LO1 – Demonstrate knowledge of different relevant digital media platforms and their uses adjacent to the esports sector.

LO2 - Appraise platform algorithms and how they influence demographical and content marketing decisions.

LO3 - Demonstrate an understanding of the professional and non-professional use cases of digital media platforms from an esports industry perspective.

LO4 – Evaluate choices in platform governance and communicate their knock-on effect on the culture and in industry.

Students will explore the usage of various digital media platforms that contribute to the esports ecosystem, diving into the history of how they evolved alongside the sector and how changes in governance and algorithms produced a ripple into their usage in esports. Through this, students should form an understanding of how best to produce for different platforms and how to be reactive in a world of rapid change.


YouTube Live VS Twitch

Discord VS TeamSpeak

Why do Platforms die?

Platform responsibility

Platform Demographics

Algorithms

Platform marketing

Platforms around the world

Platform governance

Wider application of platforms

Platform Politics

Esports thrives on the media platforms that make up the digital ecosystem. Dive into the research that directs platforms to govern users in the ways they do, and the ways to make the most of the algorithms they operate upon. Understand the importance of platform responsibility in a budding industry and how it all ties together to propel your presence in esports to the front of the digital landscape.

Students will be expected to engage in a variety of learning strategies, including but not limited to:

Tutor led formal presentations

Workshops and group-based tutorials

Discussion/debate cantered learning

Participation in group activities, including presentations and discussion panels

Directed reading

Self-directed/independent research

Self-lead production meetings & rehearsals

Technology supported activities (e.g., use of VR facilities and Esports Hub)

Flew, T. and Wilding, D. (2020). The turn to regulation in digital communication: the ACCC’s digital platforms inquiry and Australian media policy. Media, Culture & Society, 43(1)

Yee, R.W.Y., Miquel-Romero, M.-J. and Cruz-Ros, S. (2021). Why and how to use enterprise social media platforms: The employee’s perspective. Journal of Business Research, 137, pp.517–526.

¿Guo, S. (2021). The evolution of the Chinese internet: creative visibility in the digital public. Stanford (Calif.): Stanford University Press.

Hamilton, W.A., Garretson, O. and Kerne, A., 2014, April. Streaming on twitch: fostering participatory communities of play within live mixed media. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1315-1324).

Hilvert-Bruce, Z., Neill, J.T., Sjöblom, M. and Hamari, J., 2018. Social motivations of live-streaming viewer engagement on Twitch. Computers in Human Behavior, 84, pp.58-67.

¿Fallon, K. (2019). Where truth lies: digital culture and documentary media after 9/11. Oakland, California: University Of California Press.

¿Singh, V.K., Chayko, M., Inamdar, R. and Floegel, D. (2020). Female Librarians and Male Computer Programmers? Gender Bias in Occupational Images on Digital Media Platforms. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(1). doi:10.1002/asi.24335.

Sjöblom, M. and Hamari, J., 2017. Why do people watch others play video games? An empirical study on the motivations of Twitch users. Computers in human behavior, 75, pp.985-996.

Taylor, T. L., Boellstorff, T. and Maurer, B. (2018)¿Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

University Library
IT
Blackboard
Reading list
VLE learning support material to be provided for independent /self-directed learning.
Module handbooks
Open Textbook Library
Specialised Teaching Labs
Media Stores

Assessment 1: Portfolio of Digital Media Platform Use

Students will be required to provide a digital media platform portfolio regarding their use across platforms in a personal, academic, and occupational context.

LO1, LO3

Assessment 2: Video Essay

Critical examination of a chosen digital media platform, breaking down the platform’s development, audience demographics, and an examination of the available visibility algorithms on the chosen platform, as well as the platform’s use case in the modern digital media landscape, and a comparison to its competitors.

LO2, LO3, LO4