Digital Cultures and Media BA Honours

Course overview

Ever wondered how social media influences our politics, or how AI can discriminate against different ethnicities? Are you fascinated by how apps have affected our lives?

We rely on digital technologies - to read the news, maintain our friendships, and manage our work. They affect what we do and how we behave.

This Digital Cultures and Media degree focuses on how digital technologies shape society. It explores how media influences culture and communication. You'll create and analyse contemporary media like mobile apps and data visualisations. You’ll learn creative applications of immersive technologies, and how to apply them in the real world.

You will graduate with the ability to combine critical thinking with the practical digital skills needed to reshape our digital lives.

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Your course and study experience - disclaimers and terms and conditions  
Please rest assured we make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the programmes, services and facilities described. However, it may be necessary to make changes due to significant disruption, for example in response to Covid-19.

View our Academic experience page, which gives information about your Newcastle University study experience for the academic year 2022-23.

See our terms and conditions and student complaints information, which gives details of circumstances that may lead to changes to programmes, modules or University services.

Quality and ranking

Professional accreditation and recognition

All professional accreditations are reviewed regularly by their professional body.

Modules and learning

Modules

The information below is intended to provide an example of what you will study.

Most degrees are divided into stages. Each stage lasts for one academic year, and you'll complete modules totalling 120 credits by the end of each stage. 

Our teaching is informed by research. Course content may change periodically to reflect developments in the discipline, the requirements of external bodies and partners, and student feedback.

Optional module availability
Student demand for optional modules may affect availability.

Full details of the modules on offer will be published through the Programme Regulations and Specifications ahead of each academic year. This usually happens in May.

To find out more please see our terms and conditions.

You'll learn key digital skills and be introduced to cultural theories that will set you up with a strong foundation for the rest of your degree. You'll explore how digital technologies shape, and are shaped by, their cultural and political contexts. You'll learn basic skills in digital storytelling, data visualisation, interactivity, and the creative web. You'll take a module on critical writing and research to support your undergraduate learning.

Modules

Compulsory Modules	Credits
Introduction to Digital Cultures	20
Skills and Methods in Digital Cultures	20
Media Studies	20
Critical Skills in Media, Communication & Cultural Studies	20
Social and Cultural Studies	20

Optional Modules	Credits
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)	10
Data Science	10
Adventures in Digital Learning	20
Stuff: living in a material world	20
Journalism: Pasts, present and future	20
Introduction to Popular Music Studies	20
Contemporary Pop Performance	20

You’ll expand your understanding and knowledge of digital cultures. You'll develop your digital skills and put them to use working in a group to respond to a real-world problem, introduced by partners in industry.

You'll choose from a wide range of optional modules to focus in more depth on topics that interest you, such as gender, race, sexuality, social media, digital politics, and celebrity culture.

Modules

Compulsory Modules	Credits
Work Experience: Find, Apply & Succeed	0
Research Methods	20
Expanding Digital Cultures	20
Collaborating in Digital Cultures	20

Further compulsory modules

Expanding Digital Cultures (20 credits)

Collaborating in Digital Cultures  (20 credits)

Optional Modules	Credits
Histories of Photography	20
Social Geographies	20
Film Theory for Practice 1: What is cinema?	20
Film Theory for Practice 2: Why Cinema?	20
Mobile App Design Through Prototyping	20
Student Exchange: Semester 1	60
Introduction to Public Relations	20
Race, Culture and Identity	20
Sex, Sexuality and Desire	20
Popular Culture, Media & Identity	20
Visual Culture	20
Celebrity Culture	20
Conflict and Crisis Reporting	20
Free Music Practice: Experimental Pop & Interdisciplinary Performance	20
Jazz Today: Tomorrow Is The Question	20
Popular Music and Media	20
Career Development for second year students	20
Consciousness, Art and Technology	20
Philosophy and Science	10
Digital Civics	20

Further optional modules

Online User Interaction (20 credits)

Analysing Social Media Interaction (20 credits)

Media and Democracy (20 credits)

You'll put the knowledge and skills from Stages 1 and 2 into practice, undertaking your own research with the option for a dissertation or practice-based project.

You continue to take options in digital cultures and media studies, or modules from across the University.

Modules

Compulsory Modules

Digital Cultures dissertation (40 credits)

OR

Digital Cultures project (40 credits)

 

Modules

Optional Modules	Credits
Mapping the City	20
Mobile App Design Through Prototyping	20
Introduction to Public Relations	20
Race, Culture and Identity	20
Sex, Sexuality and Desire	20
Visual Culture	20
Celebrity Culture	20
Conflict and Crisis Reporting	20
Magazine Publishing	20
Youth, Identity and Contemporary Media	20
Fashion, Communication and Culture	20
Global Public Relations	20
Storytelling and Collective Psychology	20
Religion and Recent US Film	20
Advertising and Consumption	20
Power, Politics and Communication	20
Feminist Approaches to Media Analysis	20
Digital Discourses and Identity	20
Case Studies in 21st-Century Music	20
Music, Politics and Policy	20
Jazz Studies	20
Career Development for final year students	20
The Networked Society: Human Identity and Practices	20
Politics as a Way of Life	20
Critical Approaches to Policing and Security	20

Further optional modules

Cultural Phenomena and the Role of the Media, Digital/ Social Media and PR (20 credits)

Digital Communication for Cultural Institutions and Organisation (20 credits)

Critical Approaches to Media, Communication and Culture (20 credits)

Information about these graphs

We base these figures and graphs on the most up-to-date information available to us. They are based on the modules chosen by our students in 2020-21.

Teaching time is made up of:

• scheduled learning and teaching activities. These are timetabled activities with a member of staff present
• structured guided learning. These are activities developed by staff to support engagement with module learning. Students or groups of students undertake these activities without direct staff participation or supervision

Teaching and assessment

Teaching methods

Teaching is through lectures, seminars, practical skills workshops, and one-to-one tutorials.

In Year 3 you undertake a research project that accounts for one-third of your time.

Assessment methods

You'll be assessed through a combination of:

• 

  Assignments – written or fieldwork

• 

  Coursework

• 

  Dissertation or research project

• 

  Essays

• 

  Group work

• 

  Projects

• 

  Reflective report/journal

Skills and experience

Practical skills

You'll learn to create digital media such as mobile apps and data visualisations. You’ll create digital stories using immersive technologies, combining photography, film, sound and text. You'll explore the interactivity of wearable technologies and modern mobile devices and learn to look at the web as a place that can be creatively remade.

Business skills

In Stage 2 you'll apply your digital skills to real-world problems through a group-based practical project introduced by partners in industry and the charity/public sector.

Research skills

In Stage 3 you'll undertake a digital cultures practical project or dissertation. This gives you the chance to demonstrate your learned knowledge and develop your skills, techniques and understanding around independent, in-depth research.

You will learn from our expert staff who are at the forefront of the discipline. Our research themes include:

• digital communication and cultures
• feminism, intersectionality, and post-colonialism
• media, journalism and popular culture
• intimacy, sexuality, family, childhood and education
• digital labour, platform economies and neoliberalism
• media ethics

 

Opportunities

Study abroad

Experience life in another country by choosing to study abroad as part of your degree. You’ll be encouraged to embrace fun and challenging experiences, make connections with new communities and graduate as a globally aware professional, ready for your future.

You can choose to spend up to a year studying at a partner institution overseas.

If you choose to study abroad, it will extend your degree by a year. 

Find out more about study abroad

Work placement

Get career ready with a work placement and leave as a confident professional in your field. You can apply to spend 9 to 12 months working in any organisation in the world, and receive University support from our dedicated team to secure your dream placement. Work placements take place between stages 2 and 3.

You'll gain first-hand experience of working in the sector, putting your learning into practice and developing your professional expertise.

If you choose to take a work placement, it will extend your degree by a year, and your degree title will show you have achieved the placement year. A work placement is not available if you're spending a year studying abroad. Placements are subject to availability.

Find out more about work placements

Facilities and environment

Facilities

As a student of Media, Journalism and Film Practice at Newcastle University, you will join a vibrant community in the School of Arts and Cultures' Media, Culture, Heritage department. 

You will be based in the Armstrong Building and Film@CultureLab, right at the heart of our city-centre campus. You'll be close to all of Newcastle University's amenities, as well as being just a five-minute walk to Newcastle's main street, Northumberland Street. 

You'll have access to:

• professional-standard video and audio equipment, studio space and AV-editing facilities
• specialist computing facilities, including industry-standard software, such as Adobe Creative Suite
• a mobile studio suite

Support

You'll have the support of an academic member of staff as a personal tutor throughout your degree to help with academic and personal issues.

You will also benefit from the expert knowledge and skills of our dedicated team of technicians based in Culture Lab.

Peer mentors will help you in your first year. They are fellow students who can help you settle in and answer any questions you have when starting university.

Your future

The critical, creative and analytical skills you’ll develop will make you an attractive hire in almost any graduate job in the contemporary job market. You’ll be well suited to a career where innovation, collaboration and constant reskilling is key. This could mean you go on to work for:

• creative industries
• charities
• advocacy
• think tanks

You would be well suited to work in web, app or UX design, copywriting, content creation or strategy. Your understanding of the media, digital skills and ability to tell stories in a new way will be an asset as a journalist as well as in publishing, advertising, marketing and PR.

Make a difference

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Careers support

Our award-winning Careers Service is one of the largest and best in the country, and we have strong links with employers. We provide an extensive range of opportunities to all students through our ncl+ initiative.

Visit our Careers Service website

Recognition of professional qualifications outside of the UK

From 1 January 2021 there is an update to the way professional qualifications are recognised by countries outside of the UK

Tuition fees and scholarships

Tuition fees for 2023 entry (per year)

Qualification: BA Honours
Home students full time 3 years	Tuition fees (per year) 9250
International students full time 3 years	Tuition fees (per year) 21600

Home Fee Students

The maximum fee that we are permitted to charge for home fee-paying students is set by the UK government.

As a general principle, you should expect the tuition fee to increase in each subsequent academic year of your course, subject to government regulations on fee increases and in line with inflation.

Read more about fees and funding

International Fee Students

Depending on your residency history, if you’re a student from the EU, other EEA or a Swiss national, with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, you’ll normally pay the ‘Home’ tuition fee rate and may be eligible for Student Finance England support.

EU students without settled or pre-settled status will normally be charged fees at the ‘International’ rate and will not be eligible for Student Finance England support.

If you are unsure of your fee status, check out the latest guidance here.

Read more about fees and funding

Scholarships

We support our EU and international students by providing a generous range of Vice-Chancellor's automatic and merit-based scholarships. See our undergraduate scholarship page for more information.

Year abroad and additional costs

For programmes where you can spend a year on a work placement or studying abroad, you will receive a significant fee reduction for that year. 

Some of our degrees involve additional costs which are not covered by your tuition fees.

Find out more about:

• different tuition fees
• additional costs

Scholarships

Find out more about:

• scholarships for UK, EU and international students
• Student Loans and Government financial support for UK and EU students

How to apply

Apply through UCAS

To apply for undergraduate study at Newcastle University, you must use the online application system managed by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). All UK schools and colleges, and a small number of EU and international establishments, are registered with UCAS. You will need:

• the UCAS name and institution codes for Newcastle University (NEWC/N21)
• the UCAS code for the course you want to apply for
• the UCAS 'buzzword' for your school or college

If you are applying independently, or are applying from a school or college which is not registered to manage applications, you will still use the Apply system. You will not need a buzzword.

Apply through UCAS

Apply through an agent

International students often apply to us through an agent. Have a look at our recommended agents and get in touch with them.

Visit our International pages