Digital Media, Culture and Creative Arts
Digital media, culture, and creative arts is a combination that examines the role of digital technologies in shaping contemporary creative practice, cultural production, and the ways in which meaning and experience are created and shared. Digital media studies asks how platforms, networks, and digital tools are transforming the arts, communication, and culture, and examines the social, political, and economic forces that shape these transformations. Creative arts, alongside this, develops practical and conceptual skills in making and engaging with artistic work across a range of forms and contexts.
Together, they provide a framework for understanding and participating in the digital cultural landscape of the present.
At the School of Oriental and African Studies this three-year full-time programme is taught within an institution with exceptional depth in the study of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the wider global south, giving your study of both digital culture and creative arts a distinctive global orientation. You will examine how digital media are transforming creative practice and cultural production across different parts of the world, situating questions of representation, access, and creativity in their social and geopolitical contexts. A foundation year route is available for students who would benefit from additional academic preparation before the main degree.
Graduates from this combination pursue careers in arts organisations, cultural institutions, digital media companies, journalism, community arts, international development bodies, and any organisation concerned with cultural policy and digital creativity. The combination of cultural depth, creative practice, and digital literacy is particularly valuable in contexts that require engagement with non-Western creative traditions and the global dimensions of digital culture. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in media studies, creative arts, or cultural policy, developing specialist expertise in areas where this interdisciplinary combination is directly relevant.