Industry Placement and written submission: digital media (823P4)

60 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

All year

The digital media work placement is a student-led placement developed in close consultation with the course convener. The work placement is assessed via a portfolio and a 5,000 critical analysis (essay). Supported through dissertation workshops, tutorials, work in progress demonstrations, portfolio development and independent work, the course enables you to critically reflect on the role of digital media in the workplace.

Work Placement Submission Organisation:
Each work placement must be submitted as a portfolio including the critical analysis (essay)

The work placement portfolio must include:
Title page (including both the work placement title and critical essay title)
Summary of the work placement (approximately 100 words)
Letter from employer confirming the placement and your role
Project or work place brief which clearly sets out the nature of the company and the purpose of the placement, your role, duration, kind of work task entered into this can be written by you or included in the letter above
Reflective work placement diary or log (between 20- 40 entries of approximately 100-150 words) if you use a blog for this you will need to submit a printed version
Samples of work carried out with an indication of the extent of your responsibility and initiative
A critical essay that interrogates a dimension of the work placement and situates it in relation to digital media theory. This essay must follow the conventions of academic practice and make a contribution to the field of digital media theory.

Work placement process
Develop the work placement in consultation with the MA convenor (consultation needs to start late autumn term). If you don't have a company already in your sights then use the Linked in digital media alumni group, Wired Sussex, the enterprise and careers office (e.g. Enterprise Thursdays), Lighthouse, and the school of MFM. Network, meet people, get a sense of what is going on here, identify internships and set this up. We can help with CVs references - contacts - and recommended companies and internships but in the end you'll be the most significant person in setting this up.

The work placement should be conducted in the summer term but there can be flexibility to this. Agree the work placement with an employer and confirm this with the convenor. This requires that you have the agreement of the MA convenor. In addition you must obtain a letter confirming the details from the employer. Make sure this is very clearly organised with no last minute or word of mouth arrangements. The placement must be secure and agreed on both sides in advance.

From the Summer term onwards you take up the placement and keep a work diary and samples of your work for submission (check out any ownership issues).

Research the literature on working in the digital media industries and culture industries more generally.

Decide on the direction for your critical essay - this is not a review of your experience but should interrogate one dimension of the work place.

Research the academic literature that connects with your essay topic and use the workplace as your case study.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 600 hours of work. This breaks down into about 17 hours of contact time and about 583 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.