This innovative Master’s is a collaborative programme across the Sociology and Computing Departments at Goldsmiths. The programme has been specifically designed to equip students for the analysis and enhancement of digital social life. It offers advanced training in the skills, arts, concepts, methods and ethics of digital innovation, teaching you to combine empirical research with critical thinking and technical practice.

Graduates will have the unique capability to integrate social methods and social theory with creative computing techniques and approaches. Whether planning to pursue an academic career or to work in public, private and third-sector organisations, the programme teaches students to design social research projects, work with and create information retrieval applications, and synthesise, analyse and evaluate data in relation to sociological problems. The programme is an opportunity to cross perceived digital and analogue divides in the study and elaboration of social life.

Programme overview

The MA/MSc in Digital Sociology is an inter-disciplinary programme taught across the Sociology and Computing Departments, and is based in the centre for Creative and Social Technology (CAST). As part of this new research centre, students have access to state of the art facilities and emergent creative and social technologies.

The programme combines a variety of teaching formats, from lectures to lab-sessions, and is taught by leading academics working at the cutting edge of sociology and computing, all of whom are committed to high quality, research-led teaching. The college, the departments and CAST provide a vibrant study environment from which you will benefit as you develop your conceptual, creative and professional skills as a Digital Sociologist.

As you follow this programme, you will learn to think sociologically about digital life and to develop a hands-on, technically informed approach to digital social research and intervention. The aim of the programme is to enable both serious reflection on the challenges that digital innovation poses for society at large, and to enable you to engage creatively with the opportunities for social research opened up by digitization.

The programme draws on the reputation of sociology and computing at Goldsmiths as world-leading centres for inventive research, renowned for combining creative and radical thinking with rigorous methods and innovative techniques. Our programme is very much part of a developing research agenda emphasizing methodological innovation at the interface between social science and computing, and offers  rigorous, flexible and creative training to postgraduate students. Digital Sociology at Goldsmiths makes it possible to combine the critical thinking and digital techniques that today are crucial for cutting-edge social research.

Employers are increasingly seeking multi-skilled professionals capable of developing lateral roles and taking on a diversity of responsibilities. Our Digital Sociology graduates will be well-suited for a number of professional careers in public, private and third sector organisations, as social researchers, project managers or other multi-skilled consultants, entrepreneurs or inventors.

Those students planning an academic career will break new ground with their ability to integrate and innovate with offline and emergent digital research methods and innovative sociological thinking.

What you study

The programme consists of courses taught by Sociology and Computing in an interdisciplinary and collaborative style. Current themes in social theory and social research methods are introduced in the core sociology modules and will be complemented in the computing modules, giving the students lots of opportunity to obtain creative computing and technical skills.

Core courses in sociology introduce students to the conceptual and methodological issues opened up by the application of social methods in digital networked media. Students will choose one option course in the second term on topics such as information regulation and software cultures. Research methods will be taught jointly, integrating traditional and emergent digital methods that draw on best practices from both disciplines.

Core computing modules include extensive time in the Digital Sandbox (lab) developing a capability and literacy in computer science, and engaging with current digital case studies from industry, public sector, civil society and academic experience. The programme includes an internship and a final major project. In this final project students will undertake a significant written and a digital research project in consultation with supervisors from both the department of computing and sociology.  The programme offers an intensive Digital Bootcamp prior to the start of the academic year for those who do not have a background in computing.

Core courses and options

Programme objectives

• Enable you develop a critical understanding of the theory and practice of online communication, data and social networking and their implications for the conduct of quantitative and qualitative social research.
• Enable you to develop a critical sociological understanding of digital culture.
• Provide you with the tools to report, write and create multimedia and creative computational techniques to address sociological problems clearly, precisely, and accurately.
• Teach the practical tools required to become self-reliant in creative computing and sociology, learning to make choices thinking across both disciplines.
• Provide comprehensive training for mobile and online social research in both natively digital and digitized social research methods.
• Enable you to purposefully blend text, graphical content, multimedia, and hypertextual interactive elements.
• Facilitate the use of a variety of techniques to capture, monitor, analyse and experiment with newly published or real-time information.
• Expose you to cutting edge and sophisticated examples of leaders who are working in the fields of innovation, digitisation, and sociological inquiry.
• Enable you to actively and productively reflect upon your own skills, knowledge and understanding as an independent digital sociologist. 

Programme structure

The MA/MSc Digital Sociology is a one year, full-time, and two year part-time programme. The programme consists of six course units, an innovation internship, and final project/dissertation. Part-time students will normally be expected to pass core courses to the value of 60 CATS, including the Digital Sociological Imagination, as well as one 15-CATS option course in their first year before proceeding to the second year.

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.