Interactive Media Practice MA

You will create your ideas within an ideation stage, develop, formulate the design of your innovative idea into a digital output such as an app or wearable and translate this into a proof of concept (PoC), which is polished and professional. The workflow shown in this module will be industry standard methods of practice, above and beyond. You will also have the capacity to experiment within each stage of the development cycle in order to produce digital outputs which are innovative. You will develop the design, visual brand identity, asset creation, contentment creation as well as present the wider context in identifying the target audience, market, USP and the value proposition for the output, as part of your study. 

This module focuses on producing and designing powerful mobile applications, professional practice and the skills required for targeting mobile devices including wearables from concept to completion in alignment with current industry practices for maximising commercial viability, for a consumer-faced outcome. You will explore the requirements and various challenges designing for module and wearable devices and hack together ideas, which solve real work problems within our hack lab. You will also develop critical and speculative theoretical and practice-based research on the ways computational media technologies are embedded in the technical, cultural, aesthetic, structures of society and how we interact with them on a daily basis for a deeper understanding.

This module prepares students ability to develop and design for emerging technologies enhancing the user experience for websites, interactive media, games, robotics and the internet of things - through a series of challenging briefs. Students are expected to engage with innovative practices in designing advanced UX and UCD principles in developing GUI, demonstrated and implemented through a range of practical coursework using best industry practices based upon theoretical research and assigned readings.

By definition hackathons provide a venue for self-expression and creativity through technology. Individuals with technical backgrounds come together, form teams around a problem or idea, and collaboratively code a unique solution from concept to completion these generally take shape in the form of websites, mobile apps, and robots more recently to wearable’s and VR otherwise described as creative technologies. This module is designed to equip students with advanced knowledge of managing and assembling ideas, using a wide variety of creative technologies and advanced programming, in a real world context. Also developing a cultural understanding, critical and speculative theoretical and practice-based research in order to solve real world problems.

The Major Project is your opportunity to negotiate a large-scale, self-determined, original and inventive project, based upon several areas explored in the taught stage of the course. At this stage you will be developing a project within your specialist area and may seek to work with a commercial entity or professional body in the development of your learner contract.

This module examines the role of Digital Marketing within the eMarketing context. It provides students with advanced knowledge of how to use web-based technologies to develop, run and manage digital marketing campaigns. Students build their understanding and use research-led and practice-informed approaches to predict future trends and develop an analytical approach to digital marketing. 

This module offers a comprehensive introduction at the postgraduate level to the politics of communication technologies and the role policy plays in shaping their development, deployment and usage.

This module explores the use of different media practices as a means for people to tell personal stories about their own lived experience. It examines the roots of participatory media, considers different approaches to personal storytelling, explores a range of established practices, identifies emergent practice and enables students to make their own digital story. It also addresses ethical dilemmas within participatory media practices, the impact of social media, the rise of influencers and ‘me media’ and considers the opportunity opened up by participatory platforms for more diverse media representations of identity. Mixing theoretical and practical work, the module helps students develop an advanced understanding of a specialised area of contemporary media practice and utilise this to create stories about themselves and their experiences.

The module covers a range of theoretical approaches to studying media and communication in a loosely historical order. You will acquire an understanding of the historical contexts in which these ways of thinking emerged, be introduced to the leading thinkers driving these approaches and to key concepts associated with them. The focus will be on critically assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and you will be encouraged to carefully consider the applicability of each to the current communications landscape. The module will finish with a look at the most recent debates in the field, addressing the question whether new media do indeed require new theory. Students will be assessed in two written essay assignments on their ability to engage with often complex ideas and to test the utility of these for understanding current phenomena. You will acquire an understanding of what is a history of our field, though it needs to be remembered that this is one possible history of many, and that many non-Western approaches have not been included due to the time constraints of the module.

You will engage with the critical evaluation of project management and entrepreneurship within the creative industries as well as required research methods and transferable skills for the programme. Entrepreneurial business and project management for creative industries has a significant effect on the development and promotion of new talent and is particularly relevant to students from both a creative and entrepreneurial background. This module develops ability to assemble creative project to market with consumer-faced outcomes, establishing presence of SMEs and practical outputs using an ecommerce solution, as you develop a new digital start-up.

This module is designed to introduce you to some important methods in social and media research. We shall look at how to undertake selective quantitative and qualitative research methods, understanding and exploring the different stages of the research process, from a definition of a research hypothesis, to data design, collection and analysis. We shall also look at the theoretical reasoning behind different methodological approaches to media and society, in particular the politics of social research.