Skip to main content

Project BA Digital Media

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
  • Convenor: Hilary Smith
  • Assessment: an 8000-word dissertation or a practice-led project comprising a practical submission and 4000-word essay (100%)

Module description

The final-year project for the BA Digital Media programmes provides you with an opportunity to independently explore a subject of your own choosing in depth. You can undertake either: 

  • an academic project or
  • a practice-led project.

An academic project involves addressing a problem or question through an extended dissertation. You will develop familiarity with, and conduct a critical evaluation of, the theoretical and methodological issues related to a defined research question, usually conducting a review of the related scholarly literature. In most cases, you will also carry out some form of data collection and/or analysis. This may include interviews, ethnographic observations, or textual/visual/online/computational analyses. 

A practice-led project combines a well-defined digital media practice component with a reflective essay, where you put the practice component of your project into a well-developed academic and theoretical context. The form the practice component might take can vary (e.g. a short video or audio documentary, a web publication or platform, a mobile application, a digital media branding strategy, a portfolio of writing, or another form of media work), but in all cases will involve either a submission of a specific media object, or a thoroughly documented presentation of your media-related practice.

Indicative syllabus

  • Formulating a research question/topic
  • Defining a practice element
  • Appropriately scoping the project
  • Researching and reviewing literature
  • Choosing, accounting for and justifying methodologies
  • Research techniques and technologies
  • Conducting various forms of data collection
  • Principles and approaches to data analysis
  • Issues of format and presentation

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will have:

  • an understanding of, and engaged with, interdisciplinary approaches to digital culture and media
  • awareness of distinct theoretical perspectives and the relations and tensions between them
  • awareness of the historical and/or contemporary developments in media-related practices, technologies, content and organisational forms.