Creating Social Media MA/MSc

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. 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.

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.