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Digital Societies (L4080B)

15 credits, Level 5

Spring teaching

On this module, you'll critically examine how digital technologies are shaping contemporary societies, placing the ‘digital’ in historical context and analysing its relationship to inequalities.

Drawing on contemporary sociological theories, you'll explore digital technologies as both socially shaped by dominant norms and assumptions and as technical objects that transform the social world.

Key topics include:

• the historical emergence of digital technologies
• the impact of digital infrastructures on society
• the role of social media networks in shaping social interactions
• the influence of algorithms and artificial intelligence
• the intersections of digital technologies with race, class and gender.

Through these themes, you'll assess how digital technologies influence and are influenced by broader sociological issues.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.