digital culture phd

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Digital media PhD | Digital cultures PhD

As a PhD research student in the areas of digital media, digital culture and digital innovation, your research will help us understand how society, ourselves and our communities are transforming through digital media, digital arts, digital business and the many facets of communication technologies.

Digital culture encompasses a range of themes and methods if inquiry, such as the ways in which our relationships change with social media, how artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are changing the ways we move in the world, or how virtual reality is changing the creative sector. Exploring these themes and more, Digital Culture is a key area of research expertise at the University of Brighton.

The university supports students in this area through its Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence, notably the Centre for Digital Cultures and Innovation .

Expert academics work in both the School of Art and Media and the School of Humanities and Social Science, either of which will provide a supportive academic home for students in digital media. We welcome applications for theory or practice focused research. Our expertise relates to industry developments and practices, as well as community activism in local and global contexts, and changes in the nature of audiences and their engagements.

Academics in this area are  also the lead academic delivery partners that create links between the university and businesses to generate research impact.

Apply to 'Arts and Media' in the portal

Our registration system collects several programmes under the strand 'Arts and Media.' Please choose this option in the portal. 

Apply with us for funding through the AHRC Techne Doctoral Training Partnership

Key information

PhD students across digital culture, digital media and digital innovation benefit from a supervisory team with two or three members of staff, allowing them to draw directly on staff’s engagement in a wide range of research projects. Depending on your research area, you may also have an additional external supervisor from another School, another research institution, or from the industry.

Our postgraduate research students have the opportunity to be engaged in a range of activities, including involvements in research centres, organising research events, and contributing to aspects of media research culture. As a PhD student you will also receive training by the Brighton Doctoral College and have the opportunity to join an extensive network of PhD students across the University. You will be part of a vibrant research community at the heart of Britain’s digital and creative industry. 

All students are provided with access to desk space and computers. You will additionally benefit from access to a range of electronic resources via the university’s online library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the Aldrich Library and other campus libraries. PhD students based in the School of Media also have access to cutting-edge facilities such as the Watts Lab, the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton and its projects such as the 5G Testbed and a forthcoming Data, Privacy, Ethics & Nudge Lab on campus, and the  Screen Archive South East .

Recent and current PhD students have been successful in obtaining studentships covering both fees and living costs through the University of Brighton’s involvement in the  AHRC TECHNE , the  ESRC SCDTP  and the  EPSRC SEAHA . Please get in touch with your chosen supervisor to discuss your research project idea and possible ways to fund your Doctoral research.

Academic environment

The City of Brighton and Hove gives our PhD students access to one of the UK’s most lively media economies. We foster research that takes advantage of these relationships with a history of community-engagement and industry-based research projects.

You will be based with the academics of specialist Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence and/or Research and Enterprise Groups. These give both supervisory opportunities and the chance to network with both theorists and practitioners.

Our researchers explore how digital media impacts upon everyday life, such as its contribution to future cities through intelligent/sustainable services such as transport and social care, and ubiquitous surveillance. We also pay attention to emerging technologies and social change, exploring social media and activism, science and technology, digital health, digital citizenship, policy, governance and education, as well as the arts and the creative industries. Our focus is on matters of exclusion, inclusion, identity formation, specifically through the analytical lenses of ageing, class, disability, gender and sexuality.

The role of digital culture and digital media in political, social and environmental activism, and in the creation of online/offline communities are also a focus of our research. The nature of audiences and their engagements with digital media are explored through podcasting, news, and feminist- and inclusion-oriented approaches to gaming cultures. Researchers at the University of Brighton use a range of methodologies and theoretical approaches in their research but we pay close attention to qualitative research, ethnography and everyday life, audience research, informed by feminist, LGBT and queer theory, and contemporary theoretical debates in digital media and data technologies.

Creative media practice is another focus of research in the School of Art and Media. This includes both theoretical and practice-based research around Digital Transformation Design, Digital and Interactive Arts/Music/Sound, Photography, Immersive Media (AR/VR), Creative Industries, and many more. As a PhD student, you can draw on staff expertise in both critical creative media practice and theoretical perspectives.

PhD students could pursue research in a wide range of media and communication topics. The following areas of digital and media culture research indicate some of our areas of research expertise.

• Blockchain, cloud computing, the sharing economy
• Cultural informatics
• Data technologies and digital culture
• Digital humanities
• Digital media and activism
• Game studies
• Immersive media/AR/VR
• Innovation and media/Creative industries
• Interactive and digital arts/music/sound
• Screen cultures
• Selfies and identity
• Smart mobility and intelligent Transport
• Social media
• Sound and music practices

For more detail about these research areas please check the following links and also the supervisors' profiles below:

• Centre for Digital Cultures and Innovation
• Creative Sound and Music Research and Enterprise Group
• Screen Studies Research and Enterprise Group

Some of our supervisors

Dr douglas mcnaughton.

Political economy of television production. Aesthetics and narrative in television. Historical development of British television. Representations of space, place and identities in British screen cultures. Science fiction, fantasy and horror, in particular, British folk horror. Telefantasy, world cinema, screen technologies, the sociology of space. Screen acting and performance.

Dr Maria Sourbati

I am interested in supervising doctoral students on a range of topics and themes including smart technologies, age relations, ICT access and mobility, digital inclusion, digital literacies, digital inequality and transport-related exclusion.

My past PhD supervision includes projects in media diversity, media regulation, e-government.

Current PhD supervision

Sijuade Olanihun Yusuf (International PhD Studentship) - Social media and negotiation of identity by African Women in Sub-Saharan African countries.

Vicki Painting - How might the ‘orphaned body’ of my mother living through the fourth age be represented other than within the prevailing construct of abject, unproductive and ultimately unsuccessful ageing?

Dr Marcus Winter

I am interested in supervising postgraduate research students in ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction and applied machine learning in the contexts of education, cultural heritage and public engagement.

For further supervisory staff including cross-disciplinary options, please visit  research staff on our research website.

Making an application

You will apply to the University of Brighton through our online application portal. When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the University of Brighton staff. We recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Sign in to our online application portal to begin.

Fees and funding

 Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2023–24

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

Contact Brighton Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the University of Brighton we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the Brighton Doctoral College page .

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.

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Digital Culture and Communication

Application options include:

Course Overview

Our MPhil/PhD programme in Digital Culture and Communication invites you to submit a proposal for research on the digitally mediated dimensions of aesthetics, affect, art, cities, everyday life, politics and the (post) human condition.

An MPhil/PhD is an advanced postgraduate research degree that requires original research and the submission of a substantial dissertation. The MPhil thesis is not more than 60,000 words; the PhD thesis is not more than 100,000 words. This programme also welcomes practice-based PhD theses, the requirements for which vary according to the nature of the research and should be discussed with the admissions tutors. Both the MPhil and the PhD are assessed by a viva voce examination.

We offer an exceptionally stimulating environment , where your digital culture and communication research will flourish in a wider interdisciplinary context. We have critically engaged research clusters working on cultural policy, creative labour, curatorial practice, digital aesthetics, digital politics, essay film, film exhibition, journalism and democracy, media reform, mediated spaces and television studies.

Our aim is to offer a programme of seminars, lectures, conferences, workshops and reading groups that not only help you build your research skills, but generate a sense of intellectual community, based on dialogue and mutual support. You will also be offered training sessions at all levels of the College, including at the Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) .

At Birkbeck, you are initially registered on an MPhil and you upgrade to a PhD after satisfactory progress in the first year or two (full time). You need to find a suitable academic supervisor at Birkbeck, who can offer the requisite expertise to guide and support you through your research. Find out more about undertaking a research degree at Birkbeck .

Key information

Digital culture and communication mphil/phd: 7 years part-time, on campus, starting 2024-25.

• October 2024
• January 2025

Digital Culture and Communication MPhil/PhD: 4 years full-time, on campus, starting 2024-25

Find another course:

• This MPhil/PhD in Digital Culture and Communication is offered as part of a range of competitively awarded PhD studentships funded by support from UK Research and Innovation, charities, government and external partners.
• The award-winning  Birkbeck Cinema  is central to our research culture. The 70-seat cinema is equipped with 35mm and state-of-the-art DCP projection. Our  Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image  (BIMI) runs a busy, intellectually stimulating programme of events, including conferences, screenings and film-related events of all kinds, including at our cinema.
• You will have the opportunity to participate in and attend the  Essay Film Festival , jointly run by BIMI and the  Institute of Contemporary Arts  (ICA), with free admission to events hosted at Birkbeck. You will also be able to take advantage of practical film-making opportunities offered through the  Derek Jarman Lab .
• The Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology integrates a wide range of digital culture research at Birkbeck, while making available equipment and systems to students, interns and academics. In addition, the  Birkbeck Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture (BIRMAC) provides a unique space for reflective critical inquiry on media and culture, where researchers from different disciplines can gather and participate in a sustained intellectual conversation in a truly interdisciplinary context.
• As well as the Birkbeck Library , you will have access to the nearby Senate House Library , various libraries of the University of London colleges, the British Library , as well as other specialist collections and institutions in central London, including the British Film Institute library.
• Birkbeck was ranked as one of the top four universities in the UK for its Art and Design research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework. Birkbeck’s research excellence overall was  confirmed in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework  with 83% of our research rated world-leading or internationally excellent.

Entry Requirements

A good degree in media and communication studies, cultural studies, or other related areas in the social sciences, humanities or computer science. Depending on your background and research experience, a BA might be sufficient. Generally we recommend that you apply with a good MA degree.

You will also need to submit a specific indication of research interests with your application, and a 2000-word proposal.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language or you have not previously studied in English, the requirement for this programme is the equivalent of an International English Language Testing System (IELTS Academic Test) score of 7.0, with not less than 6.0 in each of the sub-tests.

If you don't meet the minimum IELTS requirement,  we offer pre-sessional English courses, foundation programmes and language support services  to help you improve your English language skills and get your place at Birkbeck.

Visit the International section of our website to find out more about our  English language entry requirements and relevant requirements by country .

Visa and funding requirements

If you are not from the UK and you do not already have residency here, you may need to apply for a visa.

The visa you apply for varies according to the length of your course:

• Courses of more than six months' duration: Student visa
• Courses of less than six months' duration: Standard Visitor visa

International students who require a Student visa should apply for our full-time courses as these qualify for Student visa sponsorship. If you are living in the UK on a Student visa, you will not be eligible to enrol as a student on Birkbeck's part-time courses (with the exception of some modules).

For full information, read our visa information for international students page .

Please also visit the international section of our website to find out more about relevant visa and funding requirements by country .

Please note students receiving US Federal Aid are only able to apply for in-person, on-campus programmes which will have no elements of online study.

Digital Culture and Communication MPhil/PhD: 7 years part-time or 4 years full-time, on campus, starting in academic year 2024-25

Academic year 2024–25, starting october 2024, january 2025, april 2025.

Part-time home students: £2,539 per year Full-time home students: £4,786 per year Part-time international students : £7,525 per year Full-time international students: £14,885 per year

Students are charged a tuition fee in each year of their course. Tuition fees for students continuing on their course in following years may be subject to annual inflationary increases. For more information, please see the College Fees Policy .

If you’ve studied at Birkbeck before and successfully completed an award with us, take advantage of our Lifelong Learning Guarantee to gain a discount on the tuition fee of this course.

Fees and finance

PhD students resident in England can apply for government loans of over £26,000 to cover the cost of tuition fees, maintenance and other study-related costs.

Flexible finance: pay your fees in monthly instalments at no extra cost . Enrol early to spread your costs and reduce your monthly payments.

We offer a range of studentships and funding options to support your research.

Discover the financial support available to you to help with your studies at Birkbeck.

International scholarships

We provide a range of scholarships for eligible international students, including our Global Future Scholarship. Discover if you are eligible for a scholarship .

Our research culture

Our research encompasses journalism, film and television, artistic practice and arts management, and digital media, culture and design . Our work is critically engaged, challenging conventional assumptions about the functions and influence of media and culture, scrutinising institutions, organisations and work practices in the creative industries, and rethinking what media can mean and do.

We place particular emphasis on practice-based research, in which ideas and issues are investigated through activities such as creative film-making and digital design. The research of our academic staff is thoroughly interdisciplinary, and incorporates both historical research and contemporary explorations of our rapidly changing media landscapes.

In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework for Art and Design research Birkbeck was ranked 4th nationally with world-leading achievements for environment (90%), impact (67%) and outputs (65%).

We work with a wide range of partners, including the  V&A , the  Institute of Contemporary Arts ,  University of Pittsburgh ,  BFI ,  Science and Media Museum ,  Lux Cinema ,  Tate Britain ,  Media Reform Coalition ,  Action on Armed Violence  and  Electra , and the facilities available to staff and students include the  Vasari Research Centre , the  Birkbeck Cinema , the  Peltz Gallery  and the  Derek Jarman Lab .

Teaching opportunities

As part of our commitment to professional development, you have the opportunity to gain experience in teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. There is also a 10-week lecture series, Teaching in the Arts, which is designed to prepare students for teaching humanities in higher education.

Follow these steps to apply to an MPhil/PhD research degree at Birkbeck:

1. Check that you meet the entry requirements, including English language requirements, as described on this page.

2. Find a potential supervisor for your MPhil/PhD research. You can look at the Find a Supervisor area on this page for an overview, or  search our Experts’ Database  or  browse our staff pages  for more in-depth information. You may also find it helpful to  view the research projects of our current students .

3. Contact the academic member of staff - or the department they teach in - for an informal discussion about your research interests and to establish if they are willing and able to supervise your research. (Please note: finding a potential supervisor does not guarantee admission to the research degree, as this decision is made using your whole application.)  Find out more about the supervisory relationship and how your supervisor will support your research .

4. Draft a research proposal of up to 2000 words (excluding references). This needs to demonstrate your knowledge of the field, the specific research questions you wish to pursue, and how your ideas will lead to the creation of new knowledge and understanding.  Find out more about writing a research proposal .

5. Apply directly to Birkbeck, using the online application link on this page. If your research proposal meets our entry criteria, and we have an appropriate academic to supervise you, we will invite you for an interview, in person or by telephone. All research students are initially registered on an MPhil and then upgrade to a PhD after making sufficient progress.

Find out more about the application process, writing a research proposal and the timeframe .

Application deadlines and interviews

You can apply throughout the year for commencement in October or the following January.

If you wish to apply for funding, you will need to apply by certain deadlines. Consult the websites of relevant bodies for details.

Apply for your course

Apply for your course using the apply now button in the key information section .

Finding a supervisor

A critical factor when applying for postgraduate study in digital culture and communication is the correlation between the applicant’s intellectual and research interests and those of one or more potential supervisors.

Find out more about the research interests of our  academic staff  and their areas of research.

Related courses

• Film and Screen Media (MPhil/PhD)
• Cultural Policy and Management (MPhil/PhD)
• Journalism and Communication (MPhil/PhD)

Doctor of Philosophy with a Major in Digital Media

The Digital Media PhD was inaugurated in fall 2004 and is one of the first of its kind worldwide. The program educates research-oriented theorists/practitioners who bring the traditions of the humanities and arts to the design of digital media. The program provides the theoretical and practical foundations for research and leadership careers in academia and industry, critically engaging with the design, use, and role of digital media in culture.

Graduates of the program are prepared to work in industry, public service, and universities, shaping the emerging digital genres and expanding our understanding and mastery of the representational power of the computer.

The PhD program accepts 3-5 new candidates each year.

For more information visit: http://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/program/phd-program/

All PhD programs must incorporate a standard set of Requirements for the Doctoral Degree .

The core curriculum is designed to cover three fundamental areas:

• critical history, theory, and practice of using of computing technologies for expressive purposes
• advanced principles of interaction design
• applied research methods in digital media

These courses are not open to waiver or substitution. Other courses may be substituted with equivalent previous work or alternate courses. Students should consult their advisors and the Director of Graduate Studies to determine the appropriate individual course of study.

Three related courses outside of the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. These courses may be in other Schools of the Ivan Allen College, or in colleges or interdisciplinary fields of the Institute. Examples of a minor concentration in Computer Science: CS 6750 , CS 6460 , CS 6470 .

This requirement must be certified by filing a form signed by the DGS with the Georgia Tech graduate office. The form is available online at http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/theses-dissertations .

Elective courses from other academic units may be substituted with approval of the DGS.

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Doctor of Philosophy Media, Culture, and Communication

Grounded in an interdisciplinary approach to the study of media and culture, our doctorate draws from a rich array of disciplines and theoretical frameworks. Department expertise spans the globe: the Middle East, East Asia, the Global South, Africa, and Europe. Our faculty generate some of the most original scholarship in their respective fields, creating a stimulating environment in which to pursue graduate work.

Degree Details

Official degree title.

PhD in Media, Culture, and Communication

Research Focus

Alumni placements, funding for full-time phd students.

Five research areas operate as guiding frameworks for intellectual inquiry across the department: Global Communication and Media, Technology and Society, Visual Culture and Sound Studies, Media Industries and Politics, Interaction and Experience.

Your work as a doctoral student will be shaped by our commitment to:

• Engaging with theoretical concepts from a range of disciplines—media and cultural studies, visual culture, history, science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology, disability studies, sound studies, political science.
• A multi-methodological approach to research—from semiotics, global ethnography, gender and queer theory, critical race theory, qualitative and quantitative discourse analysis, to political/cultural economy, among other critical frameworks.
• A global perspective—conceiving of the global mediascape as transnational and transcultural.
• Recognizing media and technology’s long history and antecedents.

Read some sample dissertation abstracts .

After graduating, alumni join academic departments of media and communication, with placement in the social sciences and interdisciplinary humanities becoming increasingly common. MCC PhDs who graduated in the past ten years are now tenure-track or tenured professors at the University of California, Berkeley; University of Washington, Seattle; Cornell University; Stanford University; UCLA; Rutgers; Fordham; University of Michigan; George Mason University; University of North Carolina; University of Arizona; College of Charleston; Memorial University of Newfoundland; University of San Francisco; Scripps; Pratt; University of Maryland; American University of Beirut; American University of Paris, Ryerson University; Trent University; St. Joseph’s College.

Over the past decade, our PhD graduates have received numerous prestigious postdocs, including a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities in the Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT; Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at MIT's Center for Art, Science, and Technology; Postdoctoral Fellow, Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University; Postdoctoral Researcher, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science; Postdoctoral, Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University; Postdoctoral Fellowship at Rice University in Technology, Culture, and Society; Research Associate, Center for Digital Humanities, Princeton University; Postdoctoral Fellow, Media, Inequality & Change Center, University of Pennsylvania.

If you are accepted as a full-time NYU Steinhardt PhD student without an alternate funding source, you are eligible for our competitive funding package, which includes a scholarship and tuition remission.  Learn more about our funding opportunities .

Graduate Leadership

Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication; PhD Director

Susan Murray

Department chair and professor of media, culture, and communication.

If you have additional questions about our degree, please contact us at [email protected] .

Alumni Profiles

Jacob Gaboury (PhD 2014)

Jacob is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film & Media at the University of California, Berkeley. His dissertation "Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics, 1965-1979" investigated the early history of computer graphics and the role they play in the move toward new forms of simulation and object oriented design.

Xiaochang Li (PhD 2017)

Xiaochang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. Her teaching and research interests include the history of computing and information systems, AI and algorithmic culture, speech and language technology, and software/platform studies. Before joining Stanford, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Hatim El-Hibri (PhD 2012)

Hatim is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at George Mason University. His research examines media technologies and urban space in the Middle East. His dissertation traced the history of the visualization of Beirut, from the politics of aerial photography and mapping during the French Mandate, to the visual economy of postwar construction, to the materiality of Hizballah's live satellite television.

Liz Koslov (PhD 2017)

Liz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA. Previously, she was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT. Her research examines the cultural, political, and sociological dimensions of climate change adaptation. Her first book project, Retreat: Moving to Higher Ground in a Climate-Changed City , is under advance contract with the University of Chicago Press.

Devon Powers (PhD 2008)

Devon is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Advertising, Media & Communication at Temple University. Powers' research interests include popular music, 20th century history, and cultural intermediation – the people and processes that operate "in between" the production and consumption of culture. Powers completed a fellowship at the University of Leeds in 2014, and was recently elected Vice Chair of the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association.

Matthew Powers (PhD 2013)

Matthew is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington-Seattle. His dissertation "Humanity's Publics: NGOs, Journalism and the International Public Sphere" examined reporting roles assumed by international NGOs as legacy media outlets cut their foreign news budgets, and received the Gene Burd Outstanding Dissertation in Journalism Studies award from the International Communication Association. 

Media, Culture, and Communication

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Department of Modern Culture and Media

Ph.d. program.

The Department of Modern Culture and Media (MCM) is committed to a broad spectrum approach to the study of media and culture.

We study machine-enabled media alongside flesh-based media, media ecologies, elemental media, and media infrastructures. A medium may beany means, mode, or material of making, transporting, transmitting, transforming, producing, preserving, collecting, selecting, or deselecting for sound, image, gesture, affect, text and information broadly conceived. Alongside histories and theories of photography, film, television, print, and digital media, we engage decolonial methods and speculative means for the innovation of livable futures. We are sensitive to entanglements among genres, forms, mediums, and materialities of human and nonhuman. We consider modes of extraction, redaction, abstraction, diffraction, interpellation, and circulation as well as habits, ceremonies, or architectures of access involving a broad range of media practices. Our graduate program is a Ph.D. program aimed at: (1) Preparing students to engage in quality scholarship and teaching in the theory, history, and critical analysis of one or more media, in ways that encompass diverse cultural contexts, practices, and historical periods, within a methodological framework that includes awareness of modern textual, cultural, political, social, and performance theory; (2) Preparing students to seek academic appointments in a market that offers positions to media and culture specialists in media-specific disciplinary units (e.g., Film Studies, Television Studies, Digital Studies); in amalgam fields (Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Visual Studies, Performance Studies); and also in programs with expanded concerns (American Studies, Black Studies, Comparative Literature, English, and foreign language Departments). Plans of study in MCM are individualized, based on the student's own particular areas of interest. Students are encouraged to take courses throughout the University, and many take advantage of courses in the broader Humanities as well as in the Arts, the Sciences and the Social Sciences. Many of our Ph.D. students include faculty from outside the department on their preliminary exam committees and on their dissertation committees.

Coursework and Qualifying Reviews

For students entering the program with a B.A., courses are normally completed in the first three years of the program — six courses are taken in the first year, four in the second year and three in the third year. During this period, the student also fulfills the foreign language requirement. After completion of 8 courses in the second year, there is a qualifying review, and the candidate is awarded an M.A. in Modern Culture and Media.

After completion of all coursework in the third year, the candidate takes a three-hour oral preliminary examination. Passing the preliminary examination authorizes her or him to proceed to the doctoral dissertation, which is written during the fourth and fifth years.

Students entering the program with an M.A. from another institution take courses at the same rate as those entering with a B.A. Such students may apply to accelerate their coursework and, if they receive approval, may take their preliminary examination as early as the end of the fourth semester.

Students entering with an M.A. will have their qualifying review after they have completed 6 courses, which is normally at the end of the second semester.

Teaching is considered a vital part of graduate education in this program. We believe that a variety of pedagogical experiences not only contributes to the candidate's professional qualifications but also to her or his intellectual development. A minimum of two years of teaching is required for the degree, but a doctoral student will normally teach more.

A candidate typically begins holding a teaching assistant position in a large introductory course during the second year in the program and continues teaching in various classroom contexts through the fifth year. We try to provide all senior doctoral candidates with at least one opportunity to teach a small, autonomous class on a subject directly related to their dissertation research.

Brown offers five years of guaranteed support for graduate students, including for international students. First-year students are on fellowship. Students in their second and third years work as TAs (one course per semester), leading a discussion section of a large lecture. Students in their fourth year design and teach their own section of MCM 0900 “Undergraduate Seminars in Modern Culture and Media.” Students in their fifth year usually are supported through a combination of TA-ships (again, one course per semester) and university fellowships.

Job Placements

Most, if not all, of our students in the Ph.D. program go on to work in academia, in positions as professors, teaching and doing research. This does not mean it would be impossible to go into some other profession -- curating or working for a non-profit agency, for instance; however, we train students for work in academia.

An annual collection of data pertaining to the employment of Ph.D. alumni one, five, and ten years after graduating. Read more .

5th Year Master’s Degree

MCM concentrators may continue working towards their master’s degree at Brown after completing the bachelor’s degree.

• Center on Digital Culture and Society

Reimagining our common future through critical scholarship and dialogue on digital culture, technology, and society.

Founded in July 2019, the Center on Digital Culture and Society (CDCS) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication supports critical, interdisciplinary scholarship and dialogue on digital culture, technology, and society. CDCS aims to create collaborative spaces for discussion and debate among academics, citizens, and activists; develop critical approaches to the study of digital culture and technology; help train new generations of digital researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and beyond; build global networks of researchers; advocate for socially just design, production, and use of digital technologies; and explore and foster new visions of digital futures through scholarship and public communication.  

Recent Publications

CDCS researchers produce critical and interdisciplinary scholarship on how digital technologies shape culture, politics, and society.  

Worker Resistance in Digital Capitalism| Platform Counterpublics: Networked Gossip and Resistance Beyond Platforms

Never Forget? Memory Maintenance on an Aging Platform

The Sociotechnical Imaginaries of 1968

The Digital Radical

From the activist deploying technology for political causes to the individual who consciously disengages with online life, CDCS is building a collection of stories about ordinary people with radical relationships to digital technologies.  

Write For Us

We invite submissions to our online magazine, The Digital Radical , from anyone with a story to tell about a person or group who practices a radical orientation toward digital media and technologies. A new story is published every month. See our call for submissions.  

Learn With Us

New for 2022, the Executive Program in Digital Media for Social Impact (DMSI) helps changemakers advance their social media strategies.

Collaborate With Us

Want to work with us? We welcome invitations for collaborations and cosponsorships at the intersection of digital culture and society and also offer opportunities for nonresidential fellowships. Contact us for more information.

Connect With Us

To stay up to date on CDCS news and events, follow us on Twitter (@cdcspenn) and subscribe to our newsletter below!

Photo Credit: iStock / Keattisak A

Call for Artists: Present Futures - Experiments in Feminist Futurity

A contemporary art exhibition envisioning feminist solidarities across space and time, in everyday life, with an outlook towards “the future we want to see, right now, in the present”

Llamado de Artistas: Present Futures - Experiments in Feminist Futurity

New Postdoctoral Fellow to Join CDCS

Call for Applications: Postdoctoral Fellowship - Center on Digital Culture and Society

Call for Papers: ICA 2024 Pre-Conference - "Reimagining Digital Activism: Navigating Complexities and Forging New Perspectives"

Present futures: experiments in feminist futurity.

• Annenberg Center for Collaborative Communication
• Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication

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Department of Arts and Cultural Studies

Digital culture.

Datafication, platformisation, and digitalization are significantly reshaping contemporary societies and cultures, giving rise to novel cultural expressions, social practices, cultural industries, and material infrastructures.

The Digital Culture Research Cluster is dedicated to advancing research that explores the interactions between cultural dynamics and socio-technical infrastructures. The interdisciplinary nature of the work happening within DC spans across cultural theory and studies (encompassing literature, performance, musicology, sound studies, and art history), anthropology, Science and Technology Studies (STS), media and communication studies, information studies as well as critical studies in data and machine learning.

Methodologically, the cluster employs a diverse range of established qualitative and quantitative research methods, including ethnography, archival techniques, and cultural and visual analysis. Additionally, it explores emerging digital and experimental methodologies such as machine learning, digital forensics, and artistic research practices.

Organizationally, the cluster supports various research activities, including informal monthly lunch meetings, internal and external seminars, research excursions, peer-feedback sessions, and networking opportunities with other relevant research communities.

Focus areas

Critical data, algorithm and ai studies.

The research cluster examines the production, distribution and reception of data, models and machine learning technologies, with a particular sensitivity to gendered, racialized, colonial and class-based dimensions of computational regimes, among other things through the Critical Data and Machine Learning Lecture Series organized by AI REUSE and DALOSS .

Digital art & aesthetics

The cluster investigates the cultural roles, emergences, and imaginaries of digital art and artistic research practices, including new media art, music and sound art, video games, expanded reality and virtual worldmaking. Current projects investigate the aesthetic and creative implications of algorithmic behaviours and cultures, genre and the authenticity of data and digital objects.

Everyday use of technology 

The research cluster examines the ways in which digital technologies are ingrained in everyday lives – as habits, as mundane practices, as addictions, as algorithmic anticipations that affect the way humans relate, sense and engage with each other (intimacies and communities) as well as their environments (homes, cities, landscapes).

Digital infrastructures 

The research cluster investigates the complex interplay between digital infrastructures and forms of materiality in the digital age. A focus of the research cluster lies in the acceleration of platformised distribution and consumption, and the geopolitical potential of digital mediators as well as their relation to the materiality of infrastructures. 

Digitalization and platformization of cultural production, industries and institutions

Digitalization of cultural production and institutions impact on a range of economic, political, and aesthetic aspects. Current research projects in the cluster focus on the ways in which forms of digitalization facilitate new socio-cultural practices and cultural imaginaries. Furthermore research projects in the cluster investigate how cultural industries and cultural-economic models shift due to the influence of digitalization, and how digital platforms shape and reconfigure cultural, political and socio-economic landscapes. 

Research projects and networks

• Algorithms in Art: Displacements with Algorithmic Culture in Danish Art since 1990
• Data loss (DALOSS): the politics of disappearance, destruction and dispossession in digital societies
• Don’t Take It Personal: Information and Privacy in the Algorithmic Age
• Follow Me: The Influence of Danish Digital Media Creators
• The platformisation of culture: Cultural policy, art museums and digital communities in the age of tech giants (in Danish)
• The Aesthetics of Bio-machines and the Question of Life
• Uncertain Archives
• Algorithmic Software Culture: Capturing, Theorizing and Regulating Social Media

Cluster leaders:  Tanja Wiehn and Nanna Bonde Thylstrup

Forum Lectures #28: Orit Halpern

April circle, making music in the age of information capitalism.

Show all events

Researchers

Teaching and Skills Development for Students

Digital Studies at the University of Chicago

Earn a one-year general M.A. or a two-year specialized M.A.

A STEM Designated Degree Program

The University of Chicago Forum for Digital Culture offers a variety of academic programs in which students learn coding skills relevant to research in the humanities and investigate the impact of digital computing on society, culture, and the arts.

The Forum’s curriculum responds to the growing demand for academic rigor in the loosely defined field of  digital humanities  and the need to certify technical competence in this area. It equips students to pursue careers that utilize their skills in research, writing, and critical thinking in tandem with the use of software for the study of human languages and cultures, past and present.

Master’s Program in Digital Studies

The Master of Arts program in Digital Studies of Language, Culture, and History is designed for full-time students who have a bachelor’s degree in the humanities or in a related discipline such as linguistics, history, anthropology, sociology, communications, or fine arts. Students with a background in the sciences, including computer science, may also benefit from this program and are encouraged to apply .

Students apply to do either a one-year general M.A. with no thesis requirement or a two-year M.A. with a specialization and thesis project in one of the following areas:

• Artificial Intelligence and Language
• Digital Art and Archaeology
• Digital Media and Extended Reality
• Digital Texts and Culture
• Digital Ethics and Public Discourse (not yet available; planned for the future)

The M.A. in Digital Studies of Language, Culture, and History qualifies as a STEM Designated Degree Program  under the regulations of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. However, the focus is not merely on acquiring technical skills. Students learn computational methods while also investigating computing as a cultural activity in its own right — an activity to be studied with respect to its historical development, social settings, and aesthetic qualities, as well as the ethical dilemmas it creates in our increasingly digitized and networked world.

Click here to apply for the M.A. For more information, please send email to [email protected] .

Programs for UChicago Undergraduates and Ph.D. Students

In addition to the master’s program , to which everyone may apply, students in the College of the University of Chicago can apply to do an undergraduate minor or a joint BA/MA in Digital Studies.

University of Chicago Ph.D. students and students in two-year M.A. programs can earn a  Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies by taking four core courses in Digital Studies (DIGS) and incorporating digital methods in their thesis work. This certification will be noted on their academic transcript.

The Forum for Digital Culture also supports the undergraduate program in Media Arts and Design and the undergraduate program in Cognitive Science . Students majoring in these subjects may take courses in Digital Studies (DIGS) and work on computational projects under the supervision of the staff of the Forum.

Courses and Tutorials in Digital Studies

The core courses and elective courses in Digital Studies (DIGS) are designed to foster, not just technical skills in coding and data analysis, but an understanding of the history of computing and its cultural impact from the perspective of the humanities. Students in these courses are introduced to computer programming and the use of software libraries via two widely used programming languages: Python and JavaScript.

Learning to code in these languages is the gateway for students to understand and use cutting-edge digital tools and data standards to manage, analyze, and publish information. The Digital Studies courses emphasize the kinds of data commonly encountered in the humanities, including texts, images, maps, and other media.

Students who have previously taken college-level courses in programming and/or statistics in which they earned a grade of B (3.0) or higher will have fewer required core courses and more elective courses, allowing them to pursue other interests. In-person class attendance is mandatory in all Digital Studies courses except in case of illness.

In addition to courses for degree credit, the Forum for Digital Culture offers a series of non-credit tutorials on computational tools and skills commonly used in the humanities and social sciences. Students in the various Digital Studies programs are encouraged to attend these tutorials to acquire additional skills not taught in the Digital Studies courses.

Teaching Staff and Faculty Advisory Board

The core courses and tutorials in Digital Studies are taught by the staff of the Forum for Digital Culture. In addition to their computational expertise, they are all trained as scholars in the humanities or related social sciences. This informs their teaching and enables them to understand the best way to apply computational methods in academic research.

The degree program and other activities of the Forum for Digital Culture are overseen by a faculty advisory board representing a wide range of academic fields and departments. These faculty members serve on M.A. admissions committees and teach elective courses of interest to students in the M.A. program. They may also serve as thesis advisors for students who do a two-year specialized M.A.

The members of the faculty advisory board are drawn from 17 different departments in the University of Chicago. They represent the full range of academic fields in the humanities and related social sciences, including linguistics, philosophy, literary studies, cultural studies, media studies, history, anthropology, archaeology, art history, visual arts, musicology, and religious studies. They share a common interest in understanding the impact of digital technology in the present day and in using digital tools to represent, analyze, and preserve the products of human languages and cultures, past and present. In their academic work they show how Digital Studies encompasses the full range of human activities, from everyday speech and writing to historical documents and literary texts, and includes music and fine art as well as mundane objects, places, and institutions.

Student Research

The staff  of the Forum for Digital Culture have extensive experience in the use of computers for research in the humanities. In addition to teaching courses, they consult with University of Chicago faculty members and students in a wide range of departments and disciplines to give advice concerning computational resources and services available on campus.

The Forum staff are themselves actively engaged in developing and supporting sophisticated computational platforms tailored for the humanities and they train students of Digital Studies on how to use these platforms for their thesis projects and for faculty projects in which students serve as research assistants. In this way, teaching and research are closely intertwined in the Forum for Digital Culture.

Culture, Communication and Media MPhil/PhD

London, Bloomsbury

The MPhil/PhD programme provides a route for you carry out a piece of research that will make a distinctive contribution to knowledge in the fields of education, culture and communication. You will work closely with your supervisor(s) to develop your project, supported by a flexible programme of methodology courses and a strong research community of staff and doctoral students. This programme is available to study both face-to-face and online.

UK tuition fees (2024/25)

Overseas tuition fees (2024/25), programme starts, applications accepted.

• Entry requirements

The normal minimum requirement is a Master’s degree from a UK university in a subject appropriate to the programme to be followed, or a qualification of equivalent standard appropriate to the programme to be followed awarded by a university (or educational institution of university rank) outside the UK. The majority of our successful applicants hold a Merit at Master’s level, and may have additional relevant experience.

The English language level for this programme is: Level 4

UCL Pre-Master's and Pre-sessional English courses are for international students who are aiming to study for a postgraduate degree at UCL. The courses will develop your academic English and academic skills required to succeed at postgraduate level.

Further information can be found on our English language requirements page.

Equivalent qualifications

Country-specific information, including details of when UCL representatives are visiting your part of the world, can be obtained from the International Students website .

International applicants can find out the equivalent qualification for their country by selecting from the list below. Please note that the equivalency will correspond to the broad UK degree classification stated on this page (e.g. upper second-class). Where a specific overall percentage is required in the UK qualification, the international equivalency will be higher than that stated below. Please contact Graduate Admissions should you require further advice.

About this degree

The Department of Culture, Communication and Media has innovative, research-active staff able to supervise postgraduate research in the following areas: applied linguistics; TESOL; art, design and museology; music education; English education, social semiotics and multimodality; media education; learning with digital technologies; teacher professional development; and psychosocial studies. We have seven research centres: The Centre for Applied Linguistics, The Academic Writing Centre, The Confucius Institute for Schools, The International Centre for Intercultural Studies, Digital Arts Research in Education, The Centre for Multimodal Research and the UCL Knowledge Lab.

Who this course is for

The MPhil/PhD is for applicants with a strong interest in an aspect of educational and social research, which may be understood broadly across the life course, in relation to other subject areas and wider social, economic, political and cultural changes. You should normally have completed an MA to merit level and want to develop a specific area of research. You may have a background in education or a cognate area of study. It is suitable for both recent graduates and those progressed in a career.

What this course will give you

IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society is a world-leading centre for research in education and related social science. We host the UK's largest doctoral cohort in these areas. In the QS World University Rankings by Subject (2023), the Institute was ranked first for education for the tenth year running, ahead of Harvard, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge. In the UK's recent Research Excellence Framework (2021), we were ranked first for research strength and research power in Education, according to the Elsevier REF 2021 Results Analysis Tool. We attract extensive research funding each year and host many prestigious research centres and projects.

Doctoral students at IOE have access to the wider UCL community as well as the education cluster constituting the ESRC  UBEL Doctoral Training Partnership . The Institute's programme has been designed to provide comprehensive and broadly based research training and to meet the requirements of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the UK Researcher Development Framework.

Students work closely with their supervisor(s) to develop each stage of research; supervisors also help put together a programme of additional courses and activities to support progress towards completion of the final thesis.

The foundation of your career

Students will develop general and specialist skills in research methodology, academic writing and presentation, as well as gaining experience of engaging with a wide range of practitioners across different sectors of education.

UCL’s commitment clearly supports research like mine through bespoke, untested and uncommon approaches. This luxury is something not lost on me - it motivates me each and every day. David Ruttenberg Culture, Communication and Media MPhil/PhD Q&A with David Ruttenberg

Employability

IOE doctoral graduates in the Department of Culture, Communication and Media progress to careers in university teaching, educational research, policy and curriculum development, as well as creative arts education.

The Department of Culture, Communication and Media has a wide range of research seminars, where students can join discussion of our ongoing projects, as well as being the base for national and international conferences. There are also opportunities to work with education practitioners and organisations beyond IOE. The Centre for Doctoral Education holds two annual conferences for IOE doctoral students; and there are opportunities for students to offer specialist reading groups and workshops and to act as facilitators on courses within the research training programme.

Teaching and learning

In addition to UCL's Doctoral Skills Development Programme, IOE's Centre for Doctoral Education provides a comprehensive Research Training Programme.

The Core Courses aim to meets the needs of early stage doctoral students.

There is also a wide range of introductory, advanced methods, advanced theoretical, and generic academic skills courses, as well as student-led workshops and reading groups.

The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) consists of a piece of supervised research, normally undertaken over a period of three years full-time or five years part-time. Assessment is by means of a thesis, which should demonstrate your capacity to pursue original research based upon a good understanding of the research techniques and concepts appropriate to the discipline. It must also represent a distinct and significant contribution to the subject, whether through the discovery of new knowledge, the connection of previously unrelated facts, the development of new theory, or the revision of older views. It should reflect the exercise of critical judgement with regard to both your own work and that of other scholars in the field.

For those who decide not to pursue the full PhD, or are unable to do so, the degree of Master of Philosophy (MPhil) consists of a piece of supervised research, normally undertaken over a period of three years full-time or five years part-time. Assessment is by means of a thesis, which should represent a contribution to the subject, either through a record of your original work or a critical and ordered exposition of existing knowledge.

You must ensure you have adequate time to devote to this research, at least six hours a day (2-3 days a week part time).

Research areas and structure

• Applied linguistics: bilingualism and multilingualism; neoliberal ideology and language teaching; materials analysis; English as a global language; language learning and identity; language teacher identity; language education, gender and sexuality; critical discourse analysis; second language acquisition; language testing; translanguaging; ethnography
• Art, design and museology: artists in sites of learning, curatorial practices and the shaping of knowledge in galleries and museums, artists interventions in educational contexts; visual culture
• Music education: musical development, the psychology of music, singing and voice science, music in special education, music ideology, gender and music, the sociology and philosophy of music, informal and popular music education, the wider benefits of music
• English education, social semiotics and multimodality: teacher identities; literature in urban classroom; social and digital literacy practices; identity, subject knowledge and communication; visual methodologies; subject knowledge and policy
• Media education: the moving image and video games; young people’s production of digital animation, film and computer games; online communities, virtual worlds, play and film
• Learning with digital technologies: software interventions to support learners with disabilities; the development of adaptive technologies; learner modelling; virtual learning environments; methods for analysing the effectiveness of interactive learning environments; technology mediated knowledge in the curriculum
• Psychosocial studies: reflexivity; psychoanalytically informed approaches to educational research; knowledge practices in the humanities and social sciences; unconscious aspects of learning, professional practice and research; post-structural theories of gender and subjectivity

Further details of staff research and publications are available on the department website.

Research environment

As a research student in the Department of Culture, Communication and Media, you can participate in the seminars organised by department research centres or according to interest groups.

Since October 2014, we have also – in addition to the campus-based mode - offered the option to study online in a distance-learning mode. Choosing the distance-learning mode means that there are no residency requirements and it is not necessary to attend during doctoral study, the viva examination take place in-person at UCL or online. However, you are welcome to visit and use campus facilities including the library, attend seminars etc. In the first year of full-time study (and first two years of part-time study), distance learners take a series of compulsory research methods modules that are studied online. This typically involves provision of materials (articles, eBooks, videos etc.), forums to facilitate discussion of various tasks, and synchronous sessions to discuss the activities. Alongside these you will work with your supervisors on your research (e.g., using Teams/Zoom and email). In addition, there are other resources and training opportunities to support distance-learning students, e.g., sessions to develop generic skills.

The length of registration for the research degree programmes is 3 years for full-time.

You are required to register initially for the MPhil degree with the expectation of transfer to PhD after successful completion of an upgrade viva 9-18 months after initial registration.

IOE Centre for Doctoral Education provides an extensive Research Training Programme. A mandatory core course is provided that aims to meet the needs of early-stage doctoral students. There is also a wide range of introductory, advanced methods, advanced theoretical, and generic non-credit bearing academic skills courses, as well as student led workshops and reading groups which you can attend.

Full-time MPhil/PhD students are required to fulfil minimum 20 ‘points’ of training activity in their first year, and are encouraged to fulfil the same in their subsequent years of study. This training can be selected from the UCL Doctoral Skills Development Programme, IOE faculty’s Research Training Programme, the multi-institutional Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network, and from other sources. Each point is worth approximately a half-day of face-to-face training, or an online equivalent. Other activities such as attending and presenting at conferences also count towards research training. Students may undertake additional training beyond these minima, as relevant to their research and/or as agreed with their supervisors.

You are expected to upgrade from MPhil to PhD status towards the end of your first year of study if full-time. Students whose performance is satisfactory will transfer from MPhil to PhD status.

Processes aimed at assisting you during your course of study include the Research Student Log (an online project management tool), and periodic reviews of students’ progress.

Upon successful completion of your approved period of registration you may, if necessary, register as a register as a completing research status (CRS) student while you finish writing your thesis.

The length of registration for the research degree programmes is 5 years for part-time.

Part-time students are required to fulfil minimum 12 ‘points’ of training activity in each year of study. This training can be selected from the UCL Doctoral Skills Development Programme, IOE faculty’s Research Training Programme, the multi-institutional Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network, and from other sources. Each point is worth approximately a half-day of face-to-face training, or an online equivalent.  Other activities such as attending and presenting at conferences also count towards research training. Students may undertake additional training beyond these minima, as relevant to their research and/or as agreed with their supervisors.

You are expected to upgrade from MPhil to PhD status at around 18 months if part-time. Students whose performance is satisfactory will transfer from MPhil to PhD status.

Upon successful completion of your approved period of registration you may, if necessary, register as a completing research status (CRS) student while you finish writing your thesis.

Accessibility

Details of the accessibility of UCL buildings can be obtained from AccessAble accessable.co.uk . Further information can also be obtained from the UCL Student Support and Wellbeing team .

Where you'll study

The Department of Culture, Communication and Media is committed to excellence in research and teaching in the areas of Art, Design and Museology, Academic writing, English education, Applied Linguistics, Music Education, Learning with Digital Technologies and teacher professional development.

Fees and funding

Fees for this course.

The tuition fees shown are for the year indicated above. Fees for subsequent years may increase or otherwise vary. Where the programme is offered on a flexible/modular basis, fees are charged pro-rata to the appropriate full-time Master's fee taken in an academic session. Further information on fee status, fee increases and the fee schedule can be viewed on the UCL Students website: ucl.ac.uk/students/fees .

Additional costs

Students should take into account any travel, accommodation and expenses involved in their thesis.

For more information on additional costs for prospective students please go to our estimated cost of essential expenditure at Accommodation and living costs .

Funding your studies

For a comprehensive list of the funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to your nationality, please visit the Scholarships and Funding webpage: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/scholarships/funding-students-postgraduate-research-courses

UCL's Research Excellence Scholarships (RES) are available annually to prospective and existing UCL research students from any country: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/scholarships/research-excellence-scholarship . The UCL, Bloomsbury and East London Doctoral Training Partnership offers studentships annually. More information is found here: https://ubel-dtp.ac.uk/

UBEL, RES and other funding programmes are not available to online and non-resident students.

For a comprehensive list of the funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to your nationality, please visit the Scholarships and Funding website .

After choosing a programme to apply for, you should develop a research proposal and identify a potential supervisor. For more information, visit our website to find a supervisor and get in touch with departmental graduate tutors.

Please note that you may submit applications for a maximum of two graduate programmes (or one application for the Law LLM) in any application cycle.

Choose your programme

Please read the Application Guidance before proceeding with your application.

Year of entry: 2024-2025

Got questions get in touch.

Culture, Communication and Media

[email protected]

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Research Group for Digital Culture

Main content.

The Digital Culture Research Group gathers researchers and post-graduate students from different humanities disciplines who share an interest in studying how technology and culture interact. From July 2023 the group will close, and activities will move to the Center for Digital Narrative . 

Jill Walker Rettberg  leads the group.

The Center for Digital Narrative has been awarded the status of Centre of Excellence

The Center for Digital Narrative (CDN) has been awarded the status of Center of Research Excellence. The center will investigate new forms of digital narrative in electronic literature, digital games, social media and AI-driven storytelling.

Roleplaying AI and Technology

Jon Andreas Edland developed "Ettersynsing" as a practical master thesis in Digital Culture. Last week he ran it for AI scientists and developers at NORA's annual conference.

Jason Nelson Appointed Associate Professor at UiB Digital Culture

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Jason Nelson as Associate Professor with UiB Digital Culture.

A Better Understanding of Social Media with Situated Data Analysis

Situated Data Analysis

Jill Walker Rettberg proposes situated data analysis as a new method for analysing how personal data is always constructed and represented in specific contexts.

Recap: Wikipedia Editing Workshop

Last Sunday, 10 March 2019, Post-doc Maud Ceuterick and PhD candidate Hannah Ackermans in Digital Culture at UiB organized a feminist Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon to improve the documentation of women and other marginalized people on Wikipedia.

• See all events
• See all news

Global Digital Cultures

Digitization is transforming cultural practices, from friendship, intimacy and sexual relations, to the construction, targeting, and surveillance of publics. Digital platforms and mobile apps, such as Facebook, Tinder, YouTube, Instagram, Netflix, the Russian platform VK, and the China-based WeChat, TikTok, and Tantan, have rapidly become central to the production, circulation, consumption, and monetization of culture. The complexity and scale of these changes require active collaboration across a wide variety of disciplines, including economics, the social sciences and the humanities. With this in mind, the GDC will build on and further strengthen existing interdisciplinary and cross-Faculty collaborations within UvA and beyond to identify vital topics, shape research agendas and develop innovative methods.

There are no upcoming events at this time.

We aim to build a vibrant, interdisciplinary, research community across the University of Amsterdam and beyond, to compare and analysing the profound changes brought about by digitisation across the globe. Early career and PhD scholars are especially encouraged to get involved, attend events, and apply for the funding opportunities.

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Article contents

Digital culture and qualitative methodologies in education.

• Eliane Schlemmer Eliane Schlemmer Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos - UNISOS
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.508
• Published online: 30 September 2019

From a digital culture perspective, this article has as main objective to assess two contemporary qualitative research methods in the field of education with distinct theoretical orientations: the cartographic method as a way of tracing trajectories in research-intervention with a theoretical basis in the biology of knowledge, enactive cognition and inventive cognition; and the cartographic method as a means of identifying and mapping the controversies linked to the different associations between human and non-human actors with a theoretical basis in actor-network theory (ANT). With their own specificities, both methods have been fruitful in the development of qualitative research in the field of education, in the context of digital culture, and more recently, in the hybrid culture of atopic habitation, mainly because they also relate to equally consistent theories and aspects of human cognition, making it possible to detect traces and clues in the fluid associations between actors enhanced by different digital technologies (DT), including data mining and learning analytics. From the Brazilian perspective on the topic, this article approaches the experience of the cartographic method of research intervention as well as the cartography of controversies as tools for developing qualitative research in education. These different forms of the cartographic method have inspired the construction of didactic-pedagogical experiences based on theoretical approaches linked to cognition, producing inventive methodologies and interventionist pedagogical practices. These methodologies and practices, which will be discussed at length in this article, have been developed and validated by the Research Group in Digital Education at Unisinos University at different levels and in varied educational settings.

• qualitative research
• cartography
• digital culture
• multimodality
• pervasiveness

Introduction

A version of this article in its original language.

A social group’s socialization is made visible by a distinctive way of acting, which develops rituals representing emotions, common values, and norms for coexistence, all of which contribute to constructing a culture. This makes it possible to refer, for example, to a pre-digital, digital, or gamer culture, and, more recently, a hybrid culture in atopic habitation.

Research itself is also embedded in a culture, which is evident in the understanding of what science is and how to do science in different areas of knowledge. This way of doing science, of researching, has faced new challenges and implications arising mainly from exponential digital technological growth.

The production of knowledge, as well as its almost instantaneous dissemination, produces broad access to ever greater amounts of information in a very short time, providing direct interaction with the researcher or research group responsible for a given discovery and/or innovation, as well as the constitution of research networks. This movement, so characteristic of contemporary scientific inquiry, instigates dialogue among fields, allowing distinct areas of knowledge to overlap and establish new research contexts. Thus we have seen the emergence of biomedicine, biotechnology, food engineering, and informatics in digital education/education, among many others, posing new methodological research challenges.

Lopes and Schlemmer ( 2017 ), point out that research in education in the context of digital culture has sought theoretical and methodological references that can support the complexity of knowledge production in this context, provoking dialogue and the problematization of the very theoretical and epistemological field that sustains it, in addition to the simple problematization related to the use of specific digital technologies (DT) and their effects on education. In this sense, theorists such as Pierre Lévy, Manuel Castells, Bruno Latour, Michel Maffesoli, Massimo Di Felice, Lúcia Santaella, and André Lemos, among others, problematize the sociocultural dimension of digital technological development, allowing us to broaden the focus of research into the contexts of emerging digital culture and, according to Schlemmer ( 2018 ), hybrid culture in atopic habitation, as well as to understand how this phenomenon relates to the field of education. It is therefore a matter of researching the broader meanings that these cultures produce in the field of teaching and learning, that is, the broader field of education.

With this context in mind, the following is a presentation of the research we have conducted as part of the Research Group in Digital Education, which highlights some of the concerns, strategies, and theoretical and methodological approaches that we have adopted in our research in the field of education in digital culture, and more recently in the hybrid culture in atopic habitation, which has enabled us to engage in broader and deeper dialogue. The objective is to consider the cartographic method of intervention research so as to highlight the research process, showing how we gradually adopted digital culture research methods before arriving at the cartographic method of intervention research and the cartography of controversies, which are discussed at length in this article.

From Digital Culture to Hybrid Culture in Atopic Habitation: Challenges for Qualitative Research in Education

In the field of research on education and digital culture in Brazil, Schlemmer, Lopes, and Molina ( 2012 ) outline some epistemological and methodological challenges on experiments in providing guidance by master’s and doctoral students in education. These challenges involve the construction of research objects and problems in the field of education and digital culture in DT contexts, including virtual learning environments, digital social media, and 3D digital virtual worlds. The authors propose rethinking the term virtual as a demarcation of an epistemological and methodological frontier in the ethnographic research of education and digital culture. They argue that the term digital would be more appropriate in distinguishing this border. They also suggest that the term netnography would be the most appropriate in a theoretical-methodological ethnographic research design in education and digital culture.

With this perspective, Lopes, Schlemmer, and Molina ( 2014b ) present some approaches to developing research and new procedures involving the use of applications (apps) and mobile devices (netbooks, tablets, and smartphones) in ethnographic research based on the project “Escola aumentada: Cartografia digital e mobilidade para a aprendizagem e a cidadania.” For the authors, the development of mobile technologies, geolocation (GPS and locative media), and distributed online databases (cloud computing) created new possibilities for the production of records and interactions in ethnographic research. While the diversity of digital records (text, photo, audio, and video) coupled with indexing and tagging mechanisms (tags, hashtags, geotags, etc.) opens up new possibilities for research, it also requires participants to understand the relevant syntax and new technological procedures for the production, recording, and sharing of information. Some programs and applications for desktop and mobile devices such as NVivo and Evernote, among others, can facilitate this process, contributing to the planning and organization of such production. The authors also refer to participatory research methodologies capable of involving researchers and subjects in the production and analysis of data. The current technological context, they note, can consolidate a new scenario in the field of research in which scholars and subjects act as co-producers of knowledge. In this sense, cartography mediated by digital devices emerges as a rich methodological possibility, involving social actors in the context of local problems. This engagement is a necessary condition for the production of meaning through the shared and mediated use of DT in the process of knowledge construction. This scenario can reconfigure both the research itself and the contract between researchers and subjects, since action and participation become instances of authorship from which all sides speak and produce.

Expanding their experimentation along with the discussion over the cartographic method, Lopes, Schlemmer, and Molina ( 2014a ) carried out an early attempt to map actions linked to a digital inclusion program—Província de São Pedro (PSP)—to distribute netbooks and tablets to teachers and students, initially prioritizing schools in cities participating in the Territories of Peace Program (Programa Territórios de Paz, PTP) to address the following research problem: What is the reasoning for linking an educational program of digital inclusion to a public safety program? The objective of the research was to understand the ties between such programs. Thus, the authors present digital cartography as a methodological proposition for online research and indicate the digital map of culture in Rio Grande do Sul (RS) and digital cartography as technological possibilities to promote greater connectivity between such programs.

Schlemmer and Lopes ( 2016 ) and Schlemmer ( 2016a ) also analyze the potential of the method to inspire new practices in line with the need to understand the phenomenon of learning in all its complexity—social, political, cognitive, affective, and technological—precisely because of its interventionist nature. In this context, the authors present a theoretical, methodological, and technological experiment developed in higher education and inspired by the cartographic method as a way of monitoring and evaluating learning in gamified processes and games from an interventionist perspective developed in a hybrid, multimodal, pervasive, and ubiquitous context.

Lopes and Schlemmer ( 2017 ) problematize the ethical, epistemological, and methodological aspects related to the field of education in digital culture, reflecting on how ethics can dialogue with the choices scholars make when conducting research. The authors present the paths adopted in two surveys conducted between 2010 and 2015 with a state public school in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre participating in government programs for digital inclusion. Founded on the intervention research cartographic method, they present some of the results of discussions with teachers and students, based on the experience of producing and publishing information on the Internet. They problematize the ethical dilemma of research intervention based on the idea of technological appropriation, as a process that is established from the changes of practices that take place in contexts of analogical school culture and digital culture. They discuss and propose, based on the results of the research, overcoming the ethical dilemma of children and young students participating in surveys involving the publication of online content and the fears regarding media exposure—namely, the production and access to inappropriate content—and inattention in the classroom.

This research demonstrates that the cartographic method has been relevant, especially when the research tries to understand phenomena related to learning in the digital culture or, more recently, in the hybrid culture in an atopic habitation. Associated with this perspective, in the digital technological context are systems of data mining and learning analytics that make it possible to more effectively follow the tracks left by the subjects in the different spaces in which they interact.

Hybrid, in this context, refers to the mix between different elements resulting in a new element composed of the previous ones. For Latour ( 1994 ), the hybrid consists of multiple matrices, mixtures of nature and culture, which is therefore contrary to the separation between culture/nature, human/non human, among other things.

By atopic habitation, Di Felice ( 2009 ) refers to a relationship, a form of communication, characterized by the network interactions between different human and non human collectives, digital and territorial technologies. Atopic habitation “is thus the transient and fluid hybridization of bodies, technologies and landscapes, and as the advent of a new typology of ecosystem, neither organic, nor inorganic, nor static, nor delimitable, but informative and immaterial” (p. 291).

Thus, according to Schlemmer ( 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , 2016a , 2016b , 2016c , 2017 ), the hybrid is understood to be a mixture of space (geographic and digital), presence (physical and digital), technologies (analogue and digital), and culture (pre-digital and digital). It is in this context that the term multimodal is used, which includes the different imbricated educational modalities: the presential-physical modality and online modality and, while online, being able to combine elements of electronic learning, mobile learning, pervasive learning, ubiquitous learning, immersive learning, gamification learning, and game-based learning.

When scholars refer to hybridism in atopic habitation, in multimodality, pervasiveness, and ubiquity, they mean actions and interactions between human actors (HA) and non-human actors (NHA), in geographic and digital spaces, in interactions of different cultures (digital and pre-digital), constituting inseparable networks linking interconnected natures, techniques, and cultures. This suggests that a new understanding of culture and society may be emerging, one that embraces coexistence, co-engendering, mutual respect, solidarity, and the recognition of the other as a legitimate interlocutor. Thus, it is worth seeking to understand what these changes might mean in the area of education and, by extension, for research in education.

It is in this context that two contemporary methodological approaches are presented and discussed within the scope of qualitative research in education, linked to specific theoretical orientations.

The Cartographic Method of Research Intervention in Relation to Cognition Sciences

The cartographic method of intervention research is based on the cartographic method proposed by Deleuze and Guattari ( 1995 ). This method has been developed in Brazil by Kastrup ( 2007 , 2008 ), Passos, Kastrup, and Escóssia ( 2009 ), and Passos, Kastrup, and Tedesco ( 2014 ) as a means of interventionist research.

According to Passos et al. ( 2009 ), this approach originated from concerns about research methodology, which requires more open and, at the same time, inventive procedures. Thus, the theme of cartography emerged as a methodological issue in the face of impasses in cognition research, developed by the research group Cognição e Subjetividades. 1 The method began taking shape when the members of the research group questioned the assumption that knowledge means representing or recognizing reality by configuring the importance of the binomial cognition/creation and calling for a more detailed investigation process into the temporal dimension of knowledge production processes. Thus, the authors defined the concept of cognition as creative, autopoietic (Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, 2001 ), or enactive (Francisco Varela, 1988 ).

Maturana and Rezepka ( 2000 ) suggest that the way people attribute meaning and learn has a distinctly human quality, since people are autonomous and autopoietic, in congruence with the environment in which they are inserted. This congruence can cause disturbances in the structure of human beings, promoting learning processes insofar as the structure self-produces to compensate for the disturbance. Thus, for Maturana ( 1993a , 1993b ), learning is the act of transforming within a particular environment of recurrent interactions, and happens as the behavior of an organism varies during its ontogenesis in a manner congruent with the variations of the environment (Maturana, 1998 ). Therefore, when I refer to a medium or a hybrid, it means that the congruence of the subject with this environment causes disruptions in the structure of this subject, which allows him or her to attribute meanings that originate from the action and interaction in that space, thus promoting learning processes as the structure reproduces itself to compensate for the disturbance, and in so doing, compounds its ontogeny.

The process of cognition consists of creating a range of behaviors through conduct within a field of interactions. Knowledge, from this perspective, is not simply representation, but implies a permanent interpretation of action. For Varela ( 1990 ), interpretation and knowledge are emergent (in the sense of emerging) results of action or acting in the world. Thus, greater capacity for cognition consists, to a large extent, of asking the pertinent questions that arise at every moment of our life. These are not predefined but rather enactive: they emerge from action in the world, the relevant aspect being what our common sense deems appropriate within a given context. Thus, knower and what is known, subject and object, determine each other and arise simultaneously. The enactive orientation proposes an intermediate way of transcending both extremes: subject and object define each other and are correlative.

The central point of cognition for Maturana and Varela ( 1997 ) is its ability to elicit meaning: knowledge is not predetermined or established a priori, but implicit in regular processes of cognitive activities themselves. In this way, cognition is not the representation of a world that exists independently, but rather the “production” of a world through the process of living, the “continuous coincidence of our being, our doing and our knowing” (p. 20).

According to Passos ( 2015 ), “to know is to enter a structural coupling with the environment, to interact” (p. 85). However, the understanding of interaction changes in this perspective because it no longer assumes the preexistence of the two terms (organism and environment, subject and object) that interact. To interact in this perspective means to construct oneself and the environment, being, therefore, the “act of knowing reality, an act of affirmation of self, self-surrendering, of autopoiesis. By redefining the cognitive act, its representational sense disappears” (p. 86). In this way, transgression lies in imbuing knowledge with pragmatic value that makes it a performative act, in which to know is to do and vice versa. This delegitimizes the understanding of knowledge through transparency or indifference of the cognitive act: “The whole act of knowing is a form of engagement in the world, of commitment to the world that constitutes itself in this act” (p. 86).

An important element that marks the difference between the enactive approach and any form of biological constructivism or neo-Kantianism is the emphasis on codetermination. In this context, the understanding that conduct is potentially unpredictable marks a departure from the theoretical approach of Maturana and Varela, from other behaviorist and Piagetian approaches.

In this perspective, according to Passos et al. ( 2009 ), subject and object—the poles of cognoscence—are outcomes of cognitive activity rather than conditions. By broadening the concept of cognition and understanding it as linked to creation, the production of knowledge pragmatically and reciprocally shapes the self and the cognitive domain such that cognitive practice engenders subjectivity, overcoming an understanding of dependence of a cognitive subject and a given world, understood as invariant fundamentals. Understanding of cognition as an act of creation brings with it “the problem of the ethical commitment of the cognitive act to the created reality. Production of knowledge, production of subjectivity” (p. 13). The methodological problem is set as follows: “How to study the plane of reality production? What method allows us to follow these processes?” (p. 13). Instead of rules to be applied in the method, the authors offer clues to guide the researcher, since it is not always possible to predetermine every methodological procedure: “The clues that guide the cartographer are like references that contribute to maintaining an attitude of openness to what is happening and of calibrating the course of the research—the meta-hodos of research” (p. 13).

Initially, eight points were proposed to guide the practice of the cartographic method. These were not laid out in hierarchical order but as a rhizome (based on Deleuze & Guattari, 1995 ), referring to each other and forming a set of connections and references to order, develop, and collectivize the cartographer’s experience.

According to Passos et al. ( 2009 ), cartography is an intervention research method (point 1) that aims to track the process, through clues, guiding the course of the research, without establishing a linear path to an end. In this way, it considers the effects of the research process on the research object, the researcher, and the results, and does not simply represent an object: “Cartography seeks to ensure the accuracy of the method without giving up the unpredictability of the process of knowledge production, which is a positive requirement of the ad hoc investigation process” (Kastrup, 2007 , p. 19). What sets it apart from other approaches is the focus on the process and not the end result. With the aim of tracking the process (point 3), clues may arise, which might help to describe, discuss, and, above all, to collect the experience of the cartographer.

In this sense, the cartographer needs to keep in mind that the action of researching his object in motion constitutes a practice in which his path establishes links with the participants inserted into the context of what is being investigated. This composition of agency between heterogeneous actors is expressed by Barros and Kastrup ( 2009 ), drawing from Caiafa ( 2007 ). For these authors, agency implies a relationship of cooperation, a kind of sympathy, which, in addition to a simple feeling of esteem, refers to a composition of bodies implying mutual affection that enable the ethnographer to effectively “enter into relationship with the heterogeneous ones that surround it, to act with them, to write with them” (Barros & Kastrup, 2009 , p. 57).

According to Passos et al. ( 2009 ), cartography as a methodological orientation needs to be articulated using three ideas that make up a plan of action or a research plan: transversality, implication, and the dissolution of the observer’s point of view (point 6). In traditional third- and first-person methodologies, there is always the imposition of a point of view capable of representing or signifying the object at hand. There must be an observer, which implies the “subject–object separation or duality, as well as the imposition of an interpretative reference frame separate from experience” (Passos & Eirado, 2009 , p. 121). These authors discuss the work of Varela, Thompson, and Rosch ( 2003 ), who point out that third-person methodology does not work when studying cognition or the mind, because there is a circularity between knowledge and the known world that is fundamental but often overlooked. This is more evident in studies of cognition because it is not possible to separate the structure that is known from the experience of knowing. This understanding of cognitive experience as its own creation, that is, of both the known object and the subject it knows, which occurs in circular motion, is called “enactive action or approach, modulating the notion of autopoiesis formulated by Maturana and Varela in the 1970s” (Passos & Eirado, 2009 , p. 121).

For Passos and Eirado ( 2009 ), the biology of knowledge, autopoiesis, accepts the challenge of thinking without a foundation, since third-person methodology needs to be complemented by first-person methodology. Woven together, these make it possible to penetrate the circularity that arises in the experience of acquiring knowledge. The cartographer has to avoid merely seeking solutions and testing hypotheses, for “he does not take the self as an object, but the self-emergence processes as the destabilization of the points of view that collapse the experience in the (‘internal’) self” (p. 123). He must inhabit the experience without being bound by any point of view, his main task being to dissolve the observer’s point of view without neglecting observation. Enaction assumes that all experience emerges from experimentation, since it does not refer to what is already a given but rather the emergence of change. Data does not exist a priori, waiting to be gathered, instead, it is constituted in the experience itself. In this way, it is up to the cartographer to accompany this emergence of himself and the world in the experience, and for this it is imperative to be immersed and never immune to the process.

Kastrup and Barros ( 2009 ) argue that the method is not a research model developed through clues, strategies, and procedures. The procedures are embodied in apparatuses (dispositif) that perform important and distinct functions in the operation of cartography. 2 Grounded in Deleuze’s work, they understand apparatuses as “machines that make it possible to see and speak,” composed of lines of visibility, enunciation, force, and subjectification. These apparatuses are aligned with the process of creation, and the work of the researcher-cartographer is to unravel these lines and monitor their effects. The purpose of the apparatus involves three movement functions (point 4): reference (more or less regular apparatus, in which repetition and variation are articulated); explicitation (research territory to be explored, explicitation of the lines that participate in the ongoing production process, inseparable dimensions, research and intervention); and transformation production (“transformation of the relations between the elements/lines/affective, cognitive, institutional, micro and macropolitical vectors, activating movements and sustaining processes of production” [Kastrup & Barros, 2009 , p. 80]). Cartography can produce and transform the reality to be analyzed. In this way, mapping implies intervention.

The cartographer, the person using the cartographic method, does so through “cartographic attention.” Cartographic attention (point 2), according to Kastrup ( 2007 , p. 15), is based on Freud’s concept of “free-floating attention” and Bergson’s concept of “attentive recognition.” It is concentrated and open with four varieties (movements): tracing, touch, landing, and attentive recognition. The cartographer’s work begins with tracing , which involves scanning/sweeping the field, an overview with open and unfocused attention. It is a broader look at something that touches it, beyond the search for information. Touch triggers the selection process, the first meaning, the first analysis performed on the selection process. It is characterized by a quick sense of focus on attention, when something touches, it draws attention, causing it to become alert, but that does not yet define what the cartographer will focus on. The movement that refers to a defined point of attention and focus is the landing , which is to stop, zoom in, choose/define, and indicate that the selected element needs to be inspected more closely for analysis. That is, “the landing gesture indicates that the perception, whether it is visual, auditory or otherwise, makes a stop and the field closes in a kind of zoom. A new territory is formed, the field of observation is reconfigured” (Kastrup, 2009 , p. 43). The fourth and final movement is of Bergson’s attentive recognition , characterized by an investigative attitude about the landing, to which the cartographer’s attention is drawn. It represents analysis itself.

The cartographer’s objective is to map a territory that he/she did not previously inhabit (point 7), to understand the planes of power (point 5)—a moving plane of the reality of things at work in it—and to produce knowledge over the course of research, which involves attention and, with it, the very creation of the field of observation (Escóssia & Tedesco, 2009 ).

Because it is a form of intervention research, the analysis occurs in the process, in the movement of cartography, which makes it possible to carry out the intervention while the process is taking place. Thus, Escóssia and Tedesco ( 2009 ) point to the double direction of the nature of cartography: as a knowledge process that is not restricted to describing or classifying the formal contours of the objects of the world, but in tracing the movement itself that animates them, and as a practice of intervention, where access to the plane of power implies inhabiting it, so that the acts of the cartographer, also a collective of forces, participate and intervene in the changes and in the transformations that occur.

This inhabiting of an existential territory is significantly different from the “application of a theory or the execution of a prescriptive methodological planning, since it implies receiving and being welcomed in the difference that is expressed between the terms of the relation: subject and object, researcher and researched, I and the world” (Alvarez & Passos, 2009 , p. 148). In cartography, one does not “separate theory and practice, spaces of reflection and action. To know, to act and to inhabit a territory are no longer experiences distant from each other” (p. 149).

As far as the cartographic method of research intervention is concerned, where the data are produced Passos and Barros ( 2009 ) emphasize the question of narrativity, that is, it is always narratives that we deal with, being that sometimes the research participants also are cartographers. What each one says, what the situation says implies taking a position in a certain narrativity politics (point 8). 3 This narrative position (ethos of research) is embedded in other policies that are at stake, such as research policies, subjectivity, or cognitive policies. So all production of knowledge comes from an implicitly political position. According to the authors, narrativity politics refers to the position we take in facing the world and ourselves. In this way, “the knowledge we express about ourselves and the world is not only a theoretical problem, but a policy-related problem” (Passos & Barros, 2009 , p. 151).

According to Passos and Barros ( 2009 ), narrativity politics involves two methods and two ways of speaking—extensivism and intensivism—and also two narrative procedures: redundancy (“organizing what in this case is abundance, generating a circulation of meaning that reinforces the clarity of the case, its unity and identity” [p. 158]) and disassembly (“extracting from the larger case the agitation of microcases as microstruggles brought into the scene” [p.161]). In this dismantling process, three characteristics stand out: (1) the procedure to narrate the “case” is due to an increase in the coefficient of deterritorialization; (2) “everything is political”; and (3) everything acquires collective value.

Continuing their elaboration of the eight points of the cartographic method, Passos et al. ( 2014 ) cite thinkers besides Deleuze, Guattari, Maturana, and Varela, introducing Latour, among others, into the discussion regarding the research experience. According to Passos et al. ( 2014 ), the “importance of the research experience points to its inscription on the plane of powers, which constitutes the production plan of both knowledge and known reality” (p. 8). Researchers are immersed in the experience, which distances the cartographic method from other approaches guided by processes such as the “collection,” processing, and analysis of the data, taken as information. In this way, the cartographic method is based on inventive cognition and creative cognition, thus differentiating itself from the idea of the representation of a preexisting world. Therefore, “the cartographic method is not defined by the procedures it adopts, but it is an activity guided by a directive of a nature that is not strictly epistemological, but ethical-aesthetic-political” (p. 9).

Kastrup, Tedesco, and Passos ( 2015 ) point out that the cartographic method is compatible and can be used alongside different techniques, strategies, and research approaches, among them interviews, data analysis, and qualitative or quantitative strategies. In this way, the method is fluid, distinct from methodological models guided by the assumptions of representation. However, research that investigates the experience of research itself must make clear the “firm position of the cartographer with regard to the guideline of research: access/production of the plane of powers that responds to the creation/transformation of experience” (p. 9).

Inventive cognition emerges from the biology of knowledge (Maturana and Varela), of enunciative cognition (Varela), and includes elements of Bergson, Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari. According to Kastrup ( 2015 ), thinking stems from stimuli that make you think and does not happen spontaneously, from nothing. The stimuli are, therefore, forces of the present, of a world in movement and accelerated transformation constituting “the unique ground of emergence of thought and novelty” (p. 96). This understanding differs from that held by those who understand cognition from a perspective that Maturana and Varela ( 2001 ) call environmentalist (a realistic assumption of a given world), which “does not allow us to think about the invention of the world itself and above all the world in transformation” (p. 96). Thus, Kastrup ( 2015 ) seeks to understand the “shifts of cognition in the contemporary,” from the encounter of two intercessors for the psychology of cognition: (a) Maturana and Varela, who promote the idea of the biology of knowledge (autopoiesis), by refusing the model of representation and promoting the understanding of cognition as an invention of oneself and of the world; and (b) Deleuze and Guattari, who focus on the transformations currently taking place in cognition. To this understanding, the author adds that, in order to be able to understand the new ways of knowing and living emerging today, it is necessary to affirm the present as a movement of virtualization of currently constituted cognitive forms. The conditions of cognition have in themselves tension between constituted forms and forces of instability: “Forces of the present, which problematize the old forms, placing cognition on the route of experimentation” (Kastrup, 2015 , p. 97).

In this context, Kastrup ( 2015 ) refers to DTs, stating that they cannot be understood as mere objects or as solutions to old problems but as a basis “for creating new problems, new relationships with information, in time, with space, with oneself and with others” (p. 97). 4 Thus, the relation between the constituted forms and the present is not of rupture or of discontinuity, but of coexistence, the conditions of cognition being polytemporal and not invariant or historical. The problem of cognitive functioning is in how the present can provoke “cracks in historical strata, in old mental habits, in established structural couplings and produce novelty,” in addition to understanding it as historically produced. “It is the living gift that coexists with the history of structural couplings. Through this notion, Varela introduces in the studies of cognition the possibility of thinking it into becoming, becoming that makes the history bifurcate” (pp. 98–99).

In the biology of knowledge, with the concept of autopoiesis, Varela resignifies the understanding of learning by, in approaching the problem, placing the actor as the prototypical apprentice. Learning is not, as previous theories proposed, adapting to a given environment, or obtaining knowledge, but experimentation, invention of self and the world. The invention of a work of art is correlated with the production of the artist him or herself. As a novelty comes a theory of action, since for Maturana and Varela the living system is a constantly moving cognitive system in a process of permanent self-production, that is, autopoietic, which can be understood, according to Kastrup ( 2015 ), by the formula BE = DO = KNOW. 5 In this sense, the functioning of the living being is confused with the process of self-creation; according to Varela ( 1990 , p. 99), “doing is ontological.” Understanding cognition as action or practice leads to its permanent modification and not to invariant structures. In addition to the logic of action, cognition refers to flows in conduct (Maturana & Mpodozis, 1992 , p. 18).

Paradoxically, according to Kastrup ( 2015 ), what ensures the flow of the conduct is precisely the crack, the break, the notion of breakdown, described in Varela ( 1990 ) and Varela, Thompson, and Rosch ( 2003 ), as perturbation, a “problematization” of the structures of the living, ranging from engagements with the world, without it being possible to determine a principle that guides this drift toward the pursuit of a superior equilibrium. Breakdowns are the source of the autonomous and creative side of living cognition and arise as a theoretical-scientific formulation for an understanding of cognition that is not restricted to solving problems but is, first of all, the invention of problems. Thus, Varela ( 1990 ) explains the rooting of cognition in the “concrete,” dealing with earlier conceptions that approach cognition from the point of view of logic, general mechanisms, or representation, grouped under the denomination of “abstract” approaches to cognition (p. 102). The breakdown is a cognitive activity that happens in the immediate present and in that concrete actually lives. This “concrete” for Varela ( 1990 ) is not a step for something different, but how we arrived and where we are.

In the perspective of reconciling cognition with concrete Varela presents the notion of enaction (actuation), previously explained. For Kastrup ( 2015 ), this notion refers first to an embodied cognition distinct from the understanding of cognition as a mental process, for it is “tributary to action, resulting from experiences that are not mentally inscribed, but in the body” (p. 103). It is an action guided by local sensory processes and not by the perception of objects or forms. These sensorimotor attachments are not separate from the lived cognition (biological, psychological, and cultural couplings). Thus, the embodiment of knowledge implies social couplings, including linguistic ones, so that the body, in addition to a biological entity, is able to register and mark itself historically and culturally.

In order to exemplify the concept of enaction, linked to the embodiment of knowledge, Varela et al. ( 2003 ) refer to learning a musical instrument, where the musician is taken as a prototype of the learner. In this process of learning, initially the body functions are commanded by the mind, because the process begins with a representation, with symbolic instructions. However, to learn to play an instrument is not to follow rules, and learning truly only happens “when the symbolic relation is transformed into direct coupling of the body with the instrument, eliminating the intermediary of representation” (p. 103). That is, therein is the enaction, actuation, incarnation, or embodiment of knowledge. Thus, for the author, cognition begins to function outside the register of representation, in direct coupling with the matter that the world provides. To learn is not to adapt to the musical instrument, but to act with it. Thus, the notion of acting refers to a collective dimension that appears in the body, at the same time as it indicates the participation of the body in the configuration of the world that is shared by the collective.

This understanding of coupling as agency allows Kastrup ( 2015 ) to move forward in a second sense of the notion of acting— cognition as invention of a world—constructed in the interface between Varela’s cognitive studies and Deleuze and Guattari’s subjectivity production, from whom it takes the concept of agency as “direct communication, without mediation of representation” (p. 104). Communication without subordination, hierarchy, or determinism does not operate by causality, but by reciprocal implication between movements, processes, or heterogeneous flows, by double capture. According to the authors still referring to the learning of a musical instrument, agency refers to the production of a complex apprentice–instrument unit, which produces a process of reciprocal differentiation. The mechanical relationship occurs between previous elements (having the same elements and the same relationships, we will have the same product behavior repeated in the same way) whereas machinic agency, on the other hand, connects flows or processes and creates forms.

Kastrup ( 2015 ) uses again the example of learning a musical instrument to demonstrate that if we understand flute learning, for example, as a machinic agency, “learning is eliminating distances, because one learns between mouth and flute, learns in the middle, on the surface of its coupling, outside the field of representation” (p. 104). That is to say, in this adaptation with the medium, “the blowing motion is able to interact with the arrangement of the instrument and at the same time generate the sound and the apprentice” (p. 105). Thus, coupling should be thought of as a machinic agency or a product of learning, a creative activity always focused on becoming and not a mechanical representation or repetition. This understanding puts an end to the supposed determinism of the object or the environment. The best learner is the one who permanently creates a relationship with the instrument, incessantly reinventing himself as a musician.

The best student, for Kastrup ( 2015 ), is not the one who approaches the world through crystallized habits, but who can always remain in the process of learning, which can also be understood as permanent unlearning. That is, learn is to experience incessantly in order to evade the control of representation, preventing crystallized habits from forming, that is, be alert to continuous variations and rapid resonances, implying, at the same time, a certain lack of attention to the practical schemes of recognition.

Bergson ( 1934 ) theorizes this relation between certain attention and correlative inattention. For this author, there is a pragmatic, utilitarian life that assures learning while solving problems, but there is also an additional attention, which is attention to duration, which ensures learning as the invention of problems.

In this context, it is fundamental to consider that the contemporary world has provoked the emergence of new forms of subjectivity, mainly by the ceaseless and almost omnipresent presence of all kinds of DT, which has accelerated processes of transformation and innovation in the ways of living and engaging, which are more and more open and in flux. In this whirlwind of uncertainty, subjectivity is called upon to reconfigure itself and must learn to deal with breakdowns, with the disturbances that present themselves. On the other hand, this same reality, coupled with the online approach to the most diverse cultures, according to Kastrup ( 2015 ), reveals the precariousness of any supposed foundation that can be provided by the world (p. 108), that is, if we are affected on all sides by disturbances of all nature, solutions are not assured. Therefore, if we want to create new ways of knowing and living, we must invent a world, for learning to live in a world without fundamentals is to invent it by living, remembering that invention of self cannot be achieved without the invention of a related world.

If interpretation and knowledge are emergent results (in the sense of emerging) of action in the world or acting, when spaces are hybrid, multimodal, pervasive, and ubiquitous, and dwelling is atopical, what are the relevant issues that emerge concerning the action and performance of the subjects in these spaces? How do meanings emerge? What world do we produce and invent?

The Cartographic Method as a Means of Identifying and Mapping Controversies and Actor–Network Theory

Recently, actor–network theory (ANT), developed by Latour, Law, and Callon, also recognized subject–object codetermination by emphasizing the participation of non-humans—objects and quasi-objects—in social relations, thus presenting itself as an alternative to the binaries of modernity by eschewing a compartmentalized view of reality. 6

In this perspective, ANT (Latour, 2012 ) provides a new understanding of what is social, presenting the idea that humans establish a social network not only to interact with other people, but with non human elements as well. According to the author, the social is not simply made up of people, but also machines, animals, texts, money, architecture, laboratories, institutions, among other elements. By the principle of connectivity, everything is linked in a network, with multiple inputs, which is always in continuous movement and open to new elements. For the author, social refers to the network of HA and NHA, where the actor is any person, thing, (quasi-)object, or institution that produces agency, that is, something with the ability to produce effects on the network (although indirectly), of being actant. The understanding of agency, therefore, is related to the human and non human actors (actants), similarly, who participate in the actions and provoke transformations in the network, in movement. Thus, in ANT, or sociology of associations, the non human is no longer considered only as an artifact, whose meaning is attributed by the human, but as having agency, because it participates in actions in everyday situations and causes transformations. Non human actors also shape events in the creation of meanings, acting in the reflective and symbolic sphere.

In this context, network is understood from the perspective of a rhizome (based on Deleuze & Guattari, 1995 ), that is, seen as something alive, changeable—as flows, circulations, alliances, and movements of a series of animate and inanimate elements—and not as fixed to a set of actors. It refers to transformations, translations, displacements, therefore, quite distinct from the traditional understanding of a network as a form or structure. The network is the associative movement that forms the social, being rather an instrument of analysis or its object. The actor–network binomial perspective proposes that the actor never acts alone. In acting, it is influenced (constituted) by the networks in which it has connections and, at the same time, it can represent these networks, as well as influence them. In this way, it is never quite clear who is acting. The actor is, at the same time, the builder and receiver of the networks.

For Latour ( 2012 ), the social has no predefined locus, but is understood as provisional, performative, as processes of aggregations, associations, and reassociations between HA and NHA. In order to understand the social, which, therefore, is not what explains but rather what needs to be explained, the author recommends that the actors be followed in their associations and reassociations (cartography). I understand, therefore, that nowadays these associations and reassociations are increasingly constituted in nomadic movements, in an atopic habitation that takes place in hybrid, multimodal, pervasive, and ubiquitous spaces. 7

With regard to science, Latour ( 2016 ) says that every idea only proceeds from multiple deviations and compositions. It is the attribution of science to understand this process and not only the result. For this, it is necessary to retrace the entire chain of deviations and compositions, and what matters in this process is what emerges and forms in the course of the process of composition and deviations of courses of action. Linked to this question, Latour ( 2016 ) in the second letter of Cogitamus, raises the problem of method: How is it possible to analyze deviations and compositions if, in general, they are invisible?

In this context, the concept of proof becomes the protagonist, because, according to the author, it is at the moment of proof that the blunting of deviations and compositions is revealed. This evidence, although there are other forms of evidence, materializes in the panel: everything works well, until it stops working. This is more pedagogical form of expression of proof. The computer, initially understood as a technical object, is now presented as a sociotechnical project: “From simple, my computer has become multiple; of unified, has become disunited; it immediately became mediate; of fast, it became slow” (Latour, 2016 , p. 47). The network, or part of it, with the different elements that together kept it working, now fails, becoming visible. It is at this moment that it is necessary to analyze the links, the relationships, the networks that integrate it.

This perspective, presented by Latour ( 2016 ), although linked to the method he calls “cartography of controversies,” could also be linked to the cartographic method of intervention research, proposed by Kastrup ( 2007 , 2008 ), Passos et al. ( 2009 ), and Passos, Kastrup, and Tedesco ( 2014 ).

While Latour ( 2016 ) refers to pane and understood as a proof, bringing sociotechnical network analysis (HA and ANH) to the context; we could think from the point of view of the subject’s cognition (HA) as a cognitive imbalance (Piaget) or as a breakdown (Varela) understood as a proof, later assumed by Kastrup, Tedesco, and Passos ( 2015 ) from the perspective of the inventive cognition.

With regard to the interactions that take place in this sociotechnical network, the deviations and compositions are visible by the traces that the different actants produce in the movement of associations, which can be accompanied by “another” sociotechnical network formed by HA (teachers) and NHA (mining and data-based systems and learning analytics), providing elements that allow us to trace the cosmogram and understand the process under construction.

Turning to the question of the pane for Latour ( 2016 )—in the context of a sociotechnical network; cognitive imbalance for Piaget and breakdown for Varela—in the context of cognition; a process of investigation begins, so that the initial indetermination begins to be deciphered, the source of the disturbance is found, and a problem is revealed progressively. 8 Hypotheses and solutions are tested and verified, until the problem is solved.

In the case of the computer (NHA), in the context of sociotechnical network (formed by HA and NHA), the pane is repaired and put back to use. In the case of cognition, what in the comprehension of Varela ( 1990 ) and Kastrup, Tedesco, and Passos ( 2015 ) refers to an enactuated, self-engendered process of agency, caused by a breakdown, takes knowledge to a superior equilibrium, not in the perspective of problem-solving but, above all, in the invention of problems. It is not the result, but the process by which the result is achieved. In a way, this is related to the concept of debugging, a result of a metacognitive process (Piaget, 1976 , 1978a , 1978b , 1995 ) that is necessary for computational thinking, which was very present in research related to language programming in the 1980s and 1990s.

From the proof concept, Latour ( 2016 ), in his third letter in Cogitamus, goes on to discuss scientific controversies, stating that the statements pass between two poles: radical doubt and unquestionable certainty: “At the beginning of the exercise, the statement floats; in the end, one must find it solidly anchored in a precise landscape . . .” (p. 81). According to the author, this is where the importance of controversies lies.

The term controversy, according to Latour ( 2016 ), “designates all possible positions, ranging from absolute doubt . . . to indisputable certainty” (p. 79). The word “controversy” describes a shared uncertainty about aspects of science and/or technology that are not yet stabilized. It occurs when there is a disagreement between the actors, that is, “when actors discover that they cannot ignore each other and controversies end when actors manage to work out the solid commitment to live together” (Venturini, 2010 , p. 260). The cartography of controversies consists in mapping the actions of human and non human actors involved in contemporary sociotechnical questions, without, however, assuming an a priori frame or an order to be followed. In this context, according to Latour ( 2012 ), the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) achieves a better understanding of the order after the actors explain all the controversies in which they were involved, that is, “We [social scientists] will not try to discipline, to frame you [the actors] in our categories; we will allow them to stick to their own worlds and only then will we ask for their explanation of how they were established” (p. 44). It is not up to the analyst to define and order the social, but rather to the actors present in the context. If the goal is to restore order, it is best to go through the associations, tracing the connections between the controversies themselves. The pursuit of order, rigor, and pattern is by no means abandoned, just repositioned one step further in the form of abstraction, so that actors can unfold their own and various cosmos, no matter how irrational they may seem.

Latour ( 2012 ) notes that it is possible to trace stronger relationships and discover more revealing patterns when we find a way to record the links between unstable and mutable frames of reference rather than trying to stabilize one. What makes one expand, relate, compare, and organize is what one has to describe. The important thing is not to stop the flow of controversy, because if the actors do not act, they will leave no clues: “No clue, no information, no description—and therefore no conversation” (p. 217). It is in the flow of controversies that one has to find the “firm ground: on shifting sands. Contrary to what is commonly said, relativism is a way of floating in the data, not plunging into it” (p. 46).

The main idea is to give visibility to the different understandings about situations, movements, representativities, influences, and interests. For this, it is necessary to explore, visualize polemics, the movement of action and motion, that is, where mediation flows (Lemos, 2013 ). Controversies are those spaces of dialogue, conflict, negotiation, and action, which the actors reveal by leaving traces.

For Latour ( 2016 ), mapping a controversy is learning to locate all these movements. This implies following the statements from doubts permeated by intermediate states (rumor, opinion, idea, proposition), pros and cons, until they become the

final result, where clear and well-defined inscriptions are evident. However, with the condition of taking it in its motion, and not frozen in an object. Remembering that nothing is definitive, both techniques and sciences do not exist by the simple force of inertia. To exist is to always be in that front line. What we now understand as a certain statement is only the final stage of a controversy and in no way its beginning. (Latour, 2016 , pp. 80–81)

Latour ( 2016 ) states that the two extremes must be considered: fact and opinion, which correspond to two moments in the controversy. Accompanying the controversies is then to describe the ways in which the actors construct and modify the evidence.

Venturini ( 2012 , p. 800) proposes a script to subsidize the creation of cartographies of controversies, which is summarized by Lemos ( 2013 , p. 118): (1) to define the best possible controversy; (2) observe, describe, and maintain that the object is controversial; (3) identify whether the controversy is: cold/hot, present/past, secret/public, difficult to access/accessible, limited/unlimited; (4) apply the lenses to the collection of information (gather statements, opinions, read the specialized literature); (5) identify human and non human actants and sketch the network that connects them; (6) identify cosmogram, ideologies, and worldviews. The cartographer must then identify the representativity, influence, and interest of the actors in the networks.

If there is evidence, Latour ( 2016 ) proposes that two conditions are imposed on the analysis: (1) that it comes from the actors, and (2) that it results from joint activity, therefore, not more than a cogito, but a Cogitamus.

In this context, the author refers to the new passage from the infinite world (modern and post-scientific revolution) to the complicated multiverse or pluriverse, term coined by William James. Thus, if there is no radical discontinuity, the meaning of the word revolution changes. Latour ( 2016 ), based on Sloterdijk, stresses that it is not a matter of revolution or emancipation, but of explicitness, since “history never breaks with the past, but permanently makes more and more explicit with which we have to learn to live, elements that will be compatible or incompatible with existing ones” (p. 115). Thus, the author inaugurates a new “epistemological policy,” in which the researcher’s function is to describe “the agency of all beings that a particular culture links with practical forms of life” (p. 166). This refers to a movement of associations between the different parties participating in a controversy, which can be represented by what the author calls a cosmogram. In order to retract the different parties, Latour ( 2016 ) proposes the description of the associations of convenience, coexistence, opposition, and exclusion between HA and NHA, whose conditions of existence become explicit in the course of the trials submitted by the disputes: “to become sensitive to these lists of associations and logical duels without resorting to the distinction between the rational and the irrational, the modern and the archaic, the systematic and the unsystematic” (Latour, 2016 , pp. 116–117).

Mapping the cosmograms means working with the movement, with the agency distribution drawing of mobility, unlike the paradigm, which works with frames (stabilized theoretical framework). When designing a cosmogram, the analyst does not need to resort to structures, systems, or frames, which limit or even render unviable the monitoring of the connections in formation in the sociotechnical networks. He needs to go through the network, follow the actants in their associations, identifying the controversies, their different visions or world versions (multiverses or pluriverses), showing how the whole world (a complicated and complex pluriverse), a cosmos, reveals itself, emerges, and reconfigures itself in the confrontation of ontologies.

It is within the scope of interactions that occur in this sociotechnical network that the different actants (human and non human) produce traces in the movement of associations. These traces, in the scope of education research, can be accompanied by another sociotechnical network formed by HA (teachers-researchers) and NHA (diverse systems, including those based on mining and data and learning analytics) which, when mapped, provide elements that make it possible to draw the cosmogram (diagram of mediations, motion, mobility), a multiverse, and understand the process under construction—the movement of these associations happening. The aim is to map the controversies: “the study of innovations and controversies is one of the first privileged places where objects can be held longer as visible, disseminated and recognized mediators before they become invisible, non-social intermediaries” (Latour, 2012 , p. 120).

It is important to consider that for Latour ( 1994 ), the logic of thinking of the sciences is vitiated by a need for purification by division, which results in exclusion. According to Melo ( 2011 ), this logic, in a way, freezes the possibility of transformation, because it does not consider the continuous mixture, which produces hybrids incessantly and indefinitely. Instead of imposing one part(s) on another, replacing one or the other(s), as the modern project intended, the parts become the contact with heterogeneous versions, through the adjustment of hybrid practices and interests, through which these parties receive from each other the chance of mutual transformation (Despret, 2002 ). TAR presents the notion of hybrids and generalized symmetry.

It is possible to bring elements of this vision presented by Latour to reflect on the question of culture, since it is not a question of dividing, of classifying, into analogical (pre-digital) culture, digital culture, or cyberculture, or, but to consider the mixture, that is to say, the hybrids that are produced in that mixture, which is resignified and transformed in that coexistence.

Conclusion: Education Qualitative Research in the Hybrid and Multimodal Culture Context in an Atopic Dwelling

Both methods, the cartographic method of intervention research and the cartography of controversies, with their specificities, have proved robust for the development of qualitative research in the field of education, in the context of digital culture and hybrid culture in an atopic dwelling, mainly because they are also related to equally consistent and contemporary theories in terms of human cognition aspects, enabling us to track the traces and clues in the mobility of associations between actants, which are enhanced by different Digital Technologies (DT), including data mining and learning analytics.

These methods have been used in the research developed by the Grupo de Pesquisa Educação Digital (GPe-dU Unisinos/CNPq), in which I am involved at the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), since 2010 . In particular, the cartographic method of intervention research, as well as being appropriate as a research method, has been investigated for its potency with regard to the development of new methodologies and pedagogical practices, due to its interventionist characteristic in accompanying the process (along the course), aligned with the need to understand the phenomenon of learning in its complexity—social, political, cognitive, affective, and technological (Schlemmer, Lopes, & Molina, 2012 ), in contexts of hybridism, multimodality, pervasiveness, and ubiquity. Its power to accompany learning processes has also been investigated as well as the possibility of it being appropriated by teachers and students in their own learning pathways.

Among the research projects that have used the cartographic method of intervention research are: “Escola aumentada: Cartografias digitais para as aprendizagens e a cidadania,” “Gamificação em Espaços de Convivência Híbridos e Multimodais: Uma experiência no ensino superior,” and “Gamificação em Espaços de Convivência Híbridos e Multimodais: A educação na cultura digital.” Under different approaches and in varying contexts, research explores the perspectives of hybridism, multimodality, pervasiveness, and ubiquity, as well as cartographic attention. It was in the context of these projects that the cartographic method of intervention research began to become the object of study, inspiring studies carried out on the formation and qualification of teachers and students (Lopes & Schlemmer, 2017 ; Lopes & Valentini, 2012 ; Schlemmer, 2014 , 2015 ; Schlemmer & Lopes, 2016 ) in the scope of elementary education, graduation in pedagogy and digital games, post-graduation stricto sensu , and continuing teacher training. Our focus has been to explore some elements related to the hybrid, multimodal, pervasive, and ubiquitous culture and the new regimes of action, participation, and socialization of experience.

In the context of elementary education schools, we have outlined some experiences involving cartography with the support of digital media, geolocation, and digital marking (quick response [QR] codes), to provoke experiences of local mapping of people, objects, and places in the public space. In the undergraduate, and graduate continuing teacher education context, as well as in elementary school, we also designed inventive methodologies and pedagogical interventionist, aggregative, and gammatical practices with a cartographic bent, mainly the cartographer attention through the four movements (tracing, touching, landing and attentive recognition) , linked to elements of gamification, with the support of digital media, geolocation, digital coding (QR codes), and augmented reality, in order to provoke learning experiences in a hybrid, multimodal, pervasive, and ubiquitous context. According to Schlemmer and Lopes ( 2016 ), unlike classic cartography (mapping), the idea was to provoke aesthetic and/or informational experiences for the production of meanings about our environment in the case of schools, and on the concepts present in undergraduate and undergraduate academic activities in the case of higher education. The purpose of these experiments is to activate sensibility and cognition as functions of intelligence, as well as registration and sharing as functions of sociability.

Schlemmer ( 2018 ) states that inspiration in the cartographic method of intervention research to develop inventive methodologies and interventionist, aggregative, and gamified pedagogical practices comes from the following elements:

the intervention research perspective, and, during the development of games and gamified processes, at different times, both the teacher and the subjects themselves act as interventionist mediators

the idea of working with learning as an invention of problems (“supplementary” attention, duration, attentive recognition of a context), besides learning how to solve problems (attention to pragmatic utilitarian life)

the proposal to follow the course

the clue metaphor

movements of the cartographer’s attention (tracing, touching, landing, and attentive recognition).

In the context of tracks, according to Schlemmer ( 2018 ), the proposal is to work with the concept of geographic tracks (local/specific points in the community/city), live tracks (people from local community who hold certain knowledge necessary for the development of the missions), online tracks (specialists that do not belong to the local community, but that can appear in video), as characters in Mixed Reality (MR) or in Augmented Reality (AR) (iotized objects).

In the scope of a cartographer’s attention movements, tracing is characterized by the exploration/scanning of the field—in the case of this research, geographic and online spaces in search of clues (information) to understand the processes; the touch triggers the selection process which consists, in this case from Schlemmer ( 2016a , 2017 ), in the selection of geographic clues, online clues, and live clues, to direct the research; and landing refers to stopping, zooming in on lanes, choice/definition, and attentive recognition in the perception of the global context.

The metaphor of the clue, as well as the changing focus of the cartographer’s attention, can also serve as inspiration to understand the composition of tracks, as well as the progression itself in the context of a game or gamified process—gaining achievements—at the same time as achievements can be understood as skills for the own gameplay and sociability. 9

It is important to point out that as a result of this process the inventive methodology |Gamified Learning Processes (GLP) is created (Schlemmer, 2018 ).

The Grupo de Pesquisa em Educação Digital (GPe-dU) has also investigated and developed theoretical, methodological, and technological experiences inspired by the cartographic method of research, as methodology for the monitoring and evaluation of learning in games and gamified processes from an interventionist perspective and developed in a hybrid, multimodal, pervasive, and ubiquitous context. According to Schlemmer and Lopes ( 2016 ) and Schlemmer ( 2016a ) such contexts are more easily subject to the pulverization of the spaces of participation and registration and, therefore, can hinder the exercise of teaching and of the discourse regarding both pedagogical mediation and the evaluation. Thus, the proposal developed by the authors, inspired by the cartographic method of intervention research as a methodology of monitoring and evaluation, allows accompanying the subjects in their different learning pathways, involving analogue technologies and DT, physical and online face-to-face interactions to develop their own missions and projects that, from the perspective of bring your own device (BYOD), can extend beyond the time set for formal education. The fact that the subject possesses a mobile device and is connected creates conditions of possibility for him or her to remain engaged in the process, regardless of time and space. Thus, the processes of monitoring and evaluation can, at different times, be “situated” and still intertwined. By means of clues, designed and planned to provide the hybridization of analogue and digital spaces, it is possible to establish a multimodal context, which is desirable when talking about immersion, agency, and engagement.

More specifically, with regard to the movements proposed by Kastrup ( 2007 , 2008 ) and others in the cartographic method, the development of gamification and game experiments allowed us to evaluate the power of the method and the inadequacies we perceive in our own experience of building the game or gamification. The question that seemed to us most challenging was to guarantee the unpredictability and rhizomatic opening of the cartographic method and attention. If we work from a perspective of “use of” rather than inventiveness, the design of phases of a gamified game or process, for example, which was designed by someone to be “applied” in education or simply played by players, cannot always guarantee the rhizomatic opening that underlies the two proposals of methods previously carried out, because it has a limited context and whose control is not complete developed in the field reconfiguration of the students learning. The possible reconfigurations take place in the circular or linear dimension of success itself when completing the missions. In this sense, an a priori objective always seems limited from the point of view of cartography, but not limiting from the point of view of learning. What is learned opens possibilities, but in the dynamics of the game these are not necessarily unpredictable, since it is a condition that games advance in phases.

The clue metaphor to the tracks conception, according to Schlemmer and Lopes ( 2016 ), was inspiring for game designers or gamification, but, to become inspirational to gaming, we identified the need for players to leave “traces” which may become clues for other players. An interesting strategy would be to insert notebooks as an object/item that loads and can be left somewhere—as in some online and offline role-playing games—into the dynamics of the game or gamification. Another strategy would be to insert HA and/or bots equipped with AI to record and report events, producing clues for the route of the tracks to grow and insert, at continuously, new challenges based on the reconfiguration of the field of knowledge produced by the players themselves. This perspective of valuing, in the context of game or gamification, ways of recording and sharing personal narratives (dynamic clue production) would be an interesting possibility for both teachers and students to map their learning processes—after all, mapping, from the perspective here presented, is a means to track processes.

In this case, it seems important to consider that it is necessary to invest in game dynamics that strengthen and value the narratives of the players (as in the case of Role Playing Game [RPG] or, better still, to work at the level of inventiveness, in which the entire process of the conception and development of the game or gamification is co-constructed by the learning subjects themselves).

It is important to mention that, in the case of the researches we develop, because they are situated within the scope of enactive and inventive cognition, the creation of the game or process is a result of a co-creation process between and with the learning subjects themselves, where the teacher acts as an interventionist, conducting pedagogical mediation. Thus, everything that composes the game or gamified process—from the pre-concept, concept, and development; what is implied in the definition of mechanics and dynamics; to being able to include tracks and progression—are defined by the subjects themselves who, therefore, extrapolate the perspective of knowledge as representation and learning as problem-solving, working on the level of knowledge as interpretation and learning through the invention of problems, from the notion of the rhizome, which is at the base of the development of both the cartographic method of intervention research, as well as the cartography of the controversies. This approach is qualitatively different from the traditional approaches found in games or gamified processes, where the subjects are only users, players, whose learning is by solving problems and their evolution by linear stages or phases.

Most recently, the projects “The City as a Learning Space: Games and Gamification in the Constitution of Hybrid, Multimodal, Pervasive and Ubiquitous Spaces for the Development of Citizenship,” and “The City as a Learning Space: Education for Citizenship in Hybrid, Multimodal, Pervasive and Ubiquitous Contexts,” also developed on the basis of the cartographic method of intervention research, we have more appropriately called the cartography of controversies, in order to better understand, in addition to what occurs at the micro level (enative and inventive cognition), the associations that occur between HA and NHA, which may be due to convenience, coexistence, opposition, and exclusion. These associations also evidence planes of forces and, therefore, political expression of cognition, in the sense that “knowing involves a position in relation to the world and itself, an attitude, an ethos” (Kastrup, Tedesco, & Passos, 2015 , p. 12). These associations can be evidenced in a cosmogram, which makes it possible to draw the distribution of the agency, the diagram of the mediations, in short, the design of the movement, its formation. In this way, the cosmogram works with the empirical and in motion, unlike the paradigm that works with the frame, with the theoretical framework stabilized with the model as structure.

Schlemmer and Lopes ( 2016 ) and Schlemmer ( 2018 ) emphasize that the proposal does not consist in a transposition of the method or methods, but rather an experimentation with the logic behind them, as well as some of its elements, which are linked to others, in this case, present in games, gamification, and PAGs, allowing us to develop inventive methodologies and pedagogical interventionist, aggregative, and gamified practices in the educational context.

Thus, relating the cartographic method of controversies and, consequently, elements present in the ANT with the cartographic method of intervention research and with the perspective of enactive cognition, in its two senses of action—corporate cognition and inventive cognition—allows us to understand that the process of invention or innovation, both in development and research, advances from multiple breakdowns, deviations, compositions, associations, and reassociations that occur in the empirical movement. In this way, understanding an invention, an innovation, implies tracking the traces and retracing the whole network of deviations and compositions, associations and reassociations that constitute the path.

From this context questions that inspire future investigations arise:

How can Latour’s concept of symmetry or flat ontology, in which HA and NHA are on the same plane (which eliminates the anthropocentric view of cognition), contribute to research in education?

How can the Latour cosmogram contribute to the intervention research cartographic method as a means of understanding the paths made by the different actors, as well as the controversies established in a network?

How can the intervention research cartographic method, comprising cognition as the invention of problems, associated with the cartography of controversies, be part of the methodology to help us understand the place of the human in the context of intelligent cities?

To sum up, “we go, we hear, we learn, we practice, we become competent, we change our minds. Very simple indeed: this is called research. Good research always produces copious new descriptions . . . There is no in-formation, just trans-formation” (Latour, 2012 , pp. 212–216).

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• Kastrup, V. , & Barros, R. B. (2009). Movimentos-funções do dispositivo na prática da cartografia. In E. Passos , V. Kastrup , & L. Escóssia (Eds.), Pistas do método da cartografia: Pesquisa-intervenção e produção de subjetividade . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.
• Kastrup, V. , Tedesco, S. , & Passos, E. (2015). Políticas da Cognição . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.
• Latour, B. (1994). Jamais fomos modernos . Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora 34.
• Latour, B. (2012). Reagregando o social: Uma introdução à teoria do ator-rede . São Paulo, Brazil: EDUSC.
• Latour, B. (2016). Cogitamus: Seis cartas sobre as humanidades científicas . São Paulo, Brazil: Editora 34.
• Lemos, A. (2013). A comunicação das coisas: Teoria ator-rede e cibercultura . São Paulo, Brazil: Annablume.
• Lopes, D. Q. , & Schlemmer, E. (2017). Considerações éticas, epistemológicas e metodológicas sobre o fazer pesquisa em educação e cultura digital. Revista Edapeci: Educação a Distância e Práticas Educativas Comunicacionais e Interculturais , 17 , 1–15.
• Lopes, D. Q. , Schlemmer, E. , & Molina, R. (2014a). Atenção Cartográfica em Pesquisas Online sobre Políticas de Inclusão Digital. Polise Psique , 4 , 150–169.
• Lopes, D. Q. , Schlemmer, E. , & Molina, R. (2014b). Cartography mediated by digital technologies: New perspectives for ethnographic research. In P. Landri , A. Maccarini , & R. DeRosa (Eds.), Networked together: Designing participatory research in online ethnography (pp. 24–38). Naples: University of Naples.
• Lopes, D. Q. , & Valentini, C. B. (2012). Mídias locativas e realidade mixada: A produção de sen dos sobre o digital-virtual a par r da cartografia com suporte das tecnologias digitais. Educação Unisinos , 16 (3), 205–214.
• Maturana, H. R. (1993a). As bases biológicas do aprendizado. Dois Pontos, Belo Horizonte , 2 (16), 64–70.
• Maturana, H. R. (1993b). Uma nova concepção de aprendizagem. Dois Pontos, Belo Horizonte , 2 (15), 28–35.
• Maturana, H. R. (1998). Da Biologia à Psicologia . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Artes Médicas.
• Maturana, H. R. , & Mpodozis, J. (1992). Origen de las especies por medio de la deriva natural . Publicacion ocasional No 46/1992. Museo Natural de Historia Natural. Santiago, Direccion de Bibliotecas. Archivos y Museos.
• Maturana H. , & Rezepka, S. N., de . (2000). Formação Humana e Capacitação . Petrópolis, Brazil: Vozes.
• Maturana, H. R. , & Varela, F. J. G. (1997). De Máquinas e Seres Vivos: Autopoiese—a Organização do Vivo . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Artes Médicas.
• Maturana, H. R. , & Varela, F. J. (2001). A Árvore do Conhecimento: As bases biológicas da compreensão humana . São Paulo, Brazil: Pala Athenas.
• Melo, M. F. A. Q. (2011). Discutindo a aprendizagem sob a perspectiva da teoria ator-rede. In Educar em Revista (vol. 39, pp. 177–190). Curitiba, Brazil: UFPR.
• Passos, E. (2015). Pensando a subjetividade com conceitos híbridos: A psicologia em interface com a filosofia e a biologia. In V. Kastrup , S. Tedesco , & E. Passos , Políticas da Cognição . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.
• Passos, E. , & Barros, R. B. (2009). Por uma política da narratividade. In E. Passos , V. Kastrup , & L. Escóssia (Eds.), Pistas do método da cartografia: Pesquisa-intervenção e produção de subjetividade . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.
• Passos, E. , & Eirado, A. (2009). Cartografia como dissolução do ponto de vista do observador. In E. Passos , V. Kastrup , & L. Escóssia (Eds.), Pistas do método da cartografia: Pesquisa-intervenção e produção de subjetividade . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.
• Passos, E. , Kastrup, V. , & Escóssia, L. (Eds.). (2009). Pistas do método da cartografia: Pesquisa-intervenção e produção de subjetividade . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.
• Passos, E. , Kastrup, V. , & Tedesco, S. (2014). Pistas do método da cartografia: A experiência da pesquisa e o plano comum . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.
• Piaget, J. (1976). A Equilibração das Estruturas Cognitivas . Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Zahar Editores.
• Piaget, J. (1978a). Fazer e compreender . São Paulo, Brazil: Melhoramentos.
• Piaget, J. (1978b). A Tomada de consciência . São Paulo, Brazil: Melhoramentos.
• Piaget, J. (1995). Abstração reflexionante: Relações lógico-aritméticas e ordem das relações espaciais . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Artes Médicas.

• Schlemmer, E. (2013). Anatomia no metaverso Second Life: Uma proposta em i-Learning . Relatório de Pesquisa. São Leopoldo, Brazil: Unisinos.
• Schlemmer, E. (2014). Gamificação em espaços de convivência híbridos e multimodais: Design e cognição em discussão. Revista da FAEEBA-Educação e Contemporaneidade , 23 (42), 73–89.
• Schlemmer, E. (2015). Mídia social em contexto de hibridismo e multimodalidade: O percurso da experiência na formação de mestres e doutores. Revista Diálogo Educacional (PUCPR. Impresso) , 15 , 399–421.
• Schlemmer, E. (2016a). Games e Gamificação: Uma alternativa aos modelos de EaD. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia , 19 , 1–12.
• Schlemmer, E. (2016b). Gamificação em Espaços de Convivência Híbridos e Multimodais: Uma experiência no ensino superior . Research Report. Processo v. 408336, pp. 2013–2027.
• Schlemmer, E. (2016c). Hibridismo, Multimodalidade e Nomadismo: Codeterminação e coexistência para uma Educação em contexto de ubiquidade. In D. Mill & A. Reali (Eds.), Educação a distância, qualidade e convergências: sujeitos, conhecimentos, práticas e tecnologias (Vol. 1 (pp. 1–24). São Carlos, Brazil: EdUFSCar.
• Schlemmer, E. (2017). Gamificação em espaços de convivência híbridos e multimodais: a educação na cultura digital . Research Report. São Leopoldo, Brazil: Unisinos.
• Schlemmer, E. (2018). Projetos de aprendizagem gamificados: Uma metodologia inventiva para a educação na cultura híbrida e multimodal. MOMENTO–Diálogos em Educação , 27 , 41–69.
• Schlemmer, E. , Chagas, W. S. , & Schuster, B. E. (2015). Games e Gamificação na modalidade EAD: Da prática pedagógica na formação Inicial em Pedagogia à prática pedagógica no Ensino Fundamental. In IV Seminário Web Currículo e XII Encontro de Pesquisadores em Currículo (vol. 1, pp. 728–736). São Paulo, Brazil: PUC-SP.
• Schlemmer, E. , & Lopes, D. Q. (2016). Avaliação da Aprendizagem em Processos Gamificados: Desafios para Apropriação do Método Cartográfico. In L. Alves & I. de J. Coutinho (Eds.), Jogos Digitais e Aprendizagem (Vol. 1, pp. 179–208). Campinas, Brazil: Papirus Editora.
• Schlemmer, E. , Lopes, D. Q. , & Molina, R. (2012). Epistemological and methodological challenges in the field of research in education and digital culture. In Rethinking educational ethnography: Researching online communities and interactions Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Rethinking Educational Ethnography conference in Barcelona (Vol. 1, pp. 74–81). Barcelona, Spain: Universitat de Barcelona.
• Varela, F. (1988). Conhecer: As ciências cognitivas tendências e perspectivas . Lisbon, Portugal: Instituto Piaget.
• Varela, F. (1990). Conhecer: As ciências cognitivas: Tendências e perspectivas . Lisbon, Portugal: Instituto Piaget.
• Varela, F. , Thompson, E. , & Rosch, E. (2003). A mente Incorporada: Ciências Cognitivas e Experiência Humana . Porto Alegre, Brazil: Artmed.
• Venturini, T. (2010). Diving in magma . Public Understanding of Science , 19 (3), 258–273.
• Venturini, T. (2012). Building on faults: How to represent controversies with digital methods . Public Understanding of Science , 21 (7), 796–812.

1. A group composed of researchers from the Universidade Federal Fluminense and Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.

2. The idea of an apparatus (dispositif) is based on Foucault ( 1979 ), who understood it as a decidedly heterogeneous agglomeration involving discourses, institutions, architectural organizations, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, and philosophical, moral, and philanthropic propositions. In short, the apparatus is made up of that which is said and unsaid. The apparatus is the network that can be established among these elements (p. 244). The relationship among these elements indicates the existence of change of positions and modification of functions. An apparatus always responds to an urgent need, made clear by its strategic or dominant function.

3. Passos, Kastrup, and Escóssia ( 2009 ) understand politics in a broad sense as the form of human activity that, linked to power, relates to subjects, articulating them according to rules or norms that are not necessarily only legal in nature. Politics is also done through local arrangements, that is, micro relations, indicating this micropolitical dimension of power relations (Foucault, 1979 ).

4. See conception of non human actor, present in Latour’s ANT.

5. It is important to emphasize that the perspective of “doing and understanding” is also described as a theory in the work of Jean Piaget ( 1978a ). It is, however, necessary to establish differences and similarities.

6. ANT emerged from an interdisciplinary perspective, with contributions from different areas, and is still defining itself as a methodological tool.

7. The author of this article.

8. In the sense put forth by Dewey ( 1938 ) and taken up by Latour ( 2016 ).

9. In gamer lingo, achievements are goals that a subject can complete during the game. They can be explicit or secret, that is, that the subject discovers during the process of play.

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date: 17 May 2024

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PhD Research Fellowship in Digital Culture – Digital Narrative and Digital Humanities

Norway University of Bergen

There is a vacant PhD position at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Bergen, starting during the Autumn 2022 semester. The appointment is for a fixed term of four years.

The successful candidate’s PhD project will investigate digital narrative as expressed through electronic literature, computer games, social media narratives, computational narrative systems, or new forms of digital narrative that use emerging technologies such as machine learning systems, XR, or conversational interfaces. The project may also integrate comparative analysis across different genres of digital narrative.

The project should apply digital humanities research methods and preferably make use of the  ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base . These methods could for instance include data collection and curation, data analysis and visualization or interface design. Queer and intersectional perspectives addressing bias in digital humanities research infrastructure are also welcome.

The position will be associated with the  Center for Digital Narrative (CDN) , a finalist in the 2022 Norwegian Centers for Research Excellence scheme. The initiative is dedicated to humanities-driven research in electronic literature, games studies, digital culture, and computation to advance understanding of digital narrative. The research plan focuses on algorithmic narrativity, new environments and materialities, and the shifting cultural contexts in which digital narratives are received and processed. We will investigate how the interactions of human authors and non-human agents result in new narrative forms, how the materialities of digital narratives have changed over time, and how cultural contexts are reshaping the use and function of digital narrative.

Applicants must submit a proposed PhD project and a project description (see “How to apply” for details).

Qualifications and personal qualities:

• The applicant must hold a Norwegian master’s degree or an equivalent foreign research-based MA (a five-year degree including the BA) in a relevant discipline such as digital culture, digital humanities, literary studies, game studies or media studies. It is a condition of employment that the master’s degree has been awarded at the time of application. Applicants who do not have a Norwegian master’s degree will be evaluated according to the regulations of the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT).
• As a rule, the applicant must have earned the grade A or B on their master’s thesis. The scope of the master’s thesis must be a minimum of 30 ECTS (one semester’s full-time work).
• The applicant must both be able to work independently in a well-structured way and have good collaboration skills.
• The applicant must be proficient in both written and oral English.

Applicants will be evaluated according to admission requirements in  The Faculty of Humanities’ PhD Program pt. 2.1.

Experience in the following areas is an advantage:

• Experience researching digital narratives in the MA thesis or other work.
• Experience contributing to, analyzing data from, or otherwise working with a digital humanities database.
• Teaching experience.

About the PhD position:

The main purpose of a PhD research fellowship is to complete a doctoral degree, which qualifies for independent research and for other forms of employment that demand specific competency. The duration of the PhD position is four years, of which 25 percent of the time comprises duties associated with teaching, dissemination of results, and administration. The plan for this part of the position is developed in collaboration with the department at the beginning of the employment period.

The employment period may be reduced for candidates who have previously been employed in a recruitment position at other institutions. Applicants who have already held a PhD position at the University of Bergen are not eligible for employment.

The PhD fellow will participate in Digital Culture events, PhD research schools, workshops and seminars at the University of Bergen.

The PhD position demands that the applicant has his or her regular workplace at the University of Bergen, at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies and complies with the guidelines that apply to the position.

International Center UiB  has information about moving to Norway for international applicants.

About the research training The PhD Candidates must participate in the faculty’s educational program for a PhD degree, this entails completing a training component of 30 ECTS, annual progress reporting and a midway evaluation halfway through the PhD period. Click  here  for additional details on the content and requirements of the PhD program at the Faculty of Humanities.

We can offer:

• A good and professionally stimulating working environment.
• Salary at pay grade 54 (Code 1017/Pay range 20, alternative 10) in the state salary scale, currently NOK 490 800 gross p.a. following ordinary meriting regulations.
• Enrolment in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund.
• A position in an inclusive workplace (IA) enterprise.
• Good welfare benefits.

How to apply:

Applications must be sent electronically via the link on this site “APPLY FOR THIS JOB”. The applicant must use the electronic CV-form.

The following information must be enclosed and uploaded:

• A cover letter giving a brief account of the applicant’s research interests and motivation for applying for the position. This should address the qualifications and personal qualities listed above, and how the applicant sees themselves fitting in the CDN.
• Relevant diplomas and certificates.
• Names and contact information for at least two references who can be contacted if the candidate reaches the interview stage.
• A short summary of the master’s thesis (up to 3 pages) that explains how it relates to the advertised position.
• A short summary of the proposed project.
• Orientation in the research field. How is the project situated in the field, and how can it bring forward new insights?
• Project objectives, research questions and/or hypothesis.
• Theoretical orientation and methodology.
• A progress plan for the PhD project.
• Bibliography for the proposed project.
• A list of any scholarly publications.
• Copies of up to three scholarly publications.

Attachments can be either in Word or PDF-format. The application and appendices with certified translations into English or a Scandinavian language must be uploaded at Jobbnorge.

General information:

Detailed information about the position can be obtained by contacting professors Scott Rettberg ( [email protected] ) or Jill Walker Rettberg ( [email protected] ),or Head of department Anders Fagerjord, phone 55 58 36 53, email: ( [email protected] ).  

The public sector workforce should reflect the diversity of Norwegian society. People with immigrant backgrounds and people with disabilities are encouraged to apply for the position.

The best qualified candidates for the position will be invited to an interview.

The University of Bergen applies the principle of public access to information when recruiting staff for academic positions. Information about applicants may be made public even if the applicant has asked not to be named on the list of persons who have applied. The applicant must be notified if the request to be omitted is not met.

For further information about the recruitment process, click  here .

Further information about the application  here .

Questions or queries about the electronic application process can be directed to The Faculty of Humanities:  [email protected] .

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Digital Culture, MA

• Program description
• At a glance
• Degree requirements
• Admission requirements
• Tuition information
• Application deadlines
• Career opportunities
• Contact information

Digital Culture, Digital Media, Embodied Media, Experimental Media, Interactive Performance, interactive media

ASU is not currently accepting applications for this program.

Are you interested in the computational arts and the intersection of multiple artistic and experiential disciplines? Join us to craft a unique learning experience based on your background and interests, led by globally recognized artists, designers and engineers.

The MA program in digital culture is geared toward practitioners of design and the arts who have an interest in engaging in scholarly knowledge creation at the intersection of computational arts and sciences and seek to enhance their practice through expanded engagement with interactive and embodied media theory and design. The degree program allows artists and designers to explore new avenues for real-time media creation that seek to go beyond current paradigms.

The School of Arts, Media and Engineering educates the next generation of learners and empowers them with technofluency --- its development, application and implications --- and prepares students to be socially aware, critically thinking global citizens who strive to bring about positive change in a society that will be increasingly shaped by new technologies. Its mission is to improve and facilitate learning, creativity and communication; it does this through the integration of human physical experience and computational and digital media practice-based methods.

Students admitted to the Master of Arts program in digital culture can explore:

• critical media theory --- philosophical technologies, speculative design
• engineering --- social and embedded design, system engineering
• experiential media --- interaction design, responsive environments
• machine learning --- AI, augmented reality, virtual reality
• science --- mediated rehabilitation, public participation in science
• sensory --- food design and sensory science, somatic and movement studies
• sound design --- digital composition and performance, acoustic ecology
• sustainability --- sustainability and critical climate studies, urban climate infrastructure
• College/school: Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
• Location: Tempe

33 credit hours including the required applied project course (AME 593)

Required Core (12 credit hours) AME 520 Movement and Computing (3) AME 530 Philosophy of Media Technology (3) AME 531 Experiential Media Philosophy (3) AME 532 Creating Interactive Media (3)

Electives or Research (18 credit hours)

Culminating Experience (3 credit hours) AME 593 Applied Project (3)

Additional Curriculum Information Students should check with the academic unit regarding appropriate electives coursework.

Applicants must fulfill the requirements of both the Graduate College and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

Applicants are eligible to apply to the program if they have earned a bachelor's or master's degree in one of the following areas from a regionally accredited institution: arts, humanities, design, media studies, computer science, engineering or a closely related field.

Applicants must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 (scale is 4.00 = "A") in the last 60 hours of their first bachelor's degree program or a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 (scale is 4.00 = "A") in an applicable master's degree program.

All applicants must submit:

• graduate admission application and application fee
• official transcripts
• letters of recommendation
• statement of purpose
• writing sample
• proof of English proficiency

Additional Application Information An applicant whose native language is not English must provide proof of English proficiency regardless of their current residency.

A portfolio is required; however, submissions will vary depending on the background of each prospective student because of the transdisciplinary nature of the program. Applicants from a wide variety of disciplines are expected to be interested in the master's degree. Key works are requested from applicants to illustrate the types of skills they wish to develop in the program. Examples include games they have designed and programmed, interactive installations and performances (submitted as video), websites they have created or programmed, music they have composed digitally or films they have made.

The statement should explain, in a concise and persuasive manner, how the student's educational, professional and personal experiences inform their research and creative interests, and it should elaborate on any aspect of their background that supports their candidacy for admission to the School of Arts, Media and Engineering.

Graduates of the Master of Arts program in digital culture go on to careers in areas such as:

• acoustics research
• communications
• graphic design
• mobile development
• sound design
• 3D modeling

Arts, Media and Engineering Sch T | STAUF-B 217 [email protected] 480-965-9438 Admission deadlines

• Postgraduate study
• Postgraduate taught courses

Digital Culture and Communication

Explore this course:.

Applications for 2024 entry are now open. Apply now or register your interest to hear about postgraduate study and events at the University of Sheffield.

The Digital Humanities Institute, Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Course description

If you have a passion for understanding culture and society and a desire to influence digital innovation, this MA is for you.

It will help you better understand the cultural contexts of digital media developments through historical, critical and theoretical perspectives.

Digital culture is about the emergence and use of digital content, networks and technologies - for example, social media, algorithms, online groups, digital images and sounds - and their interactive relationship with the ways culture is created, consumed and altered.

The very nature of digital culture means users don’t just receive it, they interact with it and are influenced by it. For example:

• Whose voices are present or absent online and how that relates to inequality
• How personal and group identities are expressed in the digital world and how this affects identity
• The degree that digital objects emerge from our culture and cause changes to it

You’ll also learn how digital content is used to represent human culture and society in the past and present, such as ancient documents, artefacts and environments as well as present-day social media, digital arts and virtual worlds.

You don't need a background in information science, computer programming or have mathematical competencies. It's far more important for applicants to have an interest in culture and society.

An open day gives you the best opportunity to hear first-hand from our current students and staff about our courses.

You may also be able to pre-book a department visit as part of a campus tour. Open days and campus tours

• 1 year full-time
• 2 years part-time

This course capitalises on over 25 years of expertise and an international reputation in digital culture at the Faculty of Arts’ Digital Humanities Institute (DHI).

The DHI is the UK’s leading centre for the development, analysis and communication of digital culture and digital humanities. DHI colleagues deliver modules that draw on their knowledge, expertise and track record.

Your career

You’ll transform your knowledge of the arts, humanities or social sciences with training in digital theory, methods and project management.

This will prepare you for a leadership role in the digital media, arts, cultural heritage and information technology sectors, as well as provide excellent preparation for doctoral research.

The Digital Humanities Institute

The Digital Humanities Institute is the UK's leading centre for research, development and communication in digital culture and digital humanities.

Established in 1994, our mission is to support the innovative use of technology and computation within arts, humanities and heritage research as both a method of inquiry and a means of dissemination. Digital culture is everywhere, and it is driven by cultural data.

We collaborate with a wide range of academic and research colleagues, as well as professionals in the heritage, culture and information industries, across the UK and internationally on funded projects with a computational component or digital output.  Since the DHI was established, we have delivered over 120 externally funded research projects, collaborated with more than 125 external partners, and received grants from 39 funders.

Approximately 50% of all our projects are led by academic or cultural institutions outside the University of Sheffield which means we have a wide network of industry experts and organisations which our students are able to tap into and benefit from through things such as our annual Business Leader talks.

Our MA programmes are designed to train the next generation of leaders and innovators for careers in the world’s growing digital media, arts, cultural heritage and information technology sectors.

Entry requirements

Minimum 2:1 undergraduate honours degree in a relevant subject, such as history, music, archaeology, languages and cultures, English, philosophy, sociology and information studies.

If you're an international student who does not meet the entry requirements for this course, you have the opportunity to apply for a pre-masters programme in Business, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Sheffield International College . This course is designed to develop your English language and academic skills. Upon successful completion, you can progress to degree level study at the University of Sheffield.

If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the department .

Fees and funding

You can apply for postgraduate study using our Postgraduate Online Application Form. It's a quick and easy process.

This course has a date of equal consideration  of 31 October 2023. This date has now passed, but we are currently still welcoming applications.

More information

Dr Isabella Magni [email protected]

• iSchool Connect

Fab Lab Engagement Team wins campus award

The Champaign-Urbana (CU) Community Fab Lab Engagement Team has been selected as the recipient of the Campus Excellence in Public Engagement Team Award. The team will be honored on May 28 at a special event hosted by the Office of Public Engagement.

The CU Community Fab Lab is a makerspace at the University of Illinois that supports campus and community members through research, university courses, community engagement and programming, youth summer camps, professional development, and design and fabrication assistance. The Engagement Team includes Emilie N. Butt, instruction and engagement coordinator; Wayne Hardy, fabrication and engagement support associate; Sara Paige Ballenger, instructor; and MSLIS students Lily Schwarz, Alicia Detterman, and Amanda Good.

"Several unique and strong characteristics make the Fab Lab Engagement Team more than qualified for this award," wrote Associate Professor and Fab Lab Director Kyungwon Koh in her letter of nomination. "These qualities include their sustainable partnerships with community organizations, a community-centered approach, robust youth programming, and service to rural and underserved areas, among others."

In her letter of support, Celeste Moutos, Executive Director of The Urbana Free Library, described the Fab Lab team's work with the library's after-school program, Teen Open Lab, where teens explore robotics, coding principles, and artistic creativity. She noted that staff at the Fab Lab provide hands-on training to library staff and volunteers, which allows them to assist community members in a variety of makerspace activities.

"Their commitment to community outreach and creating a sustained impact in the community has been evident in every project in which we have worked with them," said Moutos.

"We believe that truly engaged work is not just about bringing people onto campus and sharing our expertise, but about meeting them where they are, recognizing the impactful work they are already doing, building relationships, and learning from them as well," said Butt, the team lead. "Their perspectives, interests, and expertise informs our own practice, and bringing these together results in the development of new summer camps, university classes, and curriculum presented to the broader educational community."

• honors and awards
• school news

News & Events

Defence matters, national service.

• 877 Graduate as SAF Specialists and Military Experts

Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr Alvin Tan inspected the 59th Specialist Cadet Graduation Parade at Pasir Laba Camp this evening. A total of 877 Specialist Cadet Trainees (SCTs) and Military Expert Trainees (ME1Ts), comprising 704 from the Singapore Army, 30 from the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), 65 from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), and 78 from the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS), graduated as Specialists and Military Experts of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

Addressing the graduands at the parade, Mr Tan emphasised the importance of leadership to rally and inspire people to navigate complexities and challenges, and the need for Specialists and Military Experts of the SAF to remain agile and adaptive to the ever-changing landscape in their leadership journey. He said, “As newly minted leaders in the SAF, we expect you to stand at the forefront of change and lead your teams through these uncertain times. You will face challenges beyond technical and specialist expertise that you have been trained for, especially in fostering camaraderie and developing a strong fighting spirit in your teams. I strongly encourage all of you to think innovatively and think beyond conventional boundaries and adapt your leadership styles to inspire the men and women that have been placed under your charge and under your stewardship.”

Mr Tan also thanked the graduands' families for their unwavering support during the course. He said, “Generations of SAF service personnel put in personal sacrifice and train hard… all of us that have served remember that it is our homes and families we are defending. And because we enjoy strong support from our loved ones, that is why we can undertake our NS duties. So, to all the families and loved ones present today, thank you for your unwavering support of our graduands. Your presence has been a crucial source of motivation and inspiration for every graduand here at Leaders Square.”

The graduation parade marked the completion of the 22-week Specialist Cadet Course for graduands from the Singapore Army, the RSN, the RSAF and the DIS, where they trained under rigorous and realistic conditions to sharpen their respective vocation expertise. The newly graduated Specialists and Military Experts will go on to assume command, training and staff appointments in the SAF. Present at the parade were senior SAF commanders, as well as families and friends of the graduands.

Speech by Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr Alvin Tan, at the 59/2024 Specialist Cadet Course Graduation Parade on 16 May 2024

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Last Updated on 16 May 2024