Digital Media BA (Hons)

The second year focuses on your creative and professional development, introducing you to the demands of operating within the professional sphere of digital media through a series of live and simulated projects and assignments. For example, current students are looking at a project incorporating the use of location-based media (LBM), which uses beacons placed throughout specific locations within the City of Manchester, in its year as European City of Science, to deliver key pieces of targeted local information.

Modules

• Contextualising Digital Media – 20 credits

  This module explores the rise of Web 2.0 and the end of cyberspace, as well as the development of the social profile and location resulting in the ‘devirtualisation’ of the internet. It explores concepts of mobility, private and public spaces, democracy and technological distinctiveness. It examines the implications of media and technological development in the context of big data, machine learning, and the algorithm. You will be asked to critically engage with these concepts through your practice as well as engaging in debates about the nature of digital media.

  Compulsory

  Assessment: coursework

• Professional Experience – 10 credits

  Professional Experience aims to provide you with the opportunity to develop skills and to foster flexible and adaptable approaches towards employment and professional opportunities. You will be encouraged to consider your professional career and identify possible future pathways, which may combine different employment modes (self employed, contract, freelance and employed). Where appropriate, you will be encouraged to start a freelance photography practice as the first step towards a professional career after graduation. You will be offered support in this process and will learn about managing yourself as a business in a future that will require you to adopt portfolio careers.

  Compulsory

  Assessment: coursework

• Digital Marketing and Campaigning – 20 credits

  This module will enable you to learn and utilise range of concepts and practices from the area of digital marketing and campaigning. You will learn the underpinning principles of market research and its relationship to the marketing mix, techniques for audience and consumer research and how to implement a digital marketing campaign. You will explore and analyse the art and techniques of the persuasion industries, drawing on a range of academic disciplines including marketing science, psychology and behavioural economics.

  Compulsory

  Assessment: coursework

• Creative Hacklab Project – 40 credits

  This is a real-world simulation module where you will be handed a live industry research brief (either commercial, artistic, social or cultural) and respond to it within an intensive timeframe. It builds on previous learning, enabling further development of your creative, communication and research skills and applying them to a live project within an international context.

  Compulsory

  Assessment: coursework, presentation

• Transmedia Practice - 20 credits

  This module will explore how the convergence of media forms has created a number of ways to tell and circulate stories across the digital landscape. You will analyse a range of approaches to contemporary transmedia and inter-media storytelling as well as looking at how ‘official’ narratives are remediated, reconstituted and circulated by fans. It will also explore how convergence within the traditional cultural industries has led to new approaches to storytelling, content development and distribution strategies.

   

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework

• Exploring Mobile Application Design – 20 credits

  This module explores mobile application design and development fundamentals, focusing on principles of design and development techniques for specific platforms and a basic to intermediate level. You will engage critically with the notion of mobile media and examine ways in which design and development techniques can be used to create mobile media experiences.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework, presentation

• Exploring Immersive Production- 20 credits

  This module explores the notion of immersion and examines ways in which you can employ techniques of narrative storytelling and media design to create immersive experiences across a range of digital media forms. The module approaches immersive production in a technology-agnostic way, experimenting with digital platforms and formats as a means to interrogate immersive practice in fields such as immersive journalism, theatre, film, sound, and extended reality.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework

After your second year, you have an opportunity to take a sandwich year, studying abroad or on professional placement*.

Modules

• Study Abroad

  Optional

• Professional Placement

  Optional

By your final year, you will have a sound understanding of all forms of professional media production and interactivity, as diverse as virtual reality and apps to social networking and physical computing. You will have the chance to try to enhance your research and innovation skills by working on your own Final Digital Media Research Project on a topic of your choosing.

Modules

• Media in Context – 20 credits

  This module examines the relationship between public policy, media law and the communications industries. It concentrates on the way legislative acts and regulatory instruments influence the structure, operation and practice of communication professionals and the way that norms and values that are contextualized through the political process.

  Compulsory

  Assessment: coursework

• Research and Development in Digital Media – 10 credits

  The module aims to develop your ability to research and develop the theoretical, conceptual and professional issues that underpin digital media practice within a chosen area of research. This will involve looking at and utilising a range of digital research methods to undertake critical analysis on enquiry-led research and development projects.

  Compulsory

  Assessment: coursework

• Final Digital Media Research Project – 40 credits

  This module gives you the opportunity to gain substantial practical and professional experience in one or more areas of digital media research and practice. You will further develop and realise the ideas generated within the Research and Development in Digital Media module. Your digital media project will be based upon the project proposal and development work submitted for this module and will culminate in an extensive body of work or practice using your chosen form, or forms, of specialist digital media practice and theory.

  Compulsory

  Assessment: coursework

• Modelling and Animation – 20 credits

  This course aims to provide you with a chance to explore various modelling and animation methods, and develop a showreel of work to help you into your chosen industry. You will apply your knowledge to the planning and production of a collaborative modelling and animation project within a specified timescale and in response to a specified brief and stimuli. You will be able to develop skills in modelling and animation by acquiring the principal knowledge on texturing, lighting, camera, bones, physics, dynamic control, and other relevant 3D concepts.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework

• Critical Game Design and Development – 20 credits

  This module explores the fastest growing art form in the world: game design. The concept of ‘game’ is defined broadly here and refers to a wide scope of interactive play; with the module covering both theoretical aspects and best practices of game development. Whether you wish to develop an indie ‘metroidvania’, the next Pokémon Go or a boardgame with app functionality, this module will provide the tools necessary for you to realise your vision, specialise your skillset and begin a career as a game designer.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework

• Immersive Production – 20 credits

  This module engages critically with the notion of immersion and examines ways in which you can employ techniques of narrative storytelling and media design to create immersive experiences across a range of digital media forms. The module approaches immersive production in a technology-agnostic way, experimenting with digital platforms and formats as a means to interrogate immersive practice in fields such as immersive journalism, theatre, film, sound, and extended reality.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework

• Data Design and Visualisation – 20 credits

  The module aims to provide you with the opportunity to develop your knowledge and skills in digital research methods. This will involve experimenting with techniques and practices of data collection and analysis, as well as data visualisation and design. This module will enable you to develop abilities in analysing information, collecting and evaluating data, and to critically reflect on, comprehend and create practice-based digital media research work within a chosen specialism. You will work in small teams and encouraged to be self-reliant and develop methods of evaluation, reflection and critique.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework

• Internet of Things in Digital Media – 20 credits

  This module examines the ways in which the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the way we conceptualise, produce, disseminate and consume digital media. You will be asked to critically engage with the implications of connected devices in a variety of contexts and contend with debates around privacy, ethics, the cloud, data, connectedness and immersion. From a practice perspective, the module looks at ways to approach IoT development from beacons and push data to intelligent assistants and embedded connectivity.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework

• Mobile Application Design and Development – 20 credits

  This module explores mobile application design and development, focusing on principles of design and development techniques for specific platforms. You will engage critically with the notion of mobile media and examine ways in which design and development techniques can be used to create mobile media experiences. The module approaches mobile app development through experimentation with digital platforms and formats. Project management techniques will also be explored and applied. You will be asked to conceptualise, design, develop and test a mobile application.

  Optional

  Assessment: coursework