
No
 

Resit In Terminal Exam
Summer No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Peer review activities
• Self-assessment activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Not yet recorded.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
Spring Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 Tues 12:00 - 12:50
Spring Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 Wed 10:00 - 10:50
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