Why this programme?
Digital media are continuously co-shaping how we live, work, and connect, with technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithm-driven platforms currently at the forefront. From the spread of disinformation to the transformative potential of extended reality, digital media are both driving positive social change and presenting intricate challenges.
The MA MS:DC programme supports students in critically and creatively combining the skills and knowledge needed to engage with digital cultures and media technologies. Thereby, we train reflective, resilient, and forward-looking media professionals and researchers, dedicated to fostering inclusive and sustainable digital cultures.
Are you interested in the following questions? These are examples for issues you will examine in this MA.
- How can we navigate the ethical challenges of (generative) artificial intelligence?
- How does digitalisation affect our experiences of reality?
- What role do social media and digital platforms play in shaping politics, identity, and culture today?
- How can digital creativity spark new forms of art, activism, and community-building?
- How do we balance innovation with responsibility in a world driven by algorithms and big data?
- How can 3D modelling inspire new means of digital storytelling and heritage formation?
Do you have questions about the programme? Feel free to reach out to the programme director, Dr Annika Richterich.
This programme is unique in four main regards:
- The MA pursues an integrative approach to theory, methods, and media skills: It combines theory, critical thinking and reflection with hands-on media practices and creative making. Our students benefit particularly from the programme’s media research expertise and attention to normative issues, equipping them with a moral compass and transferable skills through practice-based engagement with media.
- We offer you an interdisciplinary curriculum: With its interdisciplinary approach to media studies, this media studies programme combines research from multiple disciplines, such as philosophy, sociology, gender studies, and science and technology studies, notably drawing on the broader fields of (digital) humanities and qualitative social sciences.
- The programme combines traditional, qualitative methods and digital methods: The MA MS:DC brings together qualitative social sciences methods such as interviewing with qualitative, digital methods like digital ethnography and more quantitatively oriented distant reading techniques.
- We allow you to learn actively, in constructive, contextual, self-directed, and collaborative ways: UM’s problem-based learning (PBL) approach allows you to proactively develop and independently apply skills and knowledge. Our students value PBL as an active form of learning that deepens their knowledge and skills: our courses combine problem-based learning with project-based learning, letting you engage in independent, yet tutor-guided project development and problem-solving.
