SOC5013 - Digital Lives: Self and Society in a Digital Age

Objectives:

Assessment tasks are designed to enable students to demonstrate the Learning and Employability outcomes for the relevant level of study. Level Learning Outcomes are embedded in the assessment task(s) at that level. This enables a more integrated view of overall student performance at each level.

Content:

This module introduces students to Digital Sociology and encourages students to develop a critical understanding of the function and effects of digital technology within society. Through examining the digital through both theory and real-world examples, this module brings the everyday use of these technologies into question.

The module will cover areas that move between the everyday digital lives of individuals to the broader contemporary digital issues effecting society. Equality and social justice are a core strand within the module, in particular how digital technologies are intimately connected with the global economy and the exploitation of the global south, as well as the longstanding structural inequalities that such technologies perpetuate through algorithmic systems.

The module is a responsive one, with content updated to reflect current concerns. Topics covered within the module include the digitization of: relationships, labour, identity, inequalities, play, politics, consumption, warfare, disinformation, big data, anonymity, surveillance, and health.

Learning and Teaching Information:

Lectures
Hours: 20
Intended Group Size: 100

Workshops
Hours: 20
Intended Group Size: 20

Guided independent study
Hours: 260

Further details relating to assessment
Assessment 1 (Report) takes the style of a piece of long-form journalism. In relation to the teaching content of semester 1 students will focus on a specific contemporary digital technology/ issue. As part of this they should consider the history and use of their chosen technology/ issue, outline the function and social impact of their technology, and examine the social consequences for their chosen case.

Assessment 2 (Individual Presentation) – Building on assessment 1, students will be expected to prepare and present a ‘mini-lecture’ that identifies appropriate sociological theories that helps explain their chosen case. Where assessment 1 is more journalistic in style, assessment 2 is to be more academic in style. Assessment 3 (Negotiated essay) – Students will develop an essay question that draws on sociological theory to critically examine a matter related to digital sociology.

Assessment:

Fact File

Module Coordinator - PRS_CODE=
Level - 5
Credit Value - 30
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered -

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