PhD in digital media culture, UK | Doctorate in digital fields including innovation, digital media and digital health

The University of Brighton is committed to cross-disciplinary approaches to research into and through digital media, digital innovation, creative digital and the growth and adoption of digital culture in all walks of life.

Our researchers operate across many areas of digital access, connectivity and creativity, either in technical and organisational development, application in social contexts, or critical understanding of its use and potential.

You will be provided with expert supervision grounded in a specialist research pursuit, for example, digital media, digital healthcare, digital innovation, digital transformation, digital marketing, digital media arts or digital humanities.

We look forward to approaches from ambitious students with exciting and innovative projects for support as a doctorate in disciplines surrounding digital media and digital cultures.

Contact an expert in this field

Successful applicants have invariably had support with their application from one of our academics. We suggest you approach a suitable academic staff member with relevant research interests before progressing with your application.

See also:

PhD Media and communication

PhD Computer Science

Research in digital cultures, digital media and digital health

The university has a proud history in applied research and the majority of our work investigating the use and potential of digital technologies and digital media is grounded in practical application, often with key industry partners in either the digital industries or across communities that are developing use of digital possibilities. Brighton, UK, is itself a thriving hub of media business with many creative and digital media start-ups making the city their home. We have developed partnership projects that explore uses of Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, telematry, social media, or which develop apps for cultural and community uses.

Recent, digitally-focused applied and impactful research projects at the university include:

the innovation ecosystem generator Fuse/FuseBox24, to support innovation and growth in the Creative, Digital and IT (CDIT) sector in the Sussex region,
projects exploring e-micromobility and e-transport use,
innovations in dignified sustainable care for older people,
international digitally-accessible heritage projects,
Augmented Reality engagement for ecological transformation,
teenagers' and children’s relationship with digital technology and the natural world,
work with business-led 5G testbed and 5G Accelerator programmes that became integral to the 5G roll-out and the UK’s strategic development of the digital and immersive economy.

We welcome approaches for PhD study with a digital focus especially where it pertains to wider social, cultural, public benefit or industrial application. With departments conducting research in software development, applied digital technologies for social improvement, social and psychological approaches, digital humanities and creative digital production across apps, games and screen culture, the university is well placed to provide support for exciting cross-disciplinary projects that maximise the potential of digital techologies and digital media culture.

Our research by staff and postgraduate researchers includes, for example, work on how digital media impacts upon society and the changes in everyday life: intelligent/sustainable services like transport and social care, or ubiquitous surveillance, or how healthcare can be provided effectively through digital technolgies. Our projects have examined community activism in local and global contexts, and changes in the nature of audiences and their engagements. With our strong university-wide record in research for social justice, we have tackeld matters of exclusion, inclusion, identity formation, specifically through the analytical lenses of ageing, class, disability, gender and sexuality informed by contemporary theoretical debates in digital media and data technologies.

We are open to doctoral students making effect use of any viable methodologies and theoretical approaches, including data analysis, qualitative research, ethnography, autoethnography, community co-production and media arts practices.

Research supervisors for your doctorate in digital media and digital culture

As a PhD research student in the areas of digital media, digital culture and digital innovation, your research will help us understand how society, ourselves and our communities are transforming through digital media communications, digital access and connectivity, digital business, digital arts, and the many facets of communication technologies.

You will benefit from research supervision comprising two or maximum three members of academic staff. Some PhD students have also had a third supervisor from outside the university, for example an expert from the media industries.

We welcome cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary projects with a digital focus. Supervisory support can range across:

technical digital development, programming, app-building, game creation, AI (See also PhD Computer Science),
organisational and community digital transformation, digital business practice, Fintech and digital marketing, (See also PhD Business and PhD Finance)
social science approaches to how existing and developing technologies are (or could be) applied in the contexts of, for example, healthcare, migration, education, leisure, political activism and social wellbeing,
digital humanities, especially in the contexts of archives, access, museum and heritage cultures,
digital media communications and cultures (See also PhD Media and communication and PhD Film and screen studies),
digital media arts / creative media practices and reception (See also PhD Arts and creative practice).

We welcome approaches for PhD supervision across the breadth of possibilities that are opened through scholarship in digital fields. The following is a broad indicative list of areas that have been researched recently by staff and postgraduate students:

Researcher working with a Virtual Reality headset

Artificial Intelligence (AI)
blockchain, cloud computing, the sharing economy
creation and reception of digital media
community media
creative industries
cultural informatics
data culture
data technologies and digital culture
digital citizenship, policy, governance and education
digitally connected mobility and transport
digital health and mediated healthcare
digital humanities and digital heritage
digital media in political, social and environmental activism
digital photographic cultures
digital sound and music practices

digital surveillance
digital transformation
feminist- and inclusion-orientated digital media
game studies
identity formation, inlusion/exclusion
immersive media/AR/VR
inclusive digital community practices
innovation and creative media industries
interactive and digital arts/music/sound
the Internet of Things
podcasting culture and development
screen cultures
selfies and identity
smart mobility and intelligent transport
social media

Details of a PhD in digital studies, digital media/culture

Research training and support

PhD students in digial studies are offered a range of developmental opportunities to help challenge and broaden their academic and professional thinking. There are opportunities to develop skills towards your PhD and prepare for life beyond it. These might include writing skills and project management, conference presentation preparation, with research planning and publication activities as well as grant applications and network-building, digital storytelling or developing a public profile. Read more about our doctoral training provision.

As a member of the Brighton Doctoral College, you will benefit from regular opportunities on a training programme designed to support postgraduate researchers at all stages of the PhD and help them achieve their career goals. Attendance at appropriate workshops within this programme is encouraged, as is contribution to the various seminar series hosted by the school and the annual Postgraduate Research Festival. Academic and technical staff also provide more subject-specific training.

Resources for PhD researchers in digital fields

You will benefit from access to international research resources, including a contemporary range of electronic resources via the university’s Online Library, as well as the physical book and journal collections housed within campus libraries. The library services are connected to national and international collections and students also have the option of inter-library loans. Our media research students have use of a range of computing, media production, creative engagement and social science labs as well as the Screen Archive South East.

As well as your expert and experienced supervisory team, your network of fellow postgraduate research students and expert staff may well intersect with other PhD programme areas. Many students have benefited from the free intellectual exchange between scholars in humantities, social sciences, healthcare and medicine, business and law or sports culture - all of which have aspects of their worlds that intersect with digital technologies and cultures.

The University of Brighton has a system of research centres and groups, Centres of Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence (COREs) and Research Excellence Groups (REGs), with three REGs of particular significance:

Supervisors in digital media culture

We strongly recommend that you apply with the support of one of our academics. By establishing your supervisor from the early stages of application, you will be supported through the application process and can make the best start to your programme of study.

You should consider the staff listed below and create a short draft research proposal identifying your suitability for supervision from that person's research specialism and your place in the wider context of the department's research ambitions. Their contact details are available on their full profile.

Our primary staff supervising in the discipline are listed. For further information on university supervisory staff, including cross-disciplinary options, please visit research staff on our research website.

Dr Mary Darking

I have supervisory interests in digital health, coproduction of health and social care services, community and social innovation, complex evaluation and social value, fuel poverty and energy justice.

Dr Karina Rodriguez Echavarria

My research interest includes the documentation and visualisation of collections, embedding intelligence as well as the (re)use to support innovative approaches, for instance, to support the exhibition and conservation of heritage artefacts and creative applications. Research topics for supervising include:

i) data analytics for complex, diverse and linked data resources,

ii) 3D digitisation/imaging and 3D digital collections,

iii) discoverability technologies, including AI-based analysis, large scale visualisation novel modalities for search and browse,

iv) community involvement with heritage,

v) design and engineering of objects by digital fabrication technologies.

vi) Sustainability and business aspects, including metaverse, blockchain technologies and NFT

Dr Panagiotis Fotaris

Dr Fotaris's supervisory interests focus on projects exploring the pedagogic potential of games, escape rooms, generative artificial intelligence, virtual/augmented environments, and social media in the context of computing and design education. Additionally, he is interested in projects that combine creative computing with arts, music, and fashion. (e.g., AI-generated visual art and music, projection mapping, data visualisation, wearable technology, immersive media etc.).

Dr Theo Fotis

I supervise students doing research in Digital Health, Coproduction of science and technology in the community, Privacy and Cybersecurity in Healthcare, Technology Assessment, consumer health technologies (IoT, wearables, Sensors, apps), user-technology relations, User-led Innovation.

I'm happy to work with prospective PhD students to develop research proposals.

Dr Charlotte Gould

My PhD supervisory interests are in Digital Media Arts and Visual Communication. My specific research interests cover interactive storytelling, augmented reality, digital and tangible media, open interaction, play, participation, immersive environments, virtual reality and 360 video, audience agency and sustainability.

Dr Gemma Graham

I'm happy to supervise PhD students on a range of topics broadly relating to Forensic Psychology and Cyberpsychology. I am especially interested in supervising students adopting an Eye Tracking methodology. Current PhD projects I am supervising address the following:

Terror Management Theory approaches to climate change communication (Joe Rennie-Taylor)

Dr David Harley

Cyberpsychology – the impact of digital technology on everyday life
Older people and digital technology
Intergenerational contact in the digital age
Digital wellbeing
Mindfulness in relation to the digital world

Dr Theodore Koulouris

(Digital) media theory, literary theory/history (esp. Virginia Woolf, Anglophone and European modernisms, and post-1850s receptions of Hellenism); deconstruction, ethics, ontology, feminism, mourning, narrative, nationalism(s), death, loss, and memory.

Current PhD/MPhil supervision

Sylvie J. Lewis (lead supervisor - live) / techne-funded / themes / topics: Virginia Woolf, modernism, fairies, shyness in early twentieth-century anglophone literature

Jack Maginn (lead supervisor – live) / themes / topics: Virginia Woolf, time, queer theory, Continental philosophy https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/jack-maginn

Kate Anthony (lead supervisor – live) / themes / topics: digital memes, the American alt-right, nationalism, Christian fundamentalism https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/katherine-anthony

Paul Levy

Paul has supervised at post-graduate level for over a decade and currently is supervising at doctoral level, with international students focusing on the successful implementation of automation and aritifical intelligence in the financial sector. He is also involved insupervision of work examining public and private partnerships and how these relate to innovative behaviour in larger organisations.

Prof Paul Sermon

I have supervised 14 PhD students to completion and am currently supervising 6 PhD students. My research and supervisory interests cover subjects related to Fine Art, Digital Media, Performance, and Visual Communications. My PhD students have been undertaking practice-based research in a range of specific areas, such as digital storytelling, interactive media, virtual reality and networked performance art. In my role as a PhD supervisor and Doctoral Studies Lead in the School of Art and Media, I bring our PhD students together through collaborative workshops, symposia and exhibitions, such as the group PhD show ‘Digital Encounters’ for the British Science Festival, Brighton in September 2017. I have had eight PhD completions at Brighton to date, as well as five external completions, and I continue to gain PhD Viva experience, with over thirteen PhD external examiner appointments. I provide guidance on practice-based research using reflective practice processes, primarily based on the experiential learning cycle, action research methods, reflection-in and -on practice, specialising in digital and interactive arts, performance and installation practices. Unique experiences and specialisms involve video recall interview techniques for video performance and installation art.

Dr Maria Sourbati

I am interested in supervising doctoral students on a range of topics and themes including smart technologies, age relations, ICT access and mobility, digital inclusion, digital literacies, digital inequality and transport-related exclusion.

My past PhD supervision includes projects in media diversity, media regulation, e-government.

Current PhD supervision

Sijuade Olanihun Yusuf (International PhD Studentship) - Social media and negotiation of identity by African Women in Sub-Saharan African countries.

Vicki Painting - How might the ‘orphaned body’ of my mother living through the fourth age be represented other than within the prevailing construct of abject, unproductive and ultimately unsuccessful ageing?

Dr Linda Tip

I supervise PhD students on a variety of topics that focus on the psychological side of migration. I welcome proposals from students who want to investigate well-being or mental health of migrants, refugees, or international students. Within that topic, I am particularly interested in the role of social relationships and/or the role of digital technology in wellbeing and mental health. I also accept projects looking into British people's attitudes towards migration: i.e., what are predictors of negative and positive attitudes and behaviours towards migration, and what can we do to improve these attitudes and/or support for migrants?

Examples of PhD projects under my supervision:

Exploring resilience of international students from a social policy perspective (Isaac Thornton).
Exploring the role of digital and print resources in English language and literacy acquisition in relation to wellbeing of refugee children (Liliane Broschart).
The impact of digitalisation on public and third sector services supporting people for whom English is an additional language (Sidney Lupupa Mushinge).

Dr Marcus Winter

I supervise research students exploring human-computer interaction and applied artificial intelligence topics in education, cultural heritage and public engagement.

I am particularly interested in research-through-design [1] projects generating new knowledge through the iterative, user-centred development and evaluation of design prototypes.

For past work and specific research interests please refer to my project pages.

---

[1] Stappers, P. J., & Giaccardi, E. (2017). Research through design. In The encyclopedia of human-computer interaction (pp. 1-94). The Interaction Design Foundation.

Making an application

Once you have prepared a first-rate application you can apply to the University of Brighton through our online application portal. When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the University of Brighton staff. We strongly recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Fees and funding

Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2024–25

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

MPhil/PhD
	Full-time	Part-time
UK	£4,786	£2,393
International (including EU)	£15,900	N/A
International students registered in the School of Humanities and Social Science or in the School of Business and Law	£14,500	N/A

PhD by Publication
Full-time	Part-time
N/A	£2,393

Contact Brighton Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the University of Brighton we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the Brighton Doctoral College page.

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.