Get an inside look at King’s Digital Futures MA through a Q&A with the programme directors. Learn how this online part-time course explores the forces shaping our digital world.
Digital tech is reshaping the world, changing how we live, think, and connect. To keep up, we need to dig into the cultural, political, and ethical forces driving this shift, spotting both the promises and the pitfalls along the way.
Our Digital Futures MA is an online, part-time master’s programme for people from a range of different backgrounds. It equips you with the critical thinking skills, research approaches, and interdisciplinary perspectives needed to navigate and shape our digital world. From smart cities and AI to digital colonialism and platform politics, we explore today’s most urgent techno-social issues.
This MA is for graduates, professionals, and career changers ready to reimagine the future. It’s built to help you question what’s next—and shape what’s possible. Are you looking to expand your understanding of digital culture and social media, and challenge dominant narratives on sustainability, ethics, and innovation? If so, this programme will help you achieve your goals.
In Episode 12 of King’s DIGITALK podcast, host Alexandra Greenfield dives into the Digital Futures MA. Tune in for insider perspectives from the Programme Directors and discover what makes this course stand out. You can listen to the podcast episode in full here. For more details on the MA, head to the programme page.
Speakers:
- Dr Giota Alevizou: Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Culture, Co-Programme Director of the Digital Futures MA
- Dr Rob Gallagher: Lecturer in Games and Immersive Media, Co-Programme Director of the Digital Futures MA
- Alexandra Greenfield: Host of the Digitalk podcast series of KCL RADIO, BA in Digital Culture and Media student at King's
What is the Digital Futures MA about?
Giota: The Digital Futures MA is purely online. It's also part-time and lasts for two years.
In terms of intellectual orientation, it examines trends across various industries and technologies to explore pressing issues ranging from cities to health, from copyright to games, creativity and AI, borders and ethics, to mention but a few. It also looks at the broader politics of technology, and its role in politicising everyday life.
We aim to cultivate skills that will help students look beyond the current narratives of progress, risks, and threats. We also aim to help them look beyond these kinds of trends, look towards techno solutionism, and reflect.
We want them to reframe risks, reflect on ethics, and collaborate on envisioning what a future digital and sustainable society may look like.
How is the course different from other digital- or media-focused degrees?
Rob: There are two dimensions to that difference. Part of it’s due to how it's delivered. As Giota said, this is a fully online, part-time degree.
Students work through the content, which is hosted on an online learning platform called KEATS. There are a lot of activities there, including readings and video content. So, you're engaging with that content in a way that's very different from an on-campus degree.
Then in terms of what we cover, it's a collaboration between Giota's department: Digital Humanities, and my department: Culture, Media & Creative Industries. We've worked closely with many colleagues from both departments to produce the modules. We’ve designed them to speak to emerging issues and opportunities in digital culture and the media.
We’ll cover a broad range of topics. For example, we’ll examine the impact of copyright in an era of AI and digital distribution. We’ll also reflect on what the dynamics of digital colonialism are, and the geopolitics of exploitation today. So, this programme includes wide-ranging, brand-new content about the big issues in digital culture.
Who is this course designed for?
Giota: It's designed for a wide range of people. For example, it’s well-suited to students who have just graduated, or are in their third year of university. It's for those who are thinking about what to do next, to people who have started their careers or are between jobs. It’s also for people who are considering a career change.
We have students who have just joined straight out of a degree. They want to expand their horizons and combine that with a bit of work. One of our students is a software engineer working in Dubai, for example. He wanted to reflect a little bit more on the cultural and ethical implications of technology.
We have people who specialise in user experience design, and people who work in politics and government. And we have people that have their own business, or work in start-ups.
And again, they’re looking to expand their horizons and get a better idea of the socio-cultural and socio-technical perspectives around ethics and trends. They want to debate the current issues that dominate our discussions around technology, mediation, and experience.
We've received a significant amount of interest from students in North America, particularly the US, as this type of master's programme is not very mainstream there. It's especially unique because of the collaboration between the Department of Digital Humanities and the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries.
It combines some prescriptive approaches and equips people with skills that are not necessarily practical, but are very valuable and transferable. It's also quite research-oriented, research-led, and theoretical. It gives people the space and opportunity to learn, reflect, and collaborate with others about these pressing topics.
What kind of background or experience do I need to apply?
Rob: We're housed in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at King’s. But this programme isn't just for people who have experience studying the humanities. We're also very open to people from engineering backgrounds, informatics, and disciplines like political science.
We also want to appeal to people who may have professional experience relevant to some of the topics we cover.
Even if your academic background doesn't align with the areas this programme covers, you’re welcome to join us. You might already be engaging with these issues through your work, or you may have developed an interest in these fields through your CV. If this applies to you, you'll likely find this programme valuable.
That said, if you have a background in humanities or social sciences, you might be familiar with how we approach these questions. The same applies to the emphasis on critical thinking, research, and considering historical parallels and precedents.
How flexible is the schedule for working professionals?
Rob: It's designed with the idea that people might be studying the programme while they work in a full-time job.
A typical week on the online learning platform is divided into bite-sized sections, making it easy to manage. You might read an article, watch a video, or complete an exercise. If you need to pause and return later, the course is designed to let you pick up right where you left off.
You have a lot of autonomy in terms of when and how you're working through your studies. You can fit them in your own time, around your own schedule. At the same time, those weekly webinars offer a sort of scaffolding for pacing yourself.
We try and find times that work for everyone, which can be difficult with a very global cohort of students. But the webinars offer an opportunity to check in and explore issues in more depth together.
During those webinar sessions, we've been discussing smart cities, for example. And we’re getting perspectives from someone in Athens, someone in London, someone in South Africa, and someone in Dubai. You get this rich range of perspectives from people who are engineers or policymakers.
One of our programme’s strengths is that we have such a cosmopolitan cohort of students. And that community is part of what's happening in the webinars.
Giota: We're quite open to the idea of creating communities online, as well as building bridges between different parts of the world. We aim to bring together individuals with diverse skills and qualifications, across different age groups, and with varying schedules and goals.
What modules will I study?
Rob: For the first couple of semesters, you'll study core modules that give you a grounding for the programme as a whole.
The first one of those is called Mapping New Trends in the Digital Landscape. It aims to place today's events within a broader historical context and address some of the key dynamics and issues. It walks you through the process of analysing apps. It also explores some of the key trajectories we've seen in technological development and its impact on society over the past 150 years. It has a very broad view.
The second core module, Designing Sustainable Digital Futures, considers the impacts – both positive and negative – of digital technologies on society and the environment. It also looks at how they affect many areas of our lives, from the environment, to the economy and health. And again, this module introduces you to a range of case studies from across the globe.
These modules give you the grounding you need to engage with the rest of the programme. We now offer a range of specialist modules that examine topics such as social media marketing and global audiences. They look at how media texts circulate and are monetised today across all industries, but especially within the games industries.
And we're currently working with our colleagues at King's Digital to develop new specialist modules. So, the range of options will grow as the programme continues running.
Giota: You’ll also get to tie a project or a dissertation to your interests, professional backgrounds, and priorities. This could be a project, a mini research-led project, or something more practical.
Rob: You’ll see a range of assessment types within the programme. You’ll have a degree of choice in terms of what you want to produce. For example, it could be a report that's more focused toward public sector stakeholders. Or it could be an academic essay, a podcast, or a presentation.
We're quite open to students exploring a range of ways to convey knowledge. We want them to think about what kinds of skills they want to leave the programme with. They should also consider what kinds of formats they might want to work in in the future.
What are the entry requirements?
Giota: The standard entry requirements are an undergraduate degree with a high 2:1 result in the British system, or the equivalent. We would tend to ask for that in a discipline like social science, computer science, or the humanities.
But there’s also a non-standard route. So, if your grades don't meet that level, or your background is in a different discipline, you can still apply. In those cases, we tend to ask people for a CV and a 500-word statement explaining what they want to get out of the programme.
This is partly because we’ve found people who have engaging, relevant career experience, but don’t have the grades you'd expect for a standard application. And these people often have a lot to give to the programme.
We're very interested in what people want to get out of this. We want to know what they feel they can bring to it with their existing knowledge and skills. And we want to know where they see the MA getting them in the future.
The online Digital Futures MA is so much more than just a degree. This programme offers the tools, community, and flexibility to help you make sense of the technologies that influence our day-to-day lives.
Are you interested in learning more? Listen to the full podcast episode here or visit the programme page to explore modules, entry requirements, and how to apply:
