Digital Society (Taught)

New digital technologies have become part of our lives in ways and with depths that would have been difficult to imagine two decades ago. The Masters in Digital Society aims to respond to the needs of this fast-changing environment, by preparing social scientists who can critically and effectively engage with the realities and challenges of the digital era.

WHY THIS PROGRAMME

• This programme introduces you to the examination of how digital technologies permeate different aspects of social life. You will learn how they become interconnected with the self, social relations, education, work and labour markets, cultural and institutional transformations, commerce and finance, health, security and a variety of other areas of social world.

• You will become familiar with current debates informed by sociological theory and methodology, but also interdisciplinary approaches aimed at grasping the continuously deepening influence of digital technologies on our lives.

• Core courses will cover the topics of theoretical understandings of digitalisation, methodological training, and practical engagement with/investigation of socio-technical contexts.

• The degree will enrich your analytical capacity and develop your abilities to design and conduct research on topics related to digitalisation, and to work with data collected and/or analysed through digital tools.

• This programme covers different substantive areas which are shaped by digital technologies, enabling you to focus in depth on certain topics or social fields which interest you (for example: digitalisation in culture, education, organisational contexts and interpersonal communication).

• You will be taught by a team of specialists in sociology and draws on the expertise of interdisciplinary scholars in the field of digitalisation (Social and Digital Change Group).

• Sociology at Glasgow is ranked 6th in the UK by the Complete University Guide 2026, and 7th in the UK by the Good University Guide 2026.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
You will take three core and three optional courses. Innovative and wide-ranging learning and teaching approaches include lectures and seminars, project work, and field-based activities.

You may choose to conduct empirical research in an area of interest through a dissertation, or you may identify non-academic ways to understand and reflect on the experience of being directly and actively engaged with digitalisation in a practical project.

Core courses
Digital Society-Theory and Substantive Issues
Practicing Research and Working with Data in the Digital Age
Digital Societies - The Living Lab

Optional courses
You will have the opportunity to develop your critical thinking and analytical abilities by choosing optional courses within the Sociology subject area. Depending on your interests, you may opt for courses on race or class inequality, disability, gender relations, to name a few. Combining in depth knowledge on these sociological issues with the knowledge about processes of digitalisation and digital social research tools, will allow the development of well-informed research and socially aware practice in digital times.

You will need to take at least two courses from this list. One additional course may be chosen from other subjects within the School of Social & Political Sciences.

A Public Social Science for Social Justice.
Class and Stratification
Crime, Media And Popular Culture
Current Issues in Social Theory
Gender Relations (Contemporary Critical Approaches)
Improving Health and Society: Programme Development and Evaluation
Introduction To Social Theory For Researchers
Journalism and Global Change 5
Quantitative Data Analysis
Sexualities And Society
Sociology of Culture
Social Media, Disinformation and Democracy
The Disabling Society