Digital Technology, Media and Society (P3062)

15 credits, Level 4

Spring teaching

Digital media saturates everyday life, re-organises cultural productions of all kinds and re-mediates the teaching and learning environments which you’ll inhabit at Sussex.

On this module, you’ll examine this digital environment from practical and theoretical perspectives. You’ll begin to understand and use digital tools to critically evaluate your existing practices. 

You’ll examine developments in new media, focusing on different uses of digital media. This will enable you to make distinctions between different kinds of material, genres and platforms. You’ll learn to use digital media confidently to enhance your studies and to understand the digital environment as a complex of media and cultural forms.

Topics include:

• the histories and economies of the internet
• searching for resources
• citation
• catalogues
• archiving
• power and platforms
• social media
• privacy
• copyright
• surveillance
• digital media as a research area.

You’ll draw upon a range of digital research platforms to provide a solid foundation for independent research.

 

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 30 hours of contact time and about 120 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2026/27. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.

Courses

This module is offered on the following courses:

• Media and Communications BA
• Media and Journalism BA
• Sociology with Media Studies BA