Learn about emerging digital research
Culture is no longer contained by language, borders, or even time. Instead, it is accessible, almost, to anyone, anywhere, at any time. The Researching Digital Culture and Society module engages with these changes, and in doing so ask some of the big social questions of the day. For example, are social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) a good thing for society? Does online content creation (YouTube, Twitch, etc.) expand our cultural horizons, or is it a new way for global corporations to make money? Are advances in machine learning, AI, and Large Language Models (ChatGPT, Bard, etc.) the start of a new golden era or the beginning of the end for numerous professions?
To answer these questions we need to first understand that the things we’re studying has changed. We have Tweets, Instagram posts, YouTube videos, and Wikipedia articles – things which are ontologically distinct from letters to a newspaper, postcards, home movies, or encyclopaedia articles. There is something new about these digital cultural objects, from how they’re created to how we access them (or they are presented to us – i.e., algorithms), and these are the objects of study in this module.
Since the objects being studied have changed, we also need to rethink how we study them. For example, how do we ‘read’ a million books in a database? Or hundreds of thousands of comments on Reddit? Should we study Tweets posted by people with no followers? Are images posted on Instagram representations of reality or aspiration? What makes a meme viral? These are methodological questions for digital society which this module examines – although we shouldn’t forget what Marshal McLuhan wrote in 1964: “The medium is the message.”
This module is an opportunity to learn about emerging digital research. In doing this, students will be able to better assess research of this type by others, and begin to conduct research using these methods themselves. Those interested in the theoretical content will be prepared for other modules, Digital Culture and Cultural Studies Research Dissertation, as well as the Creative Project in Cultural Studies with The Margate School. Those interested in the methodological aspects may also be interested in Analysing Data in the Real World and the Year in Data Analytics.
However, digital culture isn’t only a scholarly subject – studying it can help those interested in careers in the digital economy, GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), cultural heritage, and media and cultural analytics industries. Academics are not the only people who have noticed the revolutionary digital transformation taking place, and the ability to work with, understand, and research the digital landscape is an increasingly desirable – and required – skillset.