Digital Media Culture and Technology

The BA Digital Media Culture and Technology blends creative practice, technical skills, and media theory at Royal Holloway's Media Arts department. You can learn to code, create websites, apps, games, 3D models, digital narratives, and work with AI. All while exploring the social, cultural, political, ethical, and other implications of digital technologies.

This degree will ensure you can navigate a fast changing technological world, while providing essential skills to shape what happens next. Worlds of social media, gaming, media streaming, digital art, big data, and government are shaped by computer networks, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and technological standards are all driving a technological revolution while redefining what it means to be human.

This degree helps you to excel in digital production within a broad range of industries, across a fast changing technological domain. Our graduates have gone on to work with Google, TikTok, and BBC Radio 1, the Labour Party, Joe Media, Capgemini, KPMG, and social media fame. As a member of our academic community, you can use our vast network of connections after you leave. Also, our emphasis on project-based learning means you will make connections with many other students.

The possibilities for graduates of DMCT are vast. The UK's creative industries are its fastest-growing economic sector with an annual economic contribution of £124.6bn, according to official UK government figures. By 2030, this industry is estimated to grow by 50% and add a million new jobs. This degree will prepare you for an exciting new career in that lucrative world.

We offer a wide range of core and optional modules to tailor your degree to your interests. In the first year, you'll study the history of digital media, creative coding, web and game design, and media theory. In the second year, you'll work on a data visualisation project, explore narrative structures in screen-based media, produce a three-day digital festival, and learn about digital aesthetics and software politics. In the third year, you will be supported to produce an advanced digital media project or dissertation, with optional modules that expand possibilities for your career.

Emphasis on project-based learning.
Study how digital media works on both aesthetic and technical levels.
Industry involvement from our outstanding networks.
Immersion in 24-7 state-of-the-art media arts facilities.

From time to time, we make changes to our courses to improve the student and learning experience. If we make a significant change to your chosen course, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.

Course Modules

Year 1

• Coding for the Arts

• Introduction to Digital Media Theory

• Introduction to Digital Media Practice

• Introduction to Media Histories 1

• Introduction to Media Histories 2

Year 2

• Digital Media Communications

• Digital Aesthetics

• Data Journalism and Visualisation

You will take one from the following:

• Creative Interactive Media

• Creative Digital Arts

• Animation and Visual Effects

• Creative Social Media

Year 3

• Creativity, Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

• Media Arts Dissertation

• Advanced Digital Media Communications Project

Optional Modules

Below is a taster of some of the exciting optional modules that students on the course could choose from during this academic year. Please be aware these do change over time, and optional modules may be withdrawn or new ones added.

Year 1

• All modules are core

Year 2

• Directing Screen Fiction

• Screen Documentary

• Cinematography

• Animation and Visual Effects

• Screenwriting

• Producing Film and Television

• Creative Digital Arts

• Creative Post Production

• Film Theory: Hitchcock and Point of View

• Post-Classical Hollywood

• Television Histories

• Modern European Cinema

• Contemporary Chinese Cinemas

• Exotic Cinema: Encounters with Cultural Difference

• Modernism and Avant Garde Film

• Beyond Bollywood: Indian Cinema in a Transitional Frame

• Digital Aesthetics

• The Creative Industries

Year 3

• Directing Screen Fiction

• Screen Documentary

• Advanced Screenplay- Major Project

• Producing Film and TV

• Cinematography

• Transmedia

• Creative Digital Arts

• Creative Sound Design

• Creativity, Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

• Contemporary British Cinema 1

• Television and Digital Cultures

• Film Aesthetics 1: Issues of Interpretation and Evaluation

• Psychoanalysis and Cinema

• Film, Television and the Holocaust

• Media Technologies

• See This Sound - Audiovisuology

• Cinephilia

• 360º Cinema

• Political Cinema: From Eisenstein to Youtube

• The Poetics of Contemporary Television

• Contemporary British Cinema 2

• Film Aesthetics 2

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/undergraduate/media-arts/digital-media-culture-and-technology-ba/

You will learn through a mix of lectures, seminars, small-group tutorials, screenings, and workshops. You will also get the opportunity to explore live media practice. This includes work in London. It also includes the use of our Virtual Production Volumetric Wall and many Computer labs.

You will also do group work and guided research and study. Private study and prep are key to your success. Through our world-class library, you will have access to many online resources and our e-learning site platforms. You will also be assigned a personal tutor to support you throughout your studies.

DMCT doesn't assess using exams. Assessment is dynamic and innovative. It tests your creative and critical skills across various platforms. These include blogging, short films, programming, PR tasks, and responding to live briefs. It also covers traditional assignments. These include essays, scripts, production papers, coursework, and a practical portfolio.

Beyond curriculum tasks, you have full access to use our facilities 24/7 allowing you to build your creative portfolio for the future.