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MSc at University College London

Now accepting applications for Autumn 2012


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University College London

UCL is one of the highest rated universities in the world, coming fourth after Harvard, Cambridge, and Yale in the 2009 annual Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings.

The Department of Anthropology at UCL is the world's leading centre for the study of Material and Visual Culture. We publish the Journal of Material Culture, and several relevant book series. We have nine specialist staff in material and visual culture, and currently supervise nearly fifty PhD students specifically in this field, including many with topics in digital anthropology.

About the Programme

The new MSc in Digital Anthropology–begun in the Autumn of 2009–is well positioned for becoming a world leader in the training of researchers in the social and cultural dimensions of information technologies and digital media.

Digital technologies have become ubiquitous. From Facebook, Youtube and Flickr to PowerPoint, Google Earth and Second Life. Museum displays migrate to the internet, family communication in the Diaspora is dominated by new media, artists work with digital films and images. Anthropology and ethnographic research is fundamental to understanding the local consequences of these innovations, and to create theories that help us acknowledge, understand and engage with them. Today's students need to become proficient with digital technologies as research and communication tools. Through combining technical skills with appreciation of social effects, students will be trained for further research and involvement in this emergent world.

This programme is suitable both for those with a prior degree in anthropology but also for those with degrees in neighbouring disciplines who wish to be trained in anthropological and related approaches to digital culture. There is scope for those with specialist interests to work closely with information system designers, curators, communication specialists as well as our own digital studio. In addition to its importance for careers such as media, design and museums, digital technology is also integral to development, theoretical and applied anthropology.

More information generally applicable to all postgraduate programmes within the department can be found here. Contact Dr. Lane DeNicola (l.denicola@ucl.ac.uk) with any questions not answered on these pages.

Timeline

Dreamweaver CS3The MSc is nominally completed in one year of full-time study or two years part-time. In the Autumn term students enroll in the Digital Anthropology core course (and possibly one optional course), followed in the Spring term by the second half of the core course and 2-3 optional courses. The two-hour written exam is administered in the third term (usually in May), and the bulk of dissertation research and writing is conducted between May and August, with submission in mid-September.

Those studying part-time are generally restricted to enrollment in the core course in their first year (with the exam in term 3 of that year), while all optional courses and dissertation research/writing occur in the second year. Fees for part-time study are typically half the fees of full-time study in any given year. The full 2011/12 academic calendar can be downloaded here (as a PDF), but the term schedule is as follows:

Term 1: 26 Sep 11 - 16 Dec 11
Term 2: 9 Jan 12 - 23 Mar 12
Term 3: 23 Apr 12 - 08 Jun 12

Fees and Bursaries

Details regarding the course fees for 2011/12 can be found by searching for "Digital Anthropology" on this page.

There is a single £1,000 bursary specific to this course. All those who have submitted an application by 30 June 2011 will automatically be considered and no additional application form is necessary. Further details on funding opportunities can be found on the Anthropology Department's funding page and on UCL's funding pages for UK/EU and Overseas applicants to master's programmes.

Programme Components

The MSc in Digital Anthropology is based on the following components:

1. Core course in Digital Anthropology. This is taught over two terms. It includes both theory of digital culture, methodology in digital technology and anthropological studies of the consequences of digital culture. The course is examined by a combination of a 2-3,000 word course work essay, a methodology practical, and a written examination at the end of the year.

Note that the aim of the practical skills training component of the core course is not to provide comprehensive fluency in technique (since we deal with a wide range of applications over the period) but to give enough sense of each technique that a student can envisage how and why these might be incorporated into anthropological research.

2. Optional courses. Students take three optional courses, at least two of which are typically from among those taught by Material & Visual Culture staff. These courses are examined by one essay each of 2-3,000 words, worth 8.33% of the course grade each.

Please note: not every course is available in every year.

3. Masters Research Methods seminar. Typically 16-18 sessions are convened within the Research Methods seminar over the academic year. These sessions are made available to all masters students, and while only six are usually compulsory for students in the Digital Anthropology programme they may attend as many as they wish. They are not assessed. In 2010/11, the Research Methods seminar included the following sessions:

  • Participant observation
  • Ethics
  • Investigating space and place
  • Interviews (I & II)
  • Questionnaires (I & II)
  • Sampling
  • Using new technologies for research
  • PRA (participatory rural appraisal))
  • Photography
  • Against method
  • Investigating kinship and relatedness
  • Ethnographic writing
  • Fieldnotes
  • Film
  • Historical sources
  • Researching ritual

Please note: this sequence is subject to change in 2011/12.

4. Dissertation. A 15,000 word dissertation to be submitted by September 15th of each year, conducting under the supervision of a member of the material and visual culture staff, on an agreed topic. This will count for 50% of the overall mark.

5. A weekly seminar series, along with Material and Visual Culture, with invited international speakers. Not examined.

This diagram illustrates the individually assessed components of the programme. The area of each box is proportional to its weighting (the upper layer represents the core course, the middle layer the options, and the bottom half the dissertation).

Core Course Breakdown

Additional Voluntary Skills Training

  • Web Information Skills in the UCL Environment
  • Office Productivity Tools (Microsoft Office)
  • Specialized Bibliographic and Generic Database Management Tools (Reference Manager, Access)
  • Qualitative Data Analysis (Nvivo)
  • Web Authoring and Development (Dreamweaver)
  • Digital Photography (Photoshop)
  • Programming (C++, PHP)

For further details on these types of courses, see the Graduate School's Skills Development Programme website, particularly the list of courses relevant to masters students and the separate section for Students in the Social and Historical Sciences.

Past MSc Dissertations

Azeez, Ola-Walé (2011) Towards Revolution 2.0: Digital Communications Media in Cairo Under the State of Emergency
Bell, Danielle (2010) Objectified Phenomenology in Competitive Gamescapes
Braybrooke, Kaitlyn (2011) She-Hackers: Millennials and Gender in European F/LOSS Communities
Christmas, Salina (2011) The Use of Emails in Mobilising Neighbourhood Watch on a Road in Brixton
Cook, Chloe (2011) Computer Says No? An Exploration of Technological Breakdowns in Office Life
Falter, Jonas (2011) The Life in the United Kingdom Test: An Anthropological Perspective
Fu, Beini (2010) Digital Kinship: Ethnography on Digital Practice of Families in Shanghai
Fuentes, Giustina Trevisi (2011) “Tell the Truth. Uncover a Few Secrets": Secret Communication Systems in Facebook
Gong, Ping (2011) Disaster and Media Society: An Ethnographic Research on the Wenchuan Earthquake from Chengdu
Grigoryan, Lusine (2010) Armenians on Facebook: Activism in the Private-Public Domain
Guado, Alessandra (2011) Digital Music: An Anthropological Perspective
Kim, Minjee (2011) The Google Art Project: Remediation and Postmodern Art Curatorship
Ku, Yun (2011) Tagging Photos, Tagging Relationships: Facebook Photo-tagging by College Students in Taipei
Langevine, Beverly (2010) The Role of Digital Media for Churches, Believers and Religion: The Practice and Mediation of Digital Religion in Everyday Life
Merrill, Andrew (2011) Spectral Songdo: Imagining Songdo IBD through (im)Material Culture, or Anthropological Experiments on the Virtual Frontier
Papamatthaiaki, Lida (2011) Mastering the Ethnography of Food Blogs: Theoretical Approaches to the Digitization of Food
Pasanen, Mika (2011) Condoms and Computers: A study on Gay Men’s Consumption of Online Bareback Pornography and the Materiality of Condoms
Pollinger, Nikolas (2011) Lessons from the MyFarm Field: Applying Public Sphere Theory to Account for the Emergence, Survival and Growth of Internet Mediated Participation Initiatives
Ramirez, Maria (2011) Filial Love, Dist@nce, Coffee and Sugar Cane: the Colombian Case
Saunders, Elizabeth (2011) Should We ‘Like’ Nestlé? Understanding the Role of Social Media Through Anti-Human Trafficking Activism
Schroer, Brian (2011) Beyond Ones and Zeros: A Critical Ethnographic Analysis of Work and Life in the Silicon Valley
Singh, Rachel (2010) From Ambient Streams to Ambient Senses: Technosocial Practices and Situations of Older Adults Living in Ireland
Spyer, Juliano (2011) Making Up Art, Videos and Fame: The Creation of Social Order in the Informal Realm of YouTube Beauty Gurus
Sreberny-Mohammadi, Leili (2010) Digitally Green: Vision and Visibility in Post-election Iran
Tuygan, Elvin (2010) Identity performance and social networking in Farmville
Vakili, Puya (2011) Bumping and Grinding: Analyzing Communication, Identity and Technology on Mobile Social Networks
Vieira, Luiz (2011) Beyond Woodstock: Digital Transgressions and the Never Ending Party
Westman, Peter (2011) Playing with the Team: Communities of Practice in the Taking the Field Digital Storytelling Project
Williamson, Ian (2011) Between Institutional Goals and Personal Aspirations: A Study of Individual Motivations and Nonhuman Agency Within the Voice of Kibera Sociotechnical System
Wojnarowska, Anna (2011) Bodily Integrity and Technological Struggles: How Patients and Staff Cope With the Reality of the Hospital
Yan, Wen (2011) Inside Digital Fandom: An Ethnographic Approach to an Online Fan Community

Current Projects in Digital Anthropology

A Laptop ComputerAp-Stifin - PhD project on status accorded corpus of 9/11 audiorecordings (cellphone calls, aircraft cabin audio, etc.) in U.S. courtroom proceedings.
Argenti - Dissemination of research on women's health in the Kurdish community through satellite broadcasts (Turkey, Syria, and Iraq).
Basu - Digital Repatriation and E-Curatorship in Sierra Leone, part of AHRC Beyond Text programme
Basu - Ethnographic installation, film, video and archives
Broadbent - 3 year study employing 15 anthropologists on the impact of new communication technologies on Swiss society
Buchli and Küchler - 3 dimensional printing and new materials technologies
DeNicola - Developing world and NGO use of remote-sensing
DeNicola - location-aware devices, geomedia, the Internet of Things
Farmer - PhD project on the contribution of on-line debate to the mediation of disputed cultural and intellectual property, and its implications for legal systems.
Freeman - Pedagogical theory of digital learning and creation of online tools for teaching undergraduate anthropology
Gadsby - Ethnographic study of World of Warcraft in UK and Romania
Trialdi – Use of webcam in carrying out ethnographic research in Italy
Lewis - Creation of software to enable non-literate Pygmy hunter-gatherers to map their traditional lands using GPS
Mcdonald - Colonial blanket trade in digital and analog media
Millar - PhD project on the production and circulation of 3d digital facsimiles of museum objects in the UK and Canada
Miller - Studies of the social impact of Facebook and the impact of webcam communication
Miller - The impact of new communication media on transnational relationships for Filipino and Caribbean separated families (with Madianou)
Nicolescu - PhD project on mobile phones and boredom in Romania
Richardson - British Academy Post-Doc in Robotics, disability and autism
Wallis - PhD project on IT entrepreneurs and social networking in the Cambridge region
Zetterstrom-Sharp, PhD project on Cultural heritage, digital curatorship and civil society strengthening in post-conflict Sierra Leone.

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