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Digital Life and Objects - TFT00113M

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  • Department: Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
    • See module specification for other years: 2023-24

Module summary

This module will explore an array of digital objects and artefacts that shape, make, and unmake culture through different forms of technical mediation: networks; databases; protocols; cookies; memes; apps; virtual environments; digital files; social media posts; objects on the Web; and others. Across weekly lectures and seminars, the module will explore key digital artefacts and reflect on how they shape contemporary life and inform critical practice. This module will enable students to gain a fuller understanding of how digital life is co-created, sustained, and transformed.

Related modules

None

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2024-25

Module aims

This module aims to:

  • Provide an understanding of the many distinct artefacts, infrastructures, and sustaining labour practices that constitute contemporary digital life and its cultural dimensions.
  • Explore how digital objects reciprocally shape, and are shaped by, the cultural, industrial, regulatory, and political contexts in which they emerge and operate.
  • Critically engage and think through the origins, impacts, and cultural implications of current and future digital objects.

Module learning outcomes

Through completion of this module, you are expected to be able to:

  • Identify and interpret new objects of digital culture research and their changing nature.
  • Demonstrate an ability to analyse new objects of research using appropriate methodologies.
  • Critically reflect on, analyse, and evaluate the current and future impact of digital artefacts.
  • Understand and reflect on the debates of how digital objects and artefacts shape contemporary culture.
  • Produce independent research and writing on new objects produced by digitization.

Module content

Some of the topics this module may explore over its duration include:

  • Hardware and Software Platforms
  • Network Infrastructures
  • Digital Memory
  • Search Engines
  • Sensory Systems and Devices
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Virtual Environments
  • Electronic Waste

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 70
Groupwork 30

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 30
Essay/coursework 70

Module feedback

You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times. You will receive formative feedback on your presentation and participation skills over the course of the module during seminars.

Indicative reading

  • Gabrys, J. (2016) Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet. UMP.
  • Hu, Tung-Hui (2015) A Prehistory of the Cloud. MIT.
  • Mattern, S., (2021) The City is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences. PUP.
  • Ng, J. (2021) The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie. AUP.
  • Parks, L. and Starosielski, N. (eds) (2015) Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures. UIP.
  • Starosielski, N. (2015) The Undersea Network. DUP.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.