Module manager: Dr Ludmila Lupinacci
Email: L.Lupinacci@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
| COMM3785 | Platforms & Society |
COMM5895 Digital Platforms: Critical & Cultural Analysis
This module is not approved as a discovery module
Digital platforms now shape different sectors of society, posing new challenges and opportunities for workers, creators, artists, audiences, citizens, politicians, and businesses. Think of how streaming platforms have disrupted music production and distribution, or how social media platforms have transformed practices of interaction, information, content creation and consumption. Platforms affect how we communicate, how we understand and perform our identities, how we develop intimate relationships, how we entertain ourselves, how we keep informed, how we work, how we make and spend money, how we move, shop, and organise. This module adopts a sociotechnical approach to study the role of digital platforms in contemporary society. We will focus on the emergence and evolution of digital platforms, and unpack their role in twenty-first century media, communication and culture. To do so, we will draw upon a wide range of academic fields and disciplines, including media industry studies, science and technology studies, software studies, cultural studies, as well as the growing fields of “platform studies”, “infrastructural studies”, and “critical algorithm studies”. 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 aims to introduce key contemporary debates surrounding ‘digital platforms’, with special focus on the realm of media, communication, and culture.
Adopting a global perspective and using specific case studies and examples from different parts of the world, we aim to explore the consequences of ‘platformisation’ both to users and to platform workers.
We aim to explore the opportunities and challenges that arise from this platform-centric model, examining how it has democratised access to cultural production while also raising questions about ownership, authorship, (in)visibility, and cultural homogenisation.
We will examine how increasingly powerful platforms affect the production, distribution, and consumption of cultural goods, scrutinising what is specific to creative labour in a constantly evolving platform ecology. We also aim to reflect on emerging mechanisms of platform control and the tactics developed by workers and users to circumvent and resist them.
We will engage with current debates on the environmental costs of big tech companies and artificial intelligence. Together, we will imagine a more socially just digital future.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Mobilise theories, concepts, and examples to undertake a critical comparison of the major digital platforms operating in the realm of media, communication and culture from a global perspective.
2. Develop original arguments about the benefits and problems of digital platforms across a range of cultural forms.
3. Formulate evidence-based recommendations for the research, industry, and/or regulation of digital platforms.
4. Situate the topic within broader, foundational debates in media and communication whilst establishing connections with current public affairs.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
1. Think critically, taking into account a variety of perspectives and approaches
2. Search for, evaluate, and use research-based evidence to support your arguments and conclusions
3. Communicate complex ideas in intelligible, creative, critical and compelling form
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 10 | 1.5 | 15 |
| Seminar | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Independent online learning hours | 275 | ||
| Private study hours | 0 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 25 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 300 | ||
The group project is intended to be formative as well as summative. The students will also receive ongoing formative feedback in seminars via responses by staff to discussions of readings and of issues and debates that have arisen in the lectures. They will have opportunity to discuss their work in progress with the module leader during office hours.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Group Project | 30 |
| Coursework | Case Study | 70 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Other information about coursework Use this field for any additional information about coursework assessment not included in the table above, and also for details of any alternate resit formats available. Upon request, students who are not comfortable delivering oral presentations (part of the group project) in front of an audience can alternatively deliver an individual presentation to the module leader, or submit a video recording instead. For Assessment 1, resits will consist of submitting a video recording of an oral presentation by an individual student, using the same brief as the group project. For Assessment 2, resits will use 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