APG5107 Digital language: Online communication and artificial intelligence

Digital language is where human communication and computer systems meet. In this unit you will learn about who interacts online, what data they produce, and how that data shapes the intelligent technologies now working and writing alongside us. You will gain a thorough understanding of the structures, affordances, and practices that define digital language, including themes such as identity, audience dynamics, digital literacy and multimodality, and you will build the skills to analyse digital communication through practical examples in every assessment task.

You will see how the richness of online communication can be turned into the data that Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems learn from, and how the models built from that data pick up the patterns, conventions and social signals you have spent the semester analysing. By the end, you will be able to account not only for what these systems produce, but for where it comes from.

No coding experience is needed. You will leave the unit able to analyse digital communication with precision, to work critically with language data and AI tools, and to apply both across domains ranging from education, media and translation studies to research and technology development.