This interdisciplinary module introduces Year 1 students to contemporary popular culture as a creative and communicative system. It explores how meanings are made and negotiated through widely shared cultural texts and practices, and how ideas travel across platforms and audiences. Students will examine pop culture not simply as entertainment, but as a space where identity, community, industry and cultural values interact. The module also develops practical creative thinking by guiding students to design and justify their own creative outputs with attention to audience, medium affordances and culturally responsible representation. This module will be co-delivered by three subject areas within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences: Media and Communication, China Studies, and Literary and Translation Studies. Students will encounter complementary perspectives on platform and audience dynamics, contemporary China-related cultural contexts, and cross-cultural meaning-making through translation, adaptation and localization. The module therefore provides a shared foundation for all HSS students while building transferable skills in critical analysis and creative communication.
A Analyze contemporary popular culture by identifying how meaning, identity and values are constructed in widely shared cultural texts/practices. B Apply interdisciplinary methods to real-world pop culture case studies, using appropriate approaches such as observation of cultural practices, discourse analysis of language and style, platform/audience analysis, and framing analysis of media narratives. C Demonstrate cross-cultural awareness by explaining how cultural context may shape interpretation and by making culturally responsible creative decisions D Communicate ideas clearly and effectively by presenting analyses and creative decisions in a coherent, evidence-based form suitable for an interdisciplinary audience
This module will be delivered as a 2-hour weekly lecture/seminar block combining short lectures with discussion, guided analysis, group work and workshop-style practice. The block format supports both conceptual grounding (e.g., how pop culture produces meaning and circulates across platforms) and inquiry-driven creative exploration, allowing students to consolidate key ideas through repeated application to familiar cases and contemporary media examples. To maximise sustained engagement and interaction, sessions will be delivered in a flexible learning space, and student numbers per block will be capped at 100 where possible. Learning will be supported through structured use of digital tools, including digitally enhanced engagement activities and Generative AI where appropriate, to help students prototype creative ideas, test media choices and reflect on cross-cultural communication.