University of Jyväskylä is located in Central Finland, where you can enjoy the beautiful Finnish nature as well as the activities of a lively urban centre. Jyväskylä is known for its rich and diverse culture. If you are interested in sporting, Jyväskylä has a lot to offer both in winter and summer.

Almost 16,000 students from 70 different countries study at the University of Jyväskylä. The university offers 8 disciplines within Literature, Art literature, Art education, Museology, Contemporary culture, Creative writing, Digital culture and Hungarian studies. The International Office coordinates, evaluates and promotes international cooperation at the University. You will find more detailed information on the services provided for international students by the University of Jyväskylä on the website of the International Office of the University of Jyväskylä.

International Master's Degree Programme in Digital Culture

The multidisciplinary, international Master's Degree Programme in Digital Culture takes a critical look at the relationships between the arts, culture and technology. The programme focuses on various aspects of culture and its digitalization, placing special emphasis on the relationship between humans and technology. The programme acknowledges the current tendencies of globalization and simultaneously emphasizes the local Nordic perspectives in its approach. Along with the humanistic orientation comes the question of "what is the role of technology in cultural and artistic practices?" The programme draws on the traditions of humanistic research of digital culture in the Department of Art and Culture Studies, and is connected to the internationally recognized expertise in human technology at the University of Jyväskylä.

The programme combines contemporary cultural studies with issues of digitalized cultural heritage in a unique way. Through this pioneering approach, students will be able to widely consider the cultural implications of the ongoing technological changes, and they will be qualified for research-intensive employment or for international specialist tasks within different fields of culture and the arts. The degree qualifies students for enrolment in doctoral studies.

Course information

Listed below are suitable courses offered by the department. More information on programme structure can be found on the website.

DGLS220: Methodological Issues in Internet Research (5 ects cr.) The course introduces different approaches to methodology within Internet research and addresses ethical questions involved with interdisciplinary research.

DGLS320: Theories of Digital Culture (5 ects cr.) Reading circle discussing key texts in the developing field of digital culture.

DGLS410: Digital Arts (5 ects cr.) The course discusses the development of various digital art forms, taking into account the issues of authorship, production, distribution, and reception processes.

DGLS441: Digital Literature (5 ects cr.) Introduction the central theories of digital literature, cybertextuality and hypertext theory. Getting familiar with the genres of digital literature like hypertext novel, interactive poetry, web fiction etc

DGLS461: Information Graphics (5 ects cr.) The course opens up the historical approach to different uses of information graphics in media and discusses the variations of qualities on visual in given genre.

DGLS471: Game Studies (5 ects cr.) Introduction to the academic research field called game studies or ludology; its basic concepts and approaches.

DGLS480: Participatory Cultures (5 ects cr.) An introduction to theories and definitions of participatory cultures from Usenet groups to social network applications. Themes for individual sessions include meanings of the virtual; the crafting of identities; self-representation; sociability and social networks, and commercialisation.

Information to international students

The University of Jyväskylä has agreements with some 260 European universities, covering the whole of the European Union. Outside Europe, the university has about 35 active partnerships in the Americas, South and East Asia, Australasia and Africa.

The International Office of the University of Jyväskylä is responsible for coordinating international cooperation in the field of education with its partner universities. The International Office manages both mobility programmes and EU-funded educational programmes providing support for departments to organise their own projects. In addition, the office provides support services for international students.

How to apply

The international Master's Degree Programme in Digital Culture is designed for international and Finnish students with a suitable bachelor's degree (preferably in the humanities or other relevant fields). Because the language of instruction is English, a good command of English is required, as well a proven interest in issues related to the programme (based on previous studies, work experience, participation in relevant organizations, presentations or written documents). The programme will invite up to 20 students to start the two-year programme in September 2010. The application round will open in November -09, and end by mid-January -10 (exact date will be given later). The application is done through University Admissions Finland online portal:

Faculty Biographies

Markku Eskelinen, PhD, Postdoc Researcher in the Creation of Game Cultures research project and an independent scholar and experimental writer of ergodic prose, interactive drama, critical essays and cybertext fiction. He holds a cand. philol. in comparative literature and is now co-editing a series of Cybertext Year Books with Raine Koskimaa. Excerpts from his early fiction were published in The Review of Contemporary Fiction (Summer 1996) according to which he's also "easily the most iconoclastic figure on the Finnish literary scene." He has given paper and other presentations at various international conferences, including the series of Digital Arts and Culture conferences and the ACM conferences on Hypertext and Hypermedia.



Mikko Keskinen, PhD, senior assistant in Literature, research interests include new technologies of literature

Raine Koskimaa has published four monographs and some forty articles, review articles, and essays dealing with digital literature, hypermedia, cyberpunk fiction, postmodernist fiction, narratology, and empirical reader-response studies. His doctoral thesis "Digital Literature. From Text to Hypertext and Beyond" is available at: http://www.jyu.fi/~koskimaa/thesis/

Urpo Kovala, PhD, senior assistant in Contemporary Culture, research interests include multimodality in media and fandom studies

Kimmo Lehtonen (M.Phil., MA SocSc) is a senior assistant in the International Masters programme on Digital Culture at the University of Jyväskylä. He is a founding member of The Centre for Creative Photography and has been a director of the same association since 1994. He is a member of the national network of Finnish photographic centres, and has organised more than 200 photographic exhibitions. For the past 15 years Lehtonen has been a member in the curatorial team of the international photo-based trienniale LUMO. His academic specialism covers photographic art and theory, Finnish and European photographic history, visual analysis and Media Studies. He has written and edited several books and articles on photography, both for Finnish and international audiences. The most recent of his books is 2 a.m. Family Business Society, Luigi Gariglio published in Finland and Italy August 2008.

Tero Pasanen, MA, doctoral student and researcher in the Creation of Game Cultures research project.

Giovanna Di Rosario, is a visiting researcher 2009-10. She received her MA - Master of Arts - in Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Siena. In 2001 she took her M.SOC - Master of Social Science - at Universities of Siena and Strasbourg III.


Photo of campus 1 by Jenni Leppänen, photo of campus 2 by Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho. Photo of waterfront by Unknown. Other photos by Scott Rettberg and Martin Arvebro