Module manager: Kaajal Modi-Hobson
Email: k.modi@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2026/27
This module is not approved as a discovery module
This module introduces students to the concept of digital media ecologies. It looks at the technologies, networks, and infrastructures that support digital media. It also explores how these technologies shape our understanding of more-than-human worlds. Digital mediation strongly influences how we perceive and interact with other organisms. The use of digital technologies also affects ecological systems through their resource demands. Students will work with practice-based projects involving digitally mediated nature. These projects raise important methodological, aesthetic, and ethical questions. For example, students might create interactive installations, use sensors to track environmental data, or experiment with augmented reality to represent ecosystems. The module teaches students how to identify ways that digital technologies and digitisation create new modes of sensing, speculating, and remediating nature. These modes have implications for both digital ecologies and digital media as critical practices. Students will take part in exploratory activities using bodies and technologies in digitised forms—visual, tactile, auditory, and more. This could include working with 3D scans of landscapes, sound recordings of plants, or haptic feedback devices. These activities shape relations beyond the human. Throughout the module, students will reflect on how these practices influence our relationship with, and understanding of, “digital media ecologies”. Please note this is an optional module and runs subject to enrolments. If a low number of students choose this module, then the module may not run and you may be asked to choose another module.
The module teaches students how to question, rethink, and reshape more-than-human relations in ecological worlds. It uses digital tools and analytical frameworks learned at Levels 1 and 2. In a creative digital space shaped by AI, we need critical approaches to advanced practice. Students will use their existing knowledge and skills to ask new questions. They will explore what it means to be a digital media practitioner in a world where AI and climate change demand urgent attention.
The module combines sensory, digital, and creative methods. It introduces a new teaching approach. Students will use familiar digital media technologies and critical skills to understand how ecological practices follow lines of power. These practices amplify some organisms, silence others, and entangle humans and non-humans in systems of inequality. Students will also develop and test practical-analytical frameworks. These frameworks aim to engage publics in recognising multispecies entanglements within digital systems.
We will carry out practical activities using accessible media technologies. Students will consider how digitalisation reshapes our understanding of the world. They will examine how this transformation affects more-than-human relations. These processes will act as analytical tools and as participatory entry points for collective discussion. We will explore how attention to these issues reveals forms of marginalisation and systemic inequality. Finally, we will look at strategies to involve publics in debates about climate change and digital media technology.
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
Critique and apply a range of key theories, arguments and concepts from academic literature on digital media ecologies.
Critically analyse more-than-human texts and reflect on their use
Devise and conduct appropriate research questions and methods to investigate critical issues in digital media ecologies
Create digital, visual and/or creative outputs which provide meaningful experience for the end user or audience
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
Apply research findings to creative practice
Engage the public in new debates on climate and technology
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Practical | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| Private study hours | 170 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 30 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
Students will receive ongoing feedback on their formative research journal entries where they reflect on their learning through the course. This will serve as a developmental platform for the Project assessment. Opportunities will be provided in taught sessions for Project to be presented for peer critique, and tutor feedback will be ongoing.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Project | Project | 60 |
| Assignment | Exam | 40 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Project: resit will be to re-address the original brief.
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 02/06/2026
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team