* This class employs the method of auto-ethnography to study networked identities. It does so using multiple languages and formats.
As an example, see the blogs and video blogs published during the outbreak of the pandemic in Spring 2020.
Class Schedule * an updated version of the syllabus will be posted on Moodle in SP21
Week 1: Applying auto-ethnography to the study of the online self
Introduction to the class and to auto-ethnography as a research method
http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095
Week 2: The self and the social: a theoretical orientation
How does technology impact on the understanding of society, and on man’s own sense of the body?
Excerpts from:
Baudrillard, J. (1983) In the shadow of the silent majorities… or the end of the social and other essays. New York: Semiotext(e).
McLuhan, M. (1996) The Medium is the Massage. Berkeley: Ginko Press.
Week 3: Identity and Ideology in the time of the 'Social'
How has the self become a media object? How is our sense of identity created and displayed publicly? What are the consequences?
Excerpts from:
Tiidenberg, K. (2018) SELFIES: Why We Love (and Hate) Them. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.
Lovink, G. (2016) On Social Media Ideology. E-flux #75, September.
Week 4: Affect theories
How do we understand and study the online self?
Excerpts from:
Hillis, K., Paasonen, S., and Petit, M., eds., NetworkedAffect. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press.
Tiidenberg, K. (2018) SELFIES: Why We Love (and Hate) Them. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.
Week 5: The Circulation of Affect on Social Media: Gift or Commodity?
Excerpts from:
Hillis, K., Paasonen, S., and Petit, M., eds., NetworkedAffect. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press.
Week 6: Putting 'Affect' at Work: Labor within Emotional Capitalism
Excerpts from:
Hillis, K., Paasonen, S., and Petit, M., eds., NetworkedAffect. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press.
Week 7
Recap and midterm exam
SPRING BREAK
Week 8. A Deep Dive Into Networked Emotions: Sadness
What does it happen when the online self takes violent forms, when mundane practices such as Instagramming and taking selfies become instruments of violence?
Excerpts from:
Lovink, Geert (2019). Sad By Design. London: Pluto Press
Broder, M. (2016) So Sad Today. New York and Boston: Grand Central Publishing.
Week 9. A Deep Dive Into Networked emotions: Boredom
Excerpts from:
McDonough, T. ed. (2017). Boredom. Cambridge, Massachussetts: The MIT Press.
Week 10. A Deep Dive Into Networked emotions: Anxiety
Week 11. A Deep Dive Into Networked emotions: Sexting
Week 12.
The Pandemic & the Online Self - Part I
Online Is The New Black: Zoom Fatigue and Other Networked Discontents
Week 13.
The Pandemic & the Online Self - Part I I
The Platformization of Life
Week 14. Wrap up