Why you should study this course
This course has five unique features:
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Explores a mix of creative and technical skills and knowledge development through a range of modules that will take you through the entire software development workflow from concept to user testing. In particular our creative hack lab modules offer the opportunity to tackle a project from concept to user testing during a one-week intensive course.
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On this course you are issued with a media technology pack – currently a MacBook – to be used in line with the 24/7 mobile learning scheme, and pre-loaded with a suite of industry-standard software including Adobe Creative Suite (terms and conditions apply).
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Access to high standard professional media equipment via our Media Loan Shop, with equipment ranging from the most basic audio recorders, to a highly professional camera line up (all subject to availability), with our technicians who could support you and give advice and instructions for ease of use.
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Hear from expert guest speakers from the creative industries, including artists, performers, media producers, photographers and journalists who will look to share their experiences of recording and publishing their work.
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Past staff and students have a strong track record of collaborative applied projects with organisations including Genesys, Jaguar Land Rover, Coventry Telegraph, Rolls-Royce, BBC Big Screens and BT.
What you'll study
Merging the creative and the technical, this course will help you to develop skills and practices suited to a range of fields including the Internet of Things (IoT), immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and web, mobile and games app development.
The Digital Media BA course is different from a traditional programming or computer science course as its focus is primarily on creative production in the field of media using digital tools in 3D modelling, application development, immersive technologies, and audio and video production among others.
You will engage in practical hack labs, where you will work through the entire iteration process for digital projects such as reinventing classic arcade games or deploying mobile applications to a client brief. Using the principles of Agile software development, this will enable you to develop your project management and user testing knowledge and skills.
The course focuses on laying a flexible foundation of skills which will prepare you for a changing digital and technological landscape. On successful graduation, you can seek out roles in digital marketing and advertising, IoT development, UI/UX design and testing, web and mobile app development and, increasingly, in augmented reality/virtual reality development.
Year one
In the first year, you’ll be introduced to the core principles of digital media practice. With a focus on the Internet, we’ll look at how to produce different forms of media, how to apply and publish these and methods of local media distribution, such as microcomputers and beacon technology. We consider the idea of audiences, their characteristics, needs and expectations.
Modules
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Creative Digital Media: Context and Practice - 30 credits
This module introduces you to the core skills and knowledge necessary to effectively produce, distribute and analyse a range of digital media. You will examine how people, ideas and content flow through digital environments and use this knowledge to develop a range of digital media artefacts. It includes looking at the history of the development of the digital media landscape and how it has challenged traditional notions of production and consumption. As part of this, you will experiment with producing different forms of multimedia content including digital video, sound, web and other forms.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Digital Storytelling and Media Design - 20 credits
This module will investigate the effects of immersive forms of digital media on storytelling by exploring areas such as Augmented Reality, Pervasive and Immersive Media, Locative Media and Interactive Storytelling. You will engage in practical experiments that play with the complex interactions between digital technologies, interface design and participation in digital storytelling.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Creative Hacklab – 30 credits
This is an intensive real-world simulation module where you will be handed a live industry brief (either commercial, artistic, social or cultural) with a problem to solve. The goal will be, by the end of the module, to create a ‘rapid prototype’ solution that can be presented to the client or wider public. Modelled on a ‘hackathon’, where coders, designers, project managers and others collaborate intensively on a project, this module will enable you to learn a number of areas including project management techniques, working to a creative brief, collaboration and problem-solving.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Understanding Digital Media - 20 credits
This module will introduce you to the meaning, importance and use of a number of fundamental concepts within the broad fields of network media analysis and production. You will be introduced to the history, development and use of a series of key concepts that have been employed to understand how meaning within media objects has been produced, consumed and interpreted.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Web Design and Development – 10 credits
The module aims to provide you with critical and technical skills and understanding in the design, development and testing of websites using front-end and back-end technologies. The module will expose you to the latest design principles, technologies, development techniques and best practices used in contemporary web authoring projects.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Fundamentals in Digital Media – 20 credits
This module will enable you to think critically about digital media. You will be asked to engage in key debates through key readings as well as combining theoretical.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
Year two
The second year focuses on your creative and professional development, introducing you to the demands of operating within the professional sphere of digital media through a series of live and simulated projects and assignments. For example, current students are looking at a project incorporating the use of location-based media (LBM), which uses beacons placed throughout specific locations within the City of Manchester, in its year as European City of Science, to deliver key pieces of targeted local information.
Modules
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Contextualising Digital Media – 20 credits
This module explores the rise of Web 2.0 and the end of cyberspace, as well as the development of the social profile and location resulting in the ‘devirtualisation’ of the internet. It explores concepts of mobility, private and public spaces, democracy and technological distinctiveness. It examines the implications of media and technological development in the context of big data, machine learning, and the algorithm. You will be asked to critically engage with these concepts through your practice as well as engaging in debates about the nature of digital media.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Professional Experience – 10 credits
Professional Experience aims to provide you with the opportunity to develop skills and to foster flexible and adaptable approaches towards employment and professional opportunities. You will be encouraged to consider your professional career and identify possible future pathways, which may combine different employment modes (self employed, contract, freelance and employed). Where appropriate, you will be encouraged to start a freelance photography practice as the first step towards a professional career after graduation. You will be offered support in this process and will learn about managing yourself as a business in a future that will require you to adopt portfolio careers.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Digital Marketing and Campaigning – 20 credits
This module will enable you to learn and utilise range of concepts and practices from the area of digital marketing and campaigning. You will learn the underpinning principles of market research and its relationship to the marketing mix, techniques for audience and consumer research and how to implement a digital marketing campaign. You will explore and analyse the art and techniques of the persuasion industries, drawing on a range of academic disciplines including marketing science, psychology and behavioural economics.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Creative Hacklab Project – 40 credits
This is a real-world simulation module where you will be handed a live industry research brief (either commercial, artistic, social or cultural) and respond to it within an intensive timeframe. It builds on previous learning, enabling further development of your creative, communication and research skills and applying them to a live project within an international context.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework, presentation
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Transmedia Practice - 20 credits
This module will explore how the convergence of media forms has created a number of ways to tell and circulate stories across the digital landscape. You will analyse a range of approaches to contemporary transmedia and inter-media storytelling as well as looking at how ‘official’ narratives are remediated, reconstituted and circulated by fans. It will also explore how convergence within the traditional cultural industries has led to new approaches to storytelling, content development and distribution strategies.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
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Exploring Mobile Application Design – 20 credits
This module explores mobile application design and development fundamentals, focusing on principles of design and development techniques for specific platforms and a basic to intermediate level. You will engage critically with the notion of mobile media and examine ways in which design and development techniques can be used to create mobile media experiences.
Optional
Assessment: coursework, presentation
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Exploring Immersive Production- 20 credits
This module explores the notion of immersion and examines ways in which you can employ techniques of narrative storytelling and media design to create immersive experiences across a range of digital media forms. The module approaches immersive production in a technology-agnostic way, experimenting with digital platforms and formats as a means to interrogate immersive practice in fields such as immersive journalism, theatre, film, sound, and extended reality.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
Final year
By your final year, you will have a sound understanding of all forms of professional media production and interactivity, as diverse as virtual reality and apps to social networking and physical computing. You will have the chance to try to enhance your research and innovation skills by working on your own Final Digital Media Research Project on a topic of your choosing.
Modules
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Media in Context – 20 credits
This module examines the relationship between public policy, media law and the communications industries. It concentrates on the way legislative acts and regulatory instruments influence the structure, operation and practice of communication professionals and the way that norms and values that are contextualized through the political process.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Research and Development in Digital Media – 10 credits
The module aims to develop your ability to research and develop the theoretical, conceptual and professional issues that underpin digital media practice within a chosen area of research. This will involve looking at and utilising a range of digital research methods to undertake critical analysis on enquiry-led research and development projects.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Final Digital Media Research Project – 40 credits
This module gives you the opportunity to gain substantial practical and professional experience in one or more areas of digital media research and practice. You will further develop and realise the ideas generated within the Research and Development in Digital Media module. Your digital media project will be based upon the project proposal and development work submitted for this module and will culminate in an extensive body of work or practice using your chosen form, or forms, of specialist digital media practice and theory.
Compulsory
Assessment: coursework
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Modelling and Animation – 20 credits
This course aims to provide you with a chance to explore various modelling and animation methods, and develop a showreel of work to help you into your chosen industry. You will apply your knowledge to the planning and production of a collaborative modelling and animation project within a specified timescale and in response to a specified brief and stimuli. You will be able to develop skills in modelling and animation by acquiring the principal knowledge on texturing, lighting, camera, bones, physics, dynamic control, and other relevant 3D concepts.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
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Critical Game Design and Development – 20 credits
This module explores the fastest growing art form in the world: game design. The concept of ‘game’ is defined broadly here and refers to a wide scope of interactive play; with the module covering both theoretical aspects and best practices of game development. Whether you wish to develop an indie ‘metroidvania’, the next Pokémon Go or a boardgame with app functionality, this module will provide the tools necessary for you to realise your vision, specialise your skillset and begin a career as a game designer.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
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Immersive Production – 20 credits
This module engages critically with the notion of immersion and examines ways in which you can employ techniques of narrative storytelling and media design to create immersive experiences across a range of digital media forms. The module approaches immersive production in a technology-agnostic way, experimenting with digital platforms and formats as a means to interrogate immersive practice in fields such as immersive journalism, theatre, film, sound, and extended reality.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
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Data Design and Visualisation – 20 credits
The module aims to provide you with the opportunity to develop your knowledge and skills in digital research methods. This will involve experimenting with techniques and practices of data collection and analysis, as well as data visualisation and design. This module will enable you to develop abilities in analysing information, collecting and evaluating data, and to critically reflect on, comprehend and create practice-based digital media research work within a chosen specialism. You will work in small teams and encouraged to be self-reliant and develop methods of evaluation, reflection and critique.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
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Internet of Things in Digital Media – 20 credits
This module examines the ways in which the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the way we conceptualise, produce, disseminate and consume digital media. You will be asked to critically engage with the implications of connected devices in a variety of contexts and contend with debates around privacy, ethics, the cloud, data, connectedness and immersion. From a practice perspective, the module looks at ways to approach IoT development from beacons and push data to intelligent assistants and embedded connectivity.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
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Mobile Application Design and Development – 20 credits
This module explores mobile application design and development, focusing on principles of design and development techniques for specific platforms. You will engage critically with the notion of mobile media and examine ways in which design and development techniques can be used to create mobile media experiences. The module approaches mobile app development through experimentation with digital platforms and formats. Project management techniques will also be explored and applied. You will be asked to conceptualise, design, develop and test a mobile application.
Optional
Assessment: coursework
