MA/MSc in Creating Social Media , Goldsmiths, University of London

MA/MSc in Creating Social Media

What does social media look like after recent events in North Africa and the UK? What will you create? This unique theory/practice programme combines computing and cultural studies to provide you with the practical and critical skills to shape the future of social media.

Length:
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time

Applying:

Apply now

Please note: Your reference might be academic or related to your practical experience.

Application deadline: 31 July.

If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an earlier application deadline. Find out more about funding opportunities for home/EU applicants, or funding for international applicants.

Due to the popularity of this programme, successful applicants will be required to pay a deposit of £500 to secure any offer of a place on the programme. The deposit will be credited against your tuition fees when you enrol. Please note: you'll only be required to provide a deposit if you are offered a place, you don't need to pay a deposit in order to apply.

Find out more about applying

Entrance requirements:

You should have a degree of at least upper second class standard, or an experiential background in a relevant subject. If your first language is not English, you normally need a minimum overall score of 7.0 in IELTS and must score 7.0 or higher in the written part of the test. Find out more about our English Language requirements.

Careers:
Careers in the social media sector include web or mobile designer, web programmer, head of digital, community editor, online editor/managing editor, or project manager. You might work as a social media analyst or consultant. Or you might find yourself founding a start-up.

Skills:
Software development, including coding and data skills; social process analysis and design; research methods; software and social media analysis and design; project development and management.

Fees:
Please see Tuition fees.

Staff research interests:
Please see Staff research interests.

Contact the departments:
Contact Dan McQuillan or Goetz Bachmann

About the departments:
Centre for Cultural Studies, Computing

Cultural Studies

The MA/MSc is a collaborative theory/practice programme across the Department of Computing and the Centre for Cultural Studies, and is part of the newly launched Centre for Creative and Social Technologies.

Based on global examples, you will explore the technological and intellectual questions that have risen to prominence with the social web, including Facebook and Twitter. You will critique existing approaches and tools, and plan, develop, hack and implement ground-breaking applications and campaigns. You will not only analyse: you will create.

What is next after social networking? New social media platforms, at their best, develop new online forms of connecting, relating, sharing and competing. Effective and innovative social media creation, therefore, involves deep theoretical and practical knowledge of both software development and social processes.

You will learn how to develop and hack social media software, how social worlds operate, how software tools enable different forms of social practice, and how new social media projects can be launched successfully. You will accelerate the impact of social media in your chosen field.

You will become proficient in

Computing skills in software development for new social media platforms, mashups, apps, and tools. This includes both coding and data skills, and a hacker approach
Theories of social processes and in methods to research them.
Adapting social media to a variety of technological contexts and to the needs of specific communities
Surfacing the assumptions and limitations embedded in software
Critically assessing contemporary discourses about social media and social change
Project managing social media ventures, and keeping users included at all stages
Creating social media interventions that address social processes in new ways.

What you study

In the Digital Sandbox, you will develop, code and hack practical projects at a rapid rate. If you do not yet have a background in computing, you take part in a one-month Digital Boot Camp before the course starts. In Mediating the Social you gain practical experience of online and offline social worlds and the theoretical tools to understand them. In Software Studies, you learn how to read and critique software from a Cultural Studies perspective. Digital Research Methods enables you to scrape and analyse online data. Digital Case Studies brings you first hand accounts of projects in industry, NGOs and social enterprises. An Innovation Internship will lead to a project developed in close cooperation with one of our innovation partners. You can take one further option, for example in Media Philosophy. Your final project will be either a practical or a more theoretical investigation, leading to an MSc or an MA.

Assessment

Practical project portfolio, research lab and seminar participation, essays, exam, final project.

Register your interest

If you register your interest in this programme we will keep you informed about open days and send you relevant further information. If you subsequently decide to apply for this programme you will be able to use the same login details to apply.