Digital Media, Culture and Law

Digital media, culture and law is an interdisciplinary field that addresses one of the most pressing questions of contemporary life: how do the platforms, networks and technologies through which we communicate, create and consume affect individuals, communities and the legal frameworks that are supposed to govern them? It brings together media and cultural studies, which examine how meaning is made and power exercised through media forms, with legal analysis, which asks how existing and emerging law copes with the realities of a networked, data-driven world. The combination equips you to think critically about platforms, intellectual property, freedom of expression, surveillance, privacy and the global flows of digital culture.

At SOAS University of London, this three-year full-time programme draws on the institution's distinctive global perspective, bringing awareness of how digital media operates differently across political and cultural contexts, including in the Global South and in societies where press freedom, censorship and access to information raise urgent questions. You will develop analytical skills in both cultural and legal reasoning, learning to move between close reading of media texts, ethnographic approaches to digital practice, and doctrinal legal analysis. The programme includes a foundation year, providing a supported route into university study before you begin the main degree.

Typical entry is around 136 UCAS tariff points.

Graduates from this interdisciplinary combination go on to careers in media law and regulation, journalism, policy work for digital rights organisations, communications consultancy, broadcasting, publishing, the civil service, and technology companies where questions of governance and cultural impact are increasingly prominent. The analytical and writing skills developed are also well suited to roles in academic research, think tanks, advocacy organisations and international institutions concerned with media freedom, data governance and communications law. Postgraduate study in law, media studies, cultural policy or human rights is a natural progression for those who wish to specialise further.