The year is 2013. Amazon releases its first promotional video of a delivery drone. Facebook introduces audio calls on Facebook Messenger. Apple launches the iPhone 5S model, equipped with FaceID, the fingerprint recognition system and the smart voice assistant Siri. The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset developer kit is released from a Kickstarter-funded start-up called Oculus. 3D printers enter the mass market. Apple Watch is not yet released, but wearable technology is becoming more popular, with gadgets such as Google Glass, Nike+ Fuelband and Samsung Galaxy Gear available. With manifold increases in computational power, machines have become capable of recognising objects and translating speech in real time. Meanwhile, somewhere in London, a consulting firm – Cambridge Analytica – creates a Facebook personality quiz that would lead to one of the biggest political scandals in recent history.

The year is 2013, and Digital Cultures is an innovative cross-disciplinary program at the University of Sydney, interrogating the social and cultural impacts of new digital media technologies such as those above. It convenes the Digital Cultures undergraduate major, the Master of Digital Communication and Culture (see Chapter 10) and has a research profile in new media arts and sociotechnical change. However, it is a program, not a department, and has only 2.6 staff. At the same time, Media and Communications is a successful department with over 15 staff focused on journalism, media industries and practices in the context of rapid sociotechnical and industry transformation. It convenes a boutique undergraduate degree and four master’s coursework programs, and its staff has a diverse research profile in media and communications studies.

The year is 2013, and Digital Cultures and Media and Communications, which had worked in parallel in the same school for over a decade, are poised to merge. Together they will be perfectly positioned to make sense of the deep social and technological transformations the world will experience into the future.

​From Arts Informatics to Digital Cultures: 2000–13

The precursor to Digital Cultures, the Bachelor of Arts Informatics, was founded in 2000 through a cross-faculty partnership brokered by Julian Pefanis (Art History and Theory) and Alan Fekete (Information Systems). This was a ground-breaking cross-disciplinary degree that combined a major in Information Systems with an Arts Informatics program stream comprised of ARIN-coded units taught in the School of English, Art History, Film and Media (SEAFAM).

The first unit of study to run was ARIN1000: The History and Theory of Informatics, developed by Annemarie Jonson. Jonson taught this unit for one year before she went on maternity leave, at which point Kathy Cleland, with a background in new media arts curation, and new media artist John Tonkin joined Arts Informatics. The program developed a deeper focus on new media technologies in the arts in Australia and internationally. David Teh also taught in the program.

Chris Chesher joined as director of Arts Informatics in late 2004, moving from Media and Communications at UNSW, which was among the first degrees to focus exclusively on new media. In this capacity, he designed a Research Methods unit, which surveyed cross-disciplinary research methodologies and enhanced an existing Technocultures unit. With his colleagues he proposed and developed a new postgraduate coursework program: the Master of Digital Communication and Culture, which would first run in 2006.

Arts Informatics was a pioneer in games studies, mobile media studies, internet studies and new media arts, without limiting itself to any one of these nascent fields. Its interdisciplinary roots connected media studies, cultural studies, media arts, science and technology studies, sociology, philosophy of technology, and human–computer interaction. Tonkin developed a unit of study called Computer Games and Simulation. Cleland recalls that there was a strong focus on digital arts and online/virtual communities in the early years of the program, including the world-class Digital Arts unit, which was highly praised by students and is offered by the program to this day. Christine Crowe, who transferred into Arts Informatics from the Department of Sociology and Social Work, developed the unit Cyberworlds.

Arts Informatics was active in Sydney’s art and technology scene, co-organising anti-conferences through the Fibreculture network in which speakers seeded themed round-table discussions, rather than presenting papers. For Justine Humphry, who first joined the program in 2011, the value of the program was in “occupying the space between the utopian imaginaries and the dystopian critiques of emerging technologies”.

Ironically, its level of innovation was probably why Arts Informatics had trouble reaching its ambitious enrolment goals: in a culture polarised between arts and technology, the esoterically named degree did not cut through to enough high school leavers. Today, it is customary for students to take a Digital Cultures Table S major from within a Computer Science degree, and vice versa. Arts students can learn programming or design computing. Back then, however, enrolments in the Bachelor of Arts Informatics were not high enough, and it accepted its last intake in 2007. Beyond this decision, the program re-emerged as the Digital Cultures undergraduate major and the postgraduate program, which both proved to be increasingly popular over the following years.

Fiona Martin recalls that Digital Cultures scholars were “years ahead of their time” in understanding the implications of an increasing uptake of digital technologies across arts, commerce, government, media and entertainment industries, at a time when these industries were slow to adopt and adapt to ubiquitous digitisation. Humphry affirms this view: “Historically, what was happening in Australia in the industries was that the internet, and the communities involved in it … were forging a path and leaving telecommunications and the traditional media behind … Those were two alternative development pathways.”

Through the 2000s, it became apparent that the concerns of Digital Cultures and of Media and Communications were converging, with the increasing digitalisation of media industries, the rise of digital media platforms and a crisis in the funding of traditional journalism. A range of new digital media emerged, including Web 2.0, social media, platform entertainment, artificial intelligence, search marketing and the internet of things. Internetworked, mobile, locative and automated hypermedia technologies could not be ignored as they were increasingly impacting upon the territories of legacy media industries.

A merger between Digital Cultures and another department was mooted as early as 2007, but there was a long process of consultation and negotiation. As well as consulting with MECO, there were talks with the Department of Art History and Film Studies as another possible merger partner. While merging with MECO seemed a natural fit, some MECO staff observed that the department already had expertise in digital media. Others asked whether a merger might complicate the department’s remit, considering the complexities of managing a Digital Cultures major in addition to the four-year named degree, Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications). But Martin, an early internet adopter in arts and community media and the first MECO lecturer to teach into the Digital Cultures program, saw this development as mutually beneficial; Digital Cultures would bring much-needed insights into research and teaching in the department, while MECO would have a resource base to expand practical offerings for Digital Cultures students. Digital Cultures staff were in favour of the merger but insistent that they should retain their unique identity and control over their curriculum and research directions.

In October 2011, after extensive consultation around a proposal from Digital Cultures, the recently appointed head of school, Annamarie Jagose, formally proposed the merger to the Dean’s Executive Committee. The submission argued that “‘Digital cultures’ remains vital in new humanities curricula internationally”. It identified many benefits for the combined department that would prove prescient: the merger “Strengthens MECO’s coverage of new digital media technologies … Enables curricular collaboration … Offers a distinct major as an alternate study option for many students … Sharpens the profile of the Master of Digital Communication and Culture … [and] Facilitates research collaboration”. The proposal offered a detailed course of action for merging the activities and cultures of the two areas over 2012.

In January 2014, the fully merged department moved from their separate spaces in the Holme Building and Level 3 in the John Woolley Building into the freshly refurbished offices on Level 2 of the John Woolley Building, making the partnership material.

In hindsight, MECO and Digital Cultures staff recognise this merger as a true partnership, rather than MECO acquiring Digital Cultures. Per the official press release announcing the merger of two programs, “the amalgamation of the Digital Cultures Program with MECO will enhance both areas, and the burgeoning field of digital cultures research”.

Cleland remembers the merger “was a forced marriage. Both parties were initially reluctant, but the Digital Cultures team saw the writing on the wall, and we did our best to make the most of the situation. Luckily, after the merger, we found that we actually did really like each other quite a lot. Over time MECO and Digital Cultures have grown closer, and have definitely benefited from each other’s course offerings and collaboration, so now it’s become more of a love match.”

In the immediate aftermath of the convergence, many MECO units incorporated the digital transformation, as evident in their changing titles: Media Globalisation became Digital Media Globalisation, and Media and Communications Landscapes received a digital prefix before its transformation into Work 4.0. Digital Cultures units also changed focus, with the Web Production unit changing to Web Transformations and then Internet Transformations. Cyberworlds became ARIN2620: Everyday Digital Media.

Then, in 2016, the University announced the undergraduate curriculum transformation. This meant redesigning all majors and degrees including the BA (Media and Communications) and the Digital Cultures major, and the introduction of the Bachelor of Advanced Studies. Motivated by a desire to blend the two recently merged programs, the department determined that Digital Cultures students would take first year Media and Communications units, and Media and Communications students would take Digital Cultures 2000 level units. Unfortunately, this meant MECO students could no longer major in Digital Cultures. By 2019, this arrangement was nixed by the deputy vice-chancellor (Education), and MECO students could once again major in Digital Cultures.

Since 2019, MECO and Digital Cultures have become more differentiated. New units in both programs address different dimensions of digital media. MECO introduced the very popular Open Learning unit OLES2017: Digital Influence through Social Media, which attracts over 700 students from across the University each semester. This filled a gap in the curriculum on social media for both Digital Cultures and MECO students. In 2020, MECO2604: Telling Stories with Data was introduced, which gives MECO students an understanding of digital methods in journalism. In 2021, Digital Cultures introduced a new first year unit ARIN1001: The Past and Futures of Digital Cultures, providing students in the major with a better grounding in the interdisciplinary formation of digital cultures. And in 2023, a second first year unit, ARIN1010: Elements of Digital Cultures, was introduced. These two units replace the two MECO units in the first year of the major.

​MECO and Digital Cultures: disciplines and identities a decade later

The year is 2021, and the Digital Cultures program is thriving within MECO, expanding its number of academic staff, growing its unit offerings, and seeing significant growth in student enrolments at postgraduate and undergraduate levels. In 2016, there were fewer than 1,000 enrolments in Digital Cultures ARIN units. In 2021, there were nearly 3,000. Humphry and Marcus Carter joined the department as continuing staff in early 2017, and Olga Boichak and Mark Johnson followed in late 2019. In 2021, Terry Flew joined the program after a distinguished career at Queensland University of Technology, and in 2022 Joanne Gray joined the team, followed by Ben Egliston in 2023. Many synergies between Digital Cultures and MECO remain in both teaching and research.

The Centre for Digital Technologies and Societies, approved by the University in 2023, brings these fields together around the themes of: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Cultures; Engaging Publics in a Digital Age; Digital Policy and Governance; and Global Storytelling and Digital Media. Affiliated to the new centre are existing nodes of expertise around the Sydney Games & Play Lab and the Computational Social Sciences Lab. The Digital Cultures research cluster has regular monthly meetings that feature research projects from academic staff, higher degree students and invited Australian and international researchers. Digital Cultures is a powerhouse in research into technology and culture, with its staff having published over 150 publications between them over the past five years. They’ve published in journals such as New Media and Society; Convergence; Media, War and Conflict; International Journal of Social Robotics; Games and Culture; International Gambling Studies; and even Zoo Biology.

The year is 2021, and a growing number of universities around the world are building programs like Digital Cultures. Hot topics in the field include the power of platforms, big data, artificial intelligence and bias, autonomous decision-making, smart city and smart home, social robotics, non-human technology users, digital media at war, streaming media, games, virtual reality and infrastructure politics. Digital Cultures has become an integral part of MECO, making sense of the role of technology in our mediatised social reality.