Introduction to Digital Media

DIGI60011 Introduction to Digital Media 30 Semester 1 Postgraduate Taught Level 6 Lukasz Szulc Unit coordinator 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Masters/Integrated Masters P4 ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 15.0 This unit introduces students to the histories and cultures of digital media as well as to the key approaches and contemporary debates in the study of digital media, culture and society. The thematically structured lectures and seminars will be centred on key readings, both of a theoretical and empirical nature, that familiarize students with state-of-the-art concepts and research at the intersection of digital technology, culture and society. Topics include digital histories and cultures, key digital developments and trends, and major theoretical frameworks (e.g. technological determinism, technological affordances, political economy, Actor-Network Theory). The unit may include debates about digital labour, digital divide, fake media, surveillance and privacy. For the assessment, students will work individually to give an oral presentation on the history and culture of a chosen digital media platform or service and write an academic essay on the topic of their choice. This unit introduces students to the histories and cultures of digital media as well as to the key approaches and contemporary debates in the study of digital media, culture and society. The thematically structured lectures and seminars will be centred on key readings, both of a theoretical and empirical nature, that familiarize students with state-of-the-art concepts and research at the intersection of digital technology, culture and society. Topics include digital histories and cultures, key digital developments and trends, and major theoretical frameworks (e.g. technological determinism, technological affordances, political economy, Actor-Network Theory). The unit may include debates about digital labour, digital divide, fake media, surveillance and privacy. For the assessment, students will work individually to give an oral presentation on the history and culture of a chosen digital media platform or service and write an academic essay on the topic of their choice. To introduce students to the key developments in digital histories and cultures so they can critically reflect on the contemporary role of digital media in culture and societyTo equip students with major theoretical frameworks to think creatively and inclusively about digital mediaTo help students develop an ability to actively participate in contemporary debates about digital media, culture and society Show systematic comprehension of key developments in digital histories and cultures in relation to larger processes of capitalism, neoliberalism and globalizationSynthetize and apply key theoretical approaches to analyse digital media from a range of diverse perspectivesDemonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of major contemporary debates about the role of digital media in culture and society at the national and transnational levels Frame cultural and social problems related to digital media in a fashion that is amenable to their solutionCompare and evaluate key theoretical approaches to analyse digital media to draw conclusion about their utility in relation to particular questionsMake a reasoned argument for a particular point of view in debates about the role of digital media in contemporary culture and society, and for the future of the digitized world Use library and digital resources to enhance the depth and complexity of the discussion about digital media, culture and societyPlan and present a convincing argument about a particular aspect of digital media’s role in culture and society Independently gather, synthetize and present material from various sourcesPlan and give an oral presentation on a complex cultural or social challengeConstructively work in a team to jointly deliver an output on time Innovation/creativity Propose creative and inclusive solutions to the cultural and social problems related to digital media Research Articulate key developments in digital histories and cultures Written communication Identify and comment on the key opportunities and challenges of digital media The first weeks will be devoted to the discussion of key developments in digital histories and cultures such as the invention and popularization of the internet and other digital technologies (software and hardware), gradual visualisation, commercialisation and datafication of the internet as well as the recent developments and trends related to digital media in a global perspective. The following weeks students will learn about (1) major theoretical frameworks to think creatively about digital media and (2) key contemporary debates about digital media, culture and society. The former may include such topics as technological determinism, technological affordances, political economy, Actor-Network Theory, encoding and decoding model, and culture of connectivity framework. The latter may include such topics as digital labour, digital divide, fake media, surveillance and privacy. The unit consists of 1h-long lectures and 2h-long seminars. During the lectures, students will learn about particular theoretical frameworks to think about the role of digital media in culture and society and familiarize themselves with the key debates related to digital media. During the seminars, students will give their presentations and will engage in diverse activities to meet the unit’s learning objectives, including group and individual work, plenary discussions, case studies analysis, mini-research projects, and debates. They will also discuss recent news related to digital media, which they will be able to access through library services. All the relevant materials will be available on Blackboard or in the library. 0 Other 100% <figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Assessment task</td><td>Formative or Summative</td><td>Length</td><td>Weighting within unit (if relevant)</td></tr><tr><td>Presentation plan</td><td>Formative</td><td>200 words</td><td>0%</td></tr><tr><td>Presentation</td><td>Formative and Summative</td><td>10 minutes</td><td>25%</td></tr><tr><td>Academic essay plan</td><td>Formative</td><td>400 words</td><td>0%</td></tr><tr><td>Academic essay</td><td>Formative and Summative</td><td>3000 words</td><td>75%</td></tr></tbody></table></figure> <figure class="table"><table class="Table" style="border-collapse:collapse;margin-left:7px;width:645px;" width="645"><tbody><tr><td>Written comments by email</td><td>Formative and Summative (only for presentations)</td></tr><tr><td>Verbal comments during office hours</td><td>Formative and Summative</td></tr><tr><td>Blackboard Q&A sessions</td><td>Formative and Summative</td></tr><tr><td>Turnitin</td><td>Summative</td></tr></tbody></table></figure> N Andrejevic, M., & Volcic, Z. (2020). ‘Virtual empathy’. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 13(3), 295-310.Arora, P. (2019). The Next Billion Users: Digital Life Beyond the West. Harvard University Press.  Barbrook, R., & Cameron, A. (1996). The Californian ideology. Science as Culture, 6(1), 44-72.Curran, J., Fenton, N. & Freedman, D. (Eds.) (2012). Misunderstanding the Internet. Routledge.  Fuchs, C. (2021). Social Media: A Critical Introduction. Sage.Meikle, G. (2022) Deepfakes. John Wiley & Sons.Naughton, J. (2016) ‘The evolution of the Internet: from military experiment to General Purpose Technology’, Journal of Cyber Policy, 1:1, 5-28, DOI: 10.1080/23738871.2016.1157619Parikka, J. (2015). A Geology of the Media. University of Minnesota PressPeters, B. (ed.) (2016). Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information, Society & Culture. Princeton University Press.Qiu, J. L. (2017). Labor and social media: The exploitation and emancipation of (almost) everyone online. In: J. Burgess, A. E. Marwick & T. Poell (Eds.) The SAGE handbook of social media (pp. 297-313). London: Sage.Selwyn, N. (2004) Reconsidering political and popular understandings of the digital divide. New Media & Society, 6(3), 341-362.Shaw, A. (2017). Encoding and decoding affordances: Stuart Hall and interactive media technologies. Media, Culture & Society, 39(4), 592-602.Vaidhyanathan, S. (2017). The incomplete political economy of social media. In: The SAGE Handbook of Social Media, 213-230.Van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford University Press.Willems, W. (2021). Beyond platform-centrism and digital universalism: The relational affordances of mobile social media publics. Information, Communication & Society, 24(12), 1677-1693.Zuboff, S. (2019). Chapter 3 ‘The Discovery of Behavioural Surplus’ in The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power (First edition.). Public Affairs.   Lectures 10 Seminars 20 0 270