RE: Are the sociocultural and the cross-cultural approaches incompatible?
I loved doing my masters (I bypassed the first degree) in Digital Media and Society, and I'm sure you would enjoy studying at that level, too. I was working at the other university in Leicester at the time co-ordinating a project that was teaching people about wealth creation through social media - it was just before the advent of the blockchain, I'm sure we would have been all over that.
Most libraries offer external reader's membership, it usually costs bout £30 a year, although if you are studying at another university, you can get free access through SCONAL (I think that's the scheme anyway). For that, I can borrow 10 books at a time. I never would because, well, carrying them! But I get to study in the library, there's a lovely cafe there, I bump into people I know, and they often have open events and lectures about interesting things.
You don't get access to the electronic resources, but I've found that with skillful searching on google, you can often access academic articles. From here, it's a very nice walk through a little shopping area and then across the park, or an easy bus ride. There's also a couple of nice pubs nearby, and I belong to the Gas Club round the corner, so I sometimes stop off for a drink and a natter on the way home.
What might you study for your masters?
My apologies for the slow response, @shanibeer! That sounds like a really interesting subject to do a Masters in, and a very fascinating project! It's a shame that it was just before the blockchain. I'm not the most well versed in everything about it, but what I've studied about it has really interested me. Really enjoyed discussing the idea and ethos behind Steemit with @slobberchops when he introduced me to it not long ago. Not that I'm expecting much wealth creation of my own on here, but it is definitely a really interesting idea and take on social media. It's interesting as a study in neoliberalism as well.
I'm hoping to do a few extra modules and was hoping to do some extra psychology and sociology studies in among them, well, once I've got the Masters out of the way anyway! The Masters I'm doing will be a Philosophy one. And thank you for the info on external reader's memberships at uni libraries. I might pop into Bangor Uni and see if they offer something similar. Would be great if there was also access to the electronic library, but like you say, there's ways around that just using standard internet. Scihub has become a bit of an valuable resource for me during my degree, as I've come across recommended papers that the OU library simply didn't have a license for!
Scihub sounds interesting, I haven't come across that before. I have thought about asking if I could pay for a subscription ... I suspect that will be introduced before too long.