Digital Media, Culture and Society MA

Year of entry: 2026

Course length: 12 months full-time | 24 months part-time

About the course

The MA in Digital Media, Culture, and Society offers advanced interdisciplinary study in the critique and use of digital media and technology with a particular focus on their cultural and societal implications.

Throughout the course you will learn to critically engage with the cultural and societal impacts of digital media and technology; evaluate digitally mediated forms of intellectual pursuit, artistic expression and civic engagement; and conduct independent research on and with digital technology and media.

The MA prepares students for careers in the growing digital technology, cultural and creative sectors, including marketing, data analytics, journalism and publishing, digital media and communications, design, visual arts, fashion, think tanks, NGOs, education, project management, consulting, and policy.

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Students may benefit from at least 20 days industry experience on a relevant project or programme, subject to availability, with a relevant business or organisation.

Now positioned as the engine room for the Northern Powerhouse, the city is benefiting from massive investment in its technological and cultural infrastructure such as MediaCityUK, the award-winning Whitworth, the Sharp Project and Factory International.

Our graduates are among the most targeted by top UK employers

(High Fliers 2025)

Dr Ashley Mattheis

Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture

Dr Ashley Mattheis is a lecturer in digital media and culture at the University of Manchester. She is based in the department of Art History and Cultural Practices (AHCP), and affiliated with the Centre for Digital Humanities, Cultures and Media. He is currently Course Director for the MA in Digital Media, Culture and Society.

She holds a PhD and an MA in Communication along with a (post)graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Her research interests include digital extremist cultures’ (Manosphere, Far Right, #Trad, and QAnon) propaganda materials, gendered communicative approaches, and economies of digital media circulation. Her expertise lies at the intersection of critical media studies, visual rhetorical criticism, and digital cultural analyses through the lens of feminist STS and Black feminist theories.

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