MSc Media and Communications (Data and Society)

The MSc Media and Communications (Data and Society) is a social science programme which offers a critical, year-long exploration of the significance of data and information within contemporary societies and communications.

At a time when intensive data-gathering about online activity is central to both business models and to governments’ strategies for understanding their citizens, the programme’s theoretical perspective on datafication is highly relevant, allowing students to understand, evaluate and respond to the social and political contexts of data production and analytics. You will also consider the cultural aspects of the role of data within everyday life.

The programme provides students with the resources to understand the wider implications of a social shift towards data. In comparison to data science programmes, this programme will also teach students skills in understanding how data processes can be constructed, managed and renewed to fulfil social and civic ends, identifying the ethical questions raised by data’s growing role in communication and social processes and what approaches might resolve them, and understanding the significance of data-collection processes and data governance.

Teaching methods

LSE is internationally recognised for its teaching and research and therefore employs a rich variety of teaching staff with a range of experience and status. Courses may be taught by individual members of faculty, such as lecturers, senior lecturers, readers, associate professors and professors. Many departments now also employ guest teachers and visiting members of staff, LSE teaching fellows and graduate teaching assistants who are usually doctoral research students and in the majority of cases, teach on undergraduate courses only.

Assessment

All taught courses are required to include formative coursework which is unassessed. It is designed to help prepare you for summative assessment which counts towards the course mark and to the degree award. LSE uses a range of formative assessment, such as essays, problem sets, case studies, reports, quizzes, mock exams and many others. You will be summatively assessed by written examinations (seen and unseen), research assignments, essays and the dissertation, which must be submitted in August.

Careers

Destinations of alumni from the MSc Media and Communications (Data and Society) have included: project manager for the Asset Data Question Project, Product Manager, Policy Assistant at Research Institutes, Content Strategist, Analysts, Planning Executives.

This programme will give you an understanding of how data shapes social life specifically through communication processes. This is useful for future careers in media and communication fields that are increasingly bound up with information systems and data development, such as: advertising and marketing, data analytics, legal and political consulting, information management, and editorial.