BA Digital Media and Culture

What role do the internet and its associated tools and devices play in facilitating movements for social justice? This first-year module will use examples of prominent digital-driven campaigns and causes from all over the world, from geopolitical conflicts to environmental movements to indigenous and decolonial rights campaigns - to examine the role of digital communications tools and platforms in bottom up" democratic movements, and the challenges associated with these approaches. Do technologies such as AI have a role to play in assisting social justice, or do they merely constitute surveillance? The module may examine formats including social media text, images and video, and podcasting, and these skills will also be covered."

Why is it so crucial to talk about “digital” technology, and what is important or distinctive about it? This is the standard first-year theory module that sets the tone for the course and frame other modules. It will enable students to cultivate a critical distance from digital technologies while appreciating and identifying the aspects of the digital world that they find most interesting as budding scholars and professionals.

Why is there so much hype afforded to new technologies? Who develops these technologies and who stands to gain from them? What kinds of value do they produce for users and developers alike? What is the implication of using a technology developed in one cultural context, in another? This module considers the development of new and emergent digital technologies, such as virtual and extended realities, varied forms of artificial intelligence and algorithms, cryptocurrencies and blockchains - in a global context. It examines the life cycle of new digital technologies, from the ideation and innovation process, venture capital, state sponsorship, development, manufacturing, advertising, cultural meaning, actual uses, and eventual obsolescence.

This module supports students with their transition to Higher Education. It delves into the study of Humanities, with a focus on questions concerning the colonial genealogy of Humanities and the ways of decolonising Humanities, and skills acquired in the various disciplines in the college. Students learn to identify and describe the skills they acquire in this module and during their studies in the Humanities. Students are introduced to research, reading, listening, writing, performance and communication skills through multiple disciplinary lenses, addressing the planetary questions of this age. They compare different disciplinary approaches and are encouraged to reflect on interdisciplinary approaches to studying the Humanities, grounded in different regions. This enables students to make more informed decisions in the designing of their individual educational journey. Students practice their skills and reflect on their skills through real-world projects, drawing on critical content from all disciplines in the College of Humanities at SOAS.

This module is primarily designed to introduce students who have no background in Film Studies, or in analysing cinema, to the vocabularies that have been used to understand and analyse film. It focuses on the close reading of specific films to explore their technical, visual, aural and spatial features. While it will be inevitable that we look at certain European and North American films – particularly when analysing ‘mainstream’ film language – we will put the emphasis on our regional film expertise to introduce students to important films from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The module will also introduce students to key moments in film history and to important concepts and ideas in film theory which will give them a firm grounding in order to progress to more sophisticated film studies modules.
Wherever possible, film language and concepts will be explained to students in more practical ways, for example through possible guest lectures or excursions so that students can talk to different filmmakers about how they construct the language of film within their own work, and what the history and theory of film mean to them. Students can choose whether to be assessed via written or audiovisual essays.   

This module provides students with an appreciation of the principles of marketing, including the main concepts and scope of marketing, the importance of the marketing environment, the marketing mix and the impact of marketing on competitive advantage. At the end of this module students will have an understanding of the strategic functions of marketing and an appreciation of how marketing strategies may be utilised by firms.

The module explores a number of contemporary issues such as environmental management and climate change, technological 'disruption', and political economy and the way it shapes and informs the relationship between business and society.

This module provides a critical introduction to the film and screen cultures of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Approaching film in terms of cultural identity and self-expression, this module will place screened films within a general framework of national tradition and identity and provide a platform for students to reflect on the unity and diversity of the human condition across different regions. A selection of 21st century films will be explored within their cultural, social and political context of production, exhibition and reception, and students will be guided to reflect on different functions of cinema.

In this module, students will begin their studies of the areas of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The module will use the city-spaces and urban life of London to begin to engage with cultures from these regions as they are transported and transformed as they find roots in this post-imperial centre.

This module introduces some of the major musical cultures of selected regions in Asia, Africa and the Middle East through a focus on musical instruments. We explore what instruments can tell us about society, class, and gender; symbolic systems related to music; the histories of musicians and performers; creativity and the imagination; and the transformation of “traditional” musical systems in contemporary societies and global industries.

This module introduces students to the analysis and production of creative media using digital technologies of vision, sound and beyond. Against the backdrop of broader questions of the cultural economy, it explores specific processes and techniques of digital creativity, and the cultural meaning attached to them. It will examine topics such as intellectual property, its licensing and revenue, AI-generated art and ethics, digital copying and creative re-use, memes and reusable audio, digital photography, filters and image manipulation, skeuomorphism, futurism and digital aesthetics, current and past digital artists, sampling, pastiche, glitch aesthetics and sounds.

In preparation for the final year project, this module provides students with a toolkit of practical research methods suited to the study of digital phenomena. These will include the collecting, verification, analysis and archiving digital artefacts, digitally mediated human subjects (such as remote interviews), the use of “open source intelligence” techniques, digital research ethics, transcription, quantitative measurement such as content analysis.

This module examines how digital communications and discourses are formulated, distorted or suppressed, with a focus on top down" forms, originating from governments, political parties, multinational corporations and the agencies they employ. It examines themes such as propaganda models, “fake news”, the attention economy, influence operations, audience, influencers themselves, counterhegemony, targeted advertising, AI-based deepfakes and the changing roles and forms of digital information sources such as journalism."

The course is designed to explore themes – around the emergence of the cultural industries, the commodification of art and culture and the potentialities of digital culture – that are relevant across Media, Music and the Arts, and to bring together expertise from each department in a team-taught course. It will give students an overview of the history and scale of the global cultural industries and how they intersect with politics, the economy, and ideas of the self and of community. It will use case studies drawn from across SOAS regions to ground the course in specific examples that address transnational and localised framings.

This module introduces students to the analysis and production of creative media using digital technologies of vision, sound and beyond. Against the backdrop of broader questions of the cultural economy, it explores specific processes and techniques of digital creativity, and the cultural meaning attached to them. It will examine topics such as intellectual property, its licensing and revenue, AI-generated art and ethics, digital copying and creative re-use, memes and reusable audio, digital photography, filters and image manipulation, skeuomorphism, futurism and digital aesthetics, current and past digital artists, sampling, pastiche, glitch aesthetics and sounds.

This module examines how digital communications and discourses are formulated, distorted or suppressed, with a focus on top down" forms, originating from governments, political parties, multinational corporations and the agencies they employ. It examines themes such as propaganda models, “fake news”, the attention economy, influence operations, audience, influencers themselves, counterhegemony, targeted advertising, AI-based deepfakes and the changing roles and forms of digital information sources such as journalism."

This undergraduate module on Project Management equips students with a foundational understanding of essential techniques and methodologies pivotal in modern project management settings. The curriculum is designed to cover the five key phases of project management: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closure. These phases are explored through the dual lenses of traditional waterfall methodologies and the more adaptive contemporary Agile approach, providing a well-rounded perspective. Incorporating Agile principles, the course emphasizes iterative development, flexibility, and stakeholder collaboration, which are crucial in today’s fast-paced project environments. Additionally, the module introduces the structured and process-driven approach of PRINCE2, covering its themes, principles, and processes. Aligned with PMI standards, the module prepares students for certifications like PMP or CAPM, while also laying the groundwork for potential Agile and PRINCE2 certifications.

The world is rapidly changing as digital technologies become central to everyday life. One of the most influential of these technologies is video gaming, an industry with unparalleled global reach. Over the past three decades, scholarly attention has grown around how video games both reflect and shape contemporary cultural values. Through play, gamers experience deeply immersive worlds that enable them to explore pleasure, pain, identity and meaning. At the same time, video games can reproduce cultural biases, stereotypes and rigid identity categories, often reinforcing dominant narratives rather than challenging them. This tension has generated critical debates around representation, storytelling and the ethical responsibilities of game design.
This module showcases the intellectual rigour that emerges from sustained academic engagement with video games, creating an innovative and critical pedagogical space -a ‘ludocracy’ -that fosters creativity, joy and inquiry among students and staff. As the first module of its kind to be co-created with students, it offers a state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary and Global South-centred perspective on gaming in the humanities, with a focus on themes such as conflict, subalternity and selfhood.
Students will be introduced to video games as an emerging field of academic study that continues to face resistance in conservative educational contexts. They will engage with critical game studies to analyse how games shape understandings of the human condition. The module runs for eight weeks of thematic study, culminating in a final-week workshop supporting the principal assessment. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to think across disciplines and demonstrate how academic theory and the gaming industry can productively inform and transform one another.

This module allows students to synthesise their learning in a single project that demonstrates their fulfilment of the programme’s learning outcomes. It integrates their academic knowledge with experiences beyond the classroom and combines their developing knowledge, skills, and personal interests. The project is conceived, designed, and carried out independently, with support and supervision.

Digital technologies and technological innovations, including the Internet, e-commerce and social media platforms, are rapidly moving the balance of power in relationships, through customer engagement to a ‘customer led’ phase. Technology has allowed ‘user (consumer) generated content’, however, this needs to be well managed in order to yield results. The students will be exposed to a synthesis of well-established digital marketing theories and the most recent academic research on it. This module aims at developing students’ understanding, knowledge and expertise in planning, implementing and managing successful digital marketing strategies. Module draws specific attention to the role of search engines, mobile, and social media marketing techniques on contemporary marketing practices.

Intellectual property is a collective noun for an aggregate of individual disciplines of law: copyright, sui generis databases right, designs, patents, breach of confidence and trade marks. The only common theme among them is that all are concerned with intangible creation. Although the term intellectual property also includes plant and seed varieties, geographical indication, malicious falsehood and protection of performers, these will not be dealt with in this module. 

This module will focus on urban musical practices and soundscapes, including theoretical approaches drawn from contemporary literature in ethnomusicology and associated disciplines, and will enable students to put classroom learning into practice via a guided individual field study.

This module investigates how the quest for mastery over nature—both as an end in itself and as a means of exerting dominance over others—has shaped ideas of modernity and progress, whilst fuelling global crises, especially including that of climate change. This involves tracing the historical and philosophical roots of modern ecological thought, and its intersections with pernicious structures of domination, from white supremacy and colonialism to (global) economic exploitation and speciesism. Readings for the module will span classic works in environmental history, critical race theory, and postcolonial studies, alongside emerging debates in political theory and ethics.