Module manager: Joanne Armitage
Email: j.l.armitage@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
This module is not approved as a discovery module
This module introduces students to the visual and multisensory affordances of digital media using a variety of critical approaches which bring together theory and practice. Students will identify critical issues through analysis of literature and media objects and respond to these through digital research and investigative creative projects. The concept of practice as research is explained and illustrated and students are encouraged to think about the ways that they can respond critically though creative production.
This module explores the sensory affordances of digital media, looking at the importance and impact of the visual, but also the potential for other sensory – and multi-sensory – digital experiences. Content ranging from identity, representation, hacking, data, sound and immersive experiences will allow students to investigate critical questions about contemporary digital issues. While examining theoretical perspectives on visual and multisensory digital media and experimenting practically with their application, the module also introduces methods for interrogation of, and research into, digital sensory phenomena. Such research can be used to explore the boundaries of digital experiences, providing opportunities for critical and practical research outputs. The module thus aims to combine visual and/or multisensory design/development with media and communication research by translating theoretical analysis into practical design output, harnessing digital data and research methods to produce visual and/or multisensory resources and outputs.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes:
1. Recognise and explain a range of key theories, arguments and concepts from academic literature on multisensory communication and media.
2. Critically analyse visual and multisensory texts and reflect on their use
3. Devise and conduct appropriate research questions and methods to investigate critical issues in visual and/or multisensory digital media
4. Create digital, visual and/or multisensory outputs which provide meaningful experience for the end user or audience
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
5. Create digital, visual and/or multisensory media artefacts
6. Apply research findings to creative practice
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio Time | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Drop-in Session | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Lecture | 9 | 1 | 9 |
| Practical | 9 | 1 | 9 |
| Seminar | 9 | 1 | 9 |
| Private study hours | 170 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 30 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
Student progress will be monitored through discussion of the research journal entries in seminars , which will serve as a developmental platform for ideas for the larger Creative Response assessment. Opportunities will be provided in taught sessions for Creative Response plans to be discussed with peer and tutor-feedback made available.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Task Journals | 70 |
| Coursework | Creative Response | 30 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Task Journals: resit will be an alternative essay. Critical Response: resit will be to re-do the original brief
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 30/04/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team