Undergraduate Course: Digital Culture (SCIL10079)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines the ways digital platforms and apps are transforming cultural practices. They are increasingly central to the production, circulation and consumption of culture. The lectures will explore how some of the basic components of culture (community, identity, space, social relationships, leisure) are shaped by digital technologies. |
| Course description |
This course investigates how digital technologies are reshaping our everyday lives, from the way we form relationships to how we engage with communities, media, and power structures. Exploring key sociological themes¿such as identity, gender, consumption, exclusion, and surveillance¿students will critically examine what it means to live in a digital networked society. Emphasis is placed on understanding digital culture not as a separate domain, but as a central and contested site of social life in late modernity.
Course overview
1. Introduction: What is digital culture?
2. Space and place: networks and communities
3. The digitally mediated self: Identity and social media
4. Digitally mediated relationships
5. Consuming digital culture
6. Memes, viral culture, and digital communication
7. Digital Leisure
8. Algorithms and surveillance
9. Digital cultures and inequality
10. Global digital culture
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 2 social science courses (such as Sociology, Politics, Social Policy, Social Anthropology, etc) at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 11,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 11,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
30% Short Essay (1500 words)
70% Long Essay (3000 words)
|
| Feedback |
Formative feedback will be provided throughout the course in the seminar sessions of the lecture slot. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand how various forms of culture are reshaped in and through digital technologies.
- Critically evaluate the transformative claims surrounding new digital technologies and their impacts and effects.
- Critically assess the ways digital culture(s) has resulted in new forms of social cohesion and identity construction in contemporary society.
- Demonstrate knowledge of key sociological concepts and theories necessary to analyse and explain societal changes brought about by the emergence of digital technologies.
- Apply a critical sociological understanding to the study of digital culture.
|
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Apply different theories to the interpretation and explanation of social processes or structures;
Recognise and account for the use of such theories by others;
Evaluate, critique, and build on the work of sociology scholars;
Discuss and assess empirical evidence and theoretical argument in a clear and reasoned way;
Understand the ethical implications of sociological enquiry;
Formulate sociologically informed questions including competence in using major theoretical perspectives and concepts in sociology, and their application to social life;
Judge the value and relevance of empirical evidence and theoretical argument and interpretation in sociology;
|
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Kate Orton-Johnson
Tel: (0131 6)51 1230
Email: K.orton-johnson@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Agata Lebiedzinska
Tel: (01316) 515197
Email: alebiedz@ed.ac.uk |
|
|
University Homepage