Screen Cultures and Media Practices (Changing title to Digital Media Arts in September 2013) BA/BSc (Hons)

About the course

Digital Media Arts is for people who want to be the thinkers, critics, creators, commentators and curators of tomorrow. The course combines cultural understandings of the screen with the creative use of digital media processes, such as image manipulation, web site and app creation, interactive media and games, 2D animation and digital sound and video. Drawing on a wide range of ideas from cultural, media, film, literature, communication and games studies, Digital Media Arts equips students with a full range of flexible media skills.

By exploring digital media across both current and emergent platforms, the pathway critically examines today’s global, networked, media culture. It is suited to those interested in developing a set of sharp, hybrid skills appropriate to a constantly evolving and media-savvy employment culture which values flexibility, imagination, initiative and innovation. Successful graduates will become creative innovators in, and contributors to, the digital media world of tomorrow.

Why choose this course?

• Digital Media Arts is for students who want to make their careers in the new media professions.
• The course creates thinkers, critics, creators, commentators, curators and producers of digital media content.
• Digital Media Arts develops theoretical knowledge alongside digital arts practice.
• Students will have the opportunity to create podcasts, web pages, posters, video sequences, 2D animated and interactive artefacts, social media content, and much more.
• Experimental practice and working across different disciplines is encouraged.
• Frequent opportunities for collaboration with students on the Interactive Media Design degree.
• You will work both individually and as part of a team to develop a range of communication, prototyping and research and development skills.
• Find out for yourself and watch our video!
• Visit our course blog to read about news, events and students' activities.

Study routes

• Sandwich, 4 Years
• Sandwich,
• Full Time,
• Full Time, 3 Years

Locations

• University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield

Careers

This programme gives you flexibility in your studies at university resulting in flexibility in your choice of career at the end of your course. You will acquire a much broader base of knowledge and experience that could really widen your employment opportunities. Graduates have found employment in diverse roles across a range of media corporations such as ITV, Saffron Digital, Daymedia and ENVY Post Production. Over 72% of our graduates had entered employment six months after graduation, and a further 17% had gone on to further study or training.

Teaching methods

You'll experience a wide variety of learning styles on this course. During your studies you'll develop your capacity for self-directed study and your interpersonal skills. We particularly emphasise the importance of developing design and creative abilities, structured research, well-prepared written and verbal presentations and computer literacy. Alongside elements of lectures, seminars, tutorials and computer workshops, you also learn through case studies, individual and group projects and other student centred activities. In your final year you will normally have the opportunity to practice your independent study skills by completing a Major project and dissertation.

Work Placement

Placements are a valuable means of establishing industrial contacts and gaining an insight into the commercial reality of a chosen discipline. We have a long history of students working with industry to supplement the taught university curriculum with real life on the job experience. This has seen students working right across the creative industries sector: in graphic, product and interior design consultancies, working as artist in residence in galleries, producing props and sets for the film & TV industry, shadowing teachers in education, working with commercial photographers through to students working right across the Music industry.

We expect students interested in obtaining a work placement; to be proactive, to self-initiate this interest and to communicate and work with programme staff in their identification of companies and organisations that are able to provide the appropriate range of experiences and opportunities. We value the opportunity and benefits of the placement experience highly and as such, we encourage all students to consider obtaining a placement as part of their course. However, we recognise that this may not be a viable option for a number of reasons. In addition, we are not able to guarantee that all students will undertake a work placement as part of their studies.

Professional Accreditations

Skillset Media Academy

Structure

Year 1

Core Modules

• Screen Moves

  Moving image artefacts are vital elements of screen culture, they are a major form of communicating ideas and facts, telling stories, expressing and forming opinions, creating cultural identity, solidarity and alignments. Moving image extends well beyond broadcast media and they are increasingly important elements of social network sites, as short, small screen works on mobile devices, in vj sessions, street performances, and as elements of exhibitions and installations. With the digital shift, the creation of moving images has become increasingly accessible in economic and technical terms, and the distribution of moving image artefacts has been radically reframed by the internet and the inclusion of the moving image in everyday life. In this module students develop a range of media skills in inventing, developing, creating, and making video and animated material and accompanying sound elements. This includes video camera skills and digital video editing, the use of stop frame and vector animation processes, and the use of compositing/special effects software packages. Alongside these practical skills they develop also a body of knowledge, understanding and skills in the reading and analysis of moving image artefacts, in the role and use of narrative, collage, juxtaposition and other ways of creating meaning. A body of skills in storyboarding and scripting for short moving image artefacts underpin effective organisation of time and use of resources. Coursework submissions emphasise the creative, inventive and innovative use of moving image screen artefacts for storytelling, documentary, music/dance promotion and other purposes especially in the context of 'small screen' artefacts for mobile devices and social network sites, in non-broadcast video displays such as exhibitions, street performance or vj sessions.

• Pixel, Image and Sound

  Imaginative responses and creative inventiveness in making images and sounds are at the heart of this course. Through project work students develop skills of communicating ideas, facts and feelings through pixel-based and vector images and sound media. A series of lectures, demonstrations and structured workshop learning establishes a body of knowledge, working practices, and a range of skills which enable the realisation of project outcomes through workshop sessions and during independent study. Lectures on technology centred topics ensure an understanding and knowledge of underlying concepts and the ownership of a vocabulary of terms used in digital image and sound. Students work to defined briefs that require visual and sonic research, the development of ideas through outlines and sketches, the evaluation of alternatives, the gathering and creation of source materials, and the final realisation of project outcomes and their presentation. Work is considered in terms of its qualities and its fitness for purpose in a given context. Projects are defined in terms of audiences, modes of distributions, the contexts in which they will be received, and in terms of contemporary practices that use pixel image and sound. Students develop their knowledge of traditions of practice and the contemporary context through the discussion and analysis of media artefacts drawn from diverse fields.

• Media in Mind: histories, theories, contexts

  Understanding how examples of interactive and screen media work to communicate ideas and feelings, and to shape experiences, is crucial to effective creative practice within the field. Media in Mind extends knowledge and understanding of the role of interactive, screen and related media as fundamental aspects of contemporary culture. It approaches this through a consideration of the human subject, a mapping of media histories, traditions and processes, and an exploration of the emergence of the modern world. Focusing on theories drawn from communication and cultural studies, and applying these theories to specific media artefacts, the module enables students to develop informed and systematic approaches to analytical thinking, together with an ability to communicate critical responses clearly and accurately in a variety of forms. The module is structured around a core series of lectures and seminars, with assessment based on the demonstration of skills in enquiry, information handling, analysis, and argument.

• Timelines:An Archaeology of New Media

  This module examines the emergence of screen cultures from around 1850 to the present day. A programme of lectures and seminars proposes an 'archaeological' approach in which students are introduced to a series of 'tools' with which to investigate the history of screen media. These tools will provide a range of different perspectives from 'macro' conceptual overviews and timeline chronologies to the 'micro' examination of screen media artefacts themselves. Through an investigation of antecedents and precursor forms, an understanding of the various social and technological factors which have shaped contemporary screen media culture are brought into focus. Consideration is given to the impact of emerging screen media on culture in the broader sense. Assessment will take the form of two coursework assignments, one formative and one summative in each semester.

Optional

Year 2

Core Modules

• Web Communities and Interactive Cultures

  Interactivity is a defining mode of screen experience, the web is an increasingly dominant means of finding information, entertainment and distractions, a place for forming and/or resisting identity, a sense of belonging and community, for creating wealth of many kinds. In the form of games, search engines, social networking sites, and many other established and new emergent formats, web and interactive artefacts are key elements of networked cultures. In this module students develop knowledge, practical skills and a range of abilities to create, understand and evaluate web and interactive media artefacts and the things we use them for. In particular this module engages with on-line communities and identities, interactive story-telling in text, image and video, and the communication of ideas, feelings and information through interactive media. Coursework submissions emphasise the creative, inventive and innovative use of web and interactive media along with the evaluation and critique of the ways they are used.

• Connections and Perspectives: exploring Interactive Media and Screen Cultures

  Building on learning in the Media in Mind module at Level 4, Connections and Perspectives further develops knowledge and critical understanding of the contemporary uses of interactive, screen and related media forms. Requiring students to identify their own areas of critical interest in relation to both the long traditions and contemporary contexts of the discipline area, the module is crucial as an introduction to the kind of ‘open’ critical enquiry that will characterise Level 6 contextual study. A core series of ‘catalyst’ lectures and seminars introduces new critical, theoretical and contextual ideas, while supporting students in their own exploration of the broad field of interactive media and screen cultures. Undertaking a detailed survey of traditions, locations, and perspectives, students define a topic of study, formulate a research question or title, and carry out a carefully documented enquiry leading to the submission of an ‘essay’-style outcome in an appropriate form.

• Traditions and Locations

  This module encourages students to further integrate the various perspectives of practical, theoretical and contextual activities, and to see this as a vital part of their own innovative and well-informed practice. The module provides students with the opportunity to make an in-depth examination of one of a range of theoretical positions that inform recent and contemporary practice in their own field, and to use such debate to reflect critically upon their own work and to locate their practice within the context of historical, social, cultural and professional currents. Particular attention is given to the analysis of ideas that specifically relate to students' own work. Assessment is typically based around the submission of an extended study of a particular practitioner, genre, group, form, theme, theoretical perspective or cultural issue.

• Teamwork Practices

  Few people involved in the creation of Multimedia artefacts work on their own, more usually mixed-discipline groups are involved in the development of ideas and in the realisation of the artefacts. The effective working of such groups requires teamworking abilities and skills and an understanding of such things as leadership and membership roles, interpersonal dynamics and shared objectives. This module requires that students develop the skills and practices needed to contribute effectively to shared enterprises either through teamwork or through working with clients. In Semester A teamwork projects enable students to develop those skills and to reflect upon them. In Semester B students may undertake work experience or 'live' projects, or follow an extended teamwork project within the module. Up to 50% of this module, usually the work in Semester B may be drawn from work experience or work placement, or take the form of 'live' projects undertaken with an external agency such as a commercial company or a social or cultural organisation.

• Windows,Mirrors and Pathways

  This module introduces students to ideas of representation and narrative from classical times to the present day. It traces a history of mimetic theory, dealing with the long tradition of realism and considering alternative viewpoints and practices. Models of narrative interpretation are considered and applied, alongside concepts from the related fields of interactivity and ludology, and relevant critical procedures drawn from diverse academic disciplines. The socio-political implications of representation are explored in relation to such issues as race, gender, and sexuality. Although the primary concern of the module is with visual representation and narrative, the domains of the aural, the verbal and the material are also explored. Lectures and seminars use examples from a range of relevant screen and other media to demonstrate and test the theoretical models and contextual viewpoints under discussion. Assessment is by two summative assignments, one in each semester, these being supported by appropriate formative tasks.

Optional

• C&CS L5 Creative Arts

  This module will run in parallel programme specific Critical and Cultural Studies modules at Level 5 during Semester A, should there be a need for the school to provide a single semester (15 credits) option for its students. For example, to aid in transitional arrangements stemming from the development of C&CS in the school (2012/13), or to provide a 1 semester option to international students who will be studying at UH as part of an exchange from a recognised partner institution.

• CCS L5 Creative Arts

  This module will run in parallel programme specific Critical and Cultural Studies modules at Level 5 during Semester B, should there be a need for the school to provide a single semester (15 credits) option for its students. For example, to aid in transitional arrangements stemming from the development of C&CS in the school (2012/13), or to provide a 1 semester option to international students who will be studying at UH as part of an exchange from a recognised partner institution.

Year 3

Core Modules

• Sandwich Year (Creative Arts)

  The optional 'Sandwich' placement year may be undertaken between the levels 5 and 6. Students undertake the placement within a commercial, public or not for profit setting that is able to provide an appropriate learning experience related to the creative and cultural industries. A placement could take a variety of forms, including: * working in an external organisation; * working with a University company or professional team within the University; * self-employment within defined context and externally refereed. The placement duration would typically be sustained for at least 48 weeks, though may be sustained for a full year. While the Faculty/School actively supports the placement process, ultimately it is the placement provider that will agree to manage and select students, normally through an interview process. During the placement a member of the academic staff will be assigned to the student as a tutor and will monitor the student's progress during the placement period.

Optional

Year 4

Core Modules

• Project Realisation

  This module is about the realisation and evaluation of a project idea which has usually been defined and planned for in the preceding Project Planning and Management module. Here the student works through that project idea - developing the idea and content further as appropriate, working creatively to produce artefact(s) and other materials, working iteratively to appraise progress and plan the next stages, to manage effective documentation, and to evaluate both work to date and the final outcomes.

• Project Planning and Management

  This module presents students with the opportunity to define and refine the subject area of a project they will undertake later in their studies using planning and management techniques appropriate to their project. Students are required to propose a project and investigate aspects of its planning, content and contexts. The proposal process is aligned with industrial and professional practices where a project seeks funding from external agencies, or through internal commissioning processes, or is proposed in response to a call for participation. The assessment includes the production of background development work (aesthetic and visual design, technical and exhibition specification, subject content and analysis, audiences, time and project planning) leading to the realisation of the project artefact in a later module. There may also be the option to take an accredited Project Management qualification as a part of the module.

• Critical and Cultural Studies: L6 Enquiry / Report / Essay (Screen)

  The content of this module allows students to engage with research, enquiry or critical processes appropriate for their subject area. Students select a topic related to their area of study as the basis for an extended enquiry. Usually the topic will have a close relationship with some of the ideas, approaches and content of the student's final project. This work may explore ideas, examine artefacts or set out to solve a problem through an enquiry of some kind. The module allows students to develop their broad understanding of issues of significance, meaning and value that are implicit in their project idea or to engage in a process arising from a question or problem they have identified from their subject area aimed at providing recommendations or explanations which are supported by valid evidence. The module is delivered through a mix of lectures, seminars and individual tutorials with a strong emphasis on independent learning.

• WebArts

  The characteristics and features of the World Wide Web, its network technologies and its patterns of data flow, the interactivity and multimedia nature of the users experiences , are exploited by many kinds of artists, programmers and hybrid practitioners. They artefacts they create may be interactive, generative, or draw on the materiality of the web itself, to construct visual and sonic experiences. During this module student study some of the commentaries on and practice of Web Arts and its resonance in contemporary culture. They create a Web Arts artefact with an accompanying text which locates the artefact in terms of contemporary practice and critical theories.

• Professional Contexts and Career Visions

  This module provides students with appropriate tools and methodologies for preparing for and finding employment and it deals with legal, ethical and economic frameworks of professional practice and employment. The module is delivered through a combination of collective enquiry activities and individual studies. In the collective enquiry students work together to investigate the broad fields of the Cultural Industries, their emergence as powerful economic forces within a knowledge economy, their geographic distribution in local, national and international contexts, typical earnings, and patterns of employment. In their individual studies they engage with job search strategies, CV preparation, job applications, interview skills training, on-line portfolios and presence, networking strategies. The module includes several forms of peer appraisal in such things as role play interviews, reading through the CVs and application letters of fellow students. These activities provide feedback and critique and are used as a means of developing student's self-awareness and critical perception of themselves and their performances in the context of others.

• Emergent Media and Markets

  A characteristic feature of Screen Cultures is a rapidly changing infrastructure of adopted technologies and arrays of devices integrated into day-to-day living, and the appropriation of technologies for local uses within a globalised culture. New things come, older ones drift away. The markets for new media devices are distinctly volatile, led by early adopters and fashion trends, by fetishised style-status objects and their conspicuous display. This module looks at two important issues. Firstly it considers ways of understanding the emergence and adoption of new media technologies and devices. Secondly, through a survey of contemporary materials ranging from academic writing to popular culture imagery, it encourages the student to speculate about the 'next big thing', extrapolating from current trends to anticipate new devices, new markets, new patterns of use and consumption, new modes for wealth generation, and to consider the effects of international activities and the phenomena of global cultures. The assessment is in the form of a 5 minute small screen video production for display on a mobile media device (a vidcast artefact) in which students present a briefing report about an emergent Screen Culture phenomenon and its likely cultural effects as if for a news casting service.

Optional

Fees & funding

Fees 2013

UK/EU Students

Full time: £8,500 for the 2013 academic year

International Students

Discounts are available for International students if payment is made in full at registration

View detailed information about tuition fees

Additional course costs

In addition to the fees there are some compulsory course attached to this course:

Year 1
Pens, Pencils, folders, sketchbooks - £30-£50
External hard drive - £60-£100

Year 2
Pens, Pencils, folders, sketchbooks - £30-£50
Visits to firms and exhibitions - £30-£40

Year 3
Pens, Pencils, folders, sketchbooks - £40-£60
Visits to firms and exhibitions - £30-£40

Scholarships

• National Scholarship Programme

Find out more about scholarships for UK/EU and international students

Other financial support

Find out more about other financial support available to UK and EU students

Living costs / accommodation

The University of Hertfordshire offers a great choice of student accommodation, on campus or nearby in the local area, to suit every student budget.

View detailed information about our accommodation

How to apply