THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2017/2018

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Social and Political Science : Postgrad (School of Social and Political Studies)

Postgraduate Course: Popular Music Technology and Society (PGSP11261)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Social and Political Science CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryPopular music is one of the primary leisure and entertainment resources in late modern society and understanding links between technology, music and everyday life is an attractive way to exercise the sociological imagination. The course offers a representative selection of ways of studying popular music from a broadly cultural sociological perspective that attunes itself to the question of technology. It will be based on a mix of theoretical and empirical approaches to popular music?s socio-technical organisation and its active role in ordering everyday life. The aim is to assess how music is created and consumed in increasingly complex networks of culture, examine the changing sites and locales that situate or circulate musical forms and describe the challenges faced by music sociology as it grapples with an increasingly digitalised and globalised social and technological landscape.

Course description Not entered
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2017/18, Available to all students (SV1) Quota:  None
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Lecture Hours 20, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 176 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) The course will be assessed by way of two essays; 1) 1,500 word essay, worth 25% of total course mark; 2) a long essay, of between 3,500-4,000 words, worth 75% of total course mark.
Feedback Not entered
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, post-graduate students should be able to:

1) Evaluate a range of concepts and approaches within sociology to the development of popular music.

2) Critically assess accounts of technological innovation in changing forms of musical production and consumption.

3) Recognise the formation of popular music genres as a social accomplishment dependent on micro and macro social processes.

4) Assess the relevance of theory in understanding the impact of popular music on everyday life.

5) Recognise and comment on issues raised by the digitalisation of popular music, such as changing practices of music making and listening.

6) Critically reflect on their own experiences of popular music as producers or consumers.

7) Recognise and explain the inseparability of humans and machines in the creative process.

8) Summarise key historical moments in the development of technologies of popular music, from the phonograph and the microphone to MIDI and MySpace.

Reading List
None
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr Nicholas Prior
Tel: (0131 6)50 3991
Email: n.prior@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMs Nicole Develing-Bogdan
Tel: (0131 6)51 5067
Email: v1ndeve2@exseed.ed.ac.uk
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