Social Media and Critical Practice (P4113)

15 credits, Level 6

Autumn teaching

Social media has become the way of framing much internet and mobile media and the implications of this turn are important. We use social media platforms in our everyday life and they have become influential in journalism, promotional culture, education and across the media industries. However, their pervasiveness and significance goes unchallenged and largely celebrated through the language of participation, communication and freedom. This module aims to stand back from the everyday ubiquity of these forms to question and analyse them by using them critically and creatively.

The module examines a range of social media platforms by engaging and using them and by equipping students to critically analyse this. We look at the promise and perils of these new forms, the histories of their emergence, their institutional and structural shape and power, and the politics, economics, aesthetics and pleasures attached to them.

You will engage social media platforms to create a small practical project and interrogate this engagement through an extended critique of use and practice.


100%: Seminar


100%: Coursework (Essay, Report)

Contact hours and workload

