MCH8032: Digital Media Research Practice | School of Arts and Cultures

Offered for Year: 2025/26

Module Leader(s): Dr Alex Tarr

Owning School: Arts & Cultures
Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Semester 1 Credit Value:	20
ECTS Credits:	10

Aims

Digital Media Research Practice provides the foundational introduction to the Master’s in Digital Media: Technologies, AI and Society programme. It will introduce students to essential concepts, literatures and methods for successfully completing the programme. Students will engage with the central debates in the field in order to develop their curiosity and capacity for investigation into a research topic of their choosing. Through a combination of lectures, readings, in-class activities, and interactions with sector contributors, students will become familiar with appropriate methods for digital media, technology and social-cultural research necessary for producing either an 8,000 research article or an 8,000 portfolio/report in response to a research topic set by a collaborating organisation. Over the course of the module, students will produce a proposal for their final project, which they will develop in Semesters two and three.

Outline Of Syllabus

The topics discussed will include:

Key concepts for understanding what is ‘the digital’?
Critical reading in and synthesizing of current state of fields engaging digital topics
Connecting existing research to new research questions and methods
Visual and content-based research methods
Ethnography, interviews and focus groups in digital research
Digital walk-through methods
Reflexive and embodied methods with attention to intersectional approaches
Collaborating with partners across the sector
Writing a research proposal
Ethical approaches to designing and developing digital research

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Category	Activity	Number	Length	Student Hours	Comment
Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities	Small group teaching	11	2:00	22:00	In-person seminars
Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities	Dissertation/project related supervision	2	1:00	2:00	One-to-one tutorials re: project development
Guided Independent Study	Directed research and reading	11	3:00	33:00	Seminar preparation
Guided Independent Study	Independent study	1	70:00	70:00	Independent reading for writing development and seminar enhancement
Guided Independent Study	Assessment preparation and completion	1	73:00	73:00	N/A
Total				200:00

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Seminars facilitate interaction and the development of cognitive and hands-on skills related to digital media research (K1, K2, K3). Students engage with central debates on ethical concerns in the field through in-class discussion of prepared materials (K2, K5). In a multi-cultural and peer-supported environment, students are encouraged to articulate their aims, develop curiosity around set readings, case studies and sector-set challenges, and discuss aspects related to the research, structure, writing, and presentation of their developing research interests (K1, K2, K4, K5, S1, S4). Directed and independent research and reading is a core component of the teaching for this module. (K1, K2, K3, K4, S2, S3).

One-to-one tutorials encourage students to articulate their aims, define their subject area, and demonstrate their grasp of the material involved. They are an opportunity to provide advice to the student on all aspects of the research, content, structure and presentation of their research interests and critical feedback on strengths and weaknesses of the developing proposal. (S2, S3, S4).

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Description	Semester	When Set	Percentage	Comment
Research proposal 1	1	A	100	Written Research proposal 3000 words outlining research aim, questions, methods that will inform either research project or sector set research project. Including work-in-progress expanded bibliography.

Formative Assessment

Description	Semester	When Set	Comment
Oral Presentation 1	1	M	Collaborative presentation outlining research aim, questions and methods that will inform either research project or sector set research project with verbal feedback provided by seminar leader. This is a compulsory formative assessment which students pass.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Formative Assessment
The collaborative presentation provides an opportunity for students to explore possible research questions and appropriate methods (S2, S3) in relation to the key concepts from the module (K2, K3, K4) while developing collaborative skills in creatively designing and delivering oral presentations on post-graduate level research (S1, S4).

Summative Assessment
The written research proposal and oral presentation of the project is designed to enable students to demonstrate developing knowledge, confidence and competence in researching digital media and technologies. Students select either their own research topic or one of the sector-set topics, develop original research questions/aims/objectives and articulate how the project will thoughtfully deploy appropriate research methods, address ethical concerns and engage existing research and theories in the field to produce new findings in the area. The assessment builds from the formative assessment as students refine and hone-in on their own curiosities, while feeding forward into the second term where they can further develop specific knowledges key to their project, before undertaking a further revised project in semester three. The task-specific criteria associated with the proposal and presentation are:

1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a range of theories and methods used in the research of digital media and technologies (K1, K2, S3).

2. Show independent development of research questions and articulate their relationship to appropriate methods and techniques in the field (K2, K3, K4, S3)

3. Demonstrate critical reflection on the ethical considerations of proposed research as expressed in existing literature in the field (K1, K5, S2)

4. Demonstrate the ability to creatively develop and deliver a coherent narrative explaining research to a specific audience (K1, K4, S1, S4)

Timetable

Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/