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JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY

COURSE CODE: "COM 311-1"
COURSE NAME: "Digital Media Culture"
SEMESTER & YEAR: Fall 2023
SYLLABUS

INSTRUCTOR: Valentina Tanni
EMAIL: [email protected]
 HOURS: MW 1:30 PM 2:45 PM
TOTAL NO. OF CONTACT HOURS: 45
CREDITS: 3
PREREQUISITES: Prerequisite: COM 220
OFFICE HOURS:
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course provides students with a number of theoretical approaches to critically assess how digital media function and their expanding and expansive role in contemporary culture. The course further investigates digital media convergence in order to develop a critical lexicon that can both chart its development and engage in intellectual interventions in its use within the transformations occuring in more traditional cultural forms such as television, film, popular music, print, and radio. Special emphasis will be placed on the specific cultural, political, economic, and social issues raised by digital media forms.
SUMMARY OF COURSE CONTENT:

The course will attempt at first to define the domain of Digital Media, proposing it as the amalgamation of different traditional media forms into new digitally based varieties. Subsequently the course will analyze the various forms which Digital Media has assumed and concentrate on the specific issues - cultural, political, economic, technological and social - that the various forms raise.
This is a lecture and discussion course. We will shift back and forth between discussing theoretical and practical issues in relation to digital media culture media and their relation to society. Lectures and discussions will be supported with several multimedia content. Students are strongly encouraged to propose their own choice of media material for the class.

Readings include texts by influential scholars and new media theorists such as (among others): Kate Crawford, Henry Jenkins, Lawrence Lessig, Lev Manovich, Trevor Paglen, Limor Shifman, Sadie Plant.

 

All reading materials will be available in digital format.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:

By the end of the course students will be able to:

1. understand and analyze the corresponding influences that traditional media and digital media are having upon each other.

2. understand and analyze how digital media use contributes to shape personal identities and social relationships.

3. recognize the influences that digital media is expressing in the cultural, social, economical and political spheres.

4. learn some key concepts such as hypertextuality, interactivity, remediation, web 2.0., digital extractivism, machine learning, and connect them to the use of digital media in everyday life.

5. advance one’s ability to produce qualitative research reports and reflection papers.
TEXTBOOK:
NONE
REQUIRED RESERVED READING:
NONE

RECOMMENDED RESERVED READING:
NONE
GRADING POLICY
-ASSESSMENT METHODS:
AssignmentGuidelinesWeight
Attendance & ParticipationParticipation includes doing the assigned readings and actively contributing to class discussions. 10%
Midterm examDetailed guidelines will be provided.20%
Final research paper & Oral presentationStudents are required to write a research paper related to the course material. Detailed guidelines to be provided.30%
Participation to 'Digital Delights &Disturbances' (DDD) lecture seriesStudents are required to attend 3 sessions of the lecture series. A detailed calendar with dates & event description will be provided.5%
Online group projectAt the beginning of the semester, students are required to set up a Blog, a Social Media account or a Newsletter and use these digital spaces to post links, images and reflections on the course’s topics. Materials must be uploaded weekly. This is a group project.30%
   
Participation to DDD workshops Students will have to attend one of the workshops offered by the DDD lecture series and write a short reflection on it. Calendar will be provided at the beginning of the semester. 5%

-ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
AWork of this quality directly addresses the question or problem raised and provides a coherent argument displaying an extensive knowledge of relevant information or content. This type of work demonstrates the ability to critically evaluate concepts and theory and has an element of novelty and originality. There is clear evidence of a significant amount of reading beyond that required for the course.
BThis is highly competent level of performance and directly addresses the question or problem raised.There is a demonstration of some ability to critically evaluatetheory and concepts and relate them to practice. Discussions reflect the student’s own arguments and are not simply a repetition of standard lecture andreference material. The work does not suffer from any major errors or omissions and provides evidence of reading beyond the required assignments.
CThis is an acceptable level of performance and provides answers that are clear but limited, reflecting the information offered in the lectures and reference readings.
DThis level of performances demonstrates that the student lacks a coherent grasp of the material.Important information is omitted and irrelevant points included.In effect, the student has barely done enough to persuade the instructor that s/he should not fail.
FThis work fails to show any knowledge or understanding of the issues raised in the question. Most of the material in the answer is irrelevant.
-ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS:
ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS AND EXAMINATION POLICY
You cannot make-up a major exam (midterm or final) without the permission of the Dean’s Office. The Dean’s Office will grant such permission only when the absence was caused by a serious impediment, such as a documented illness, hospitalization or death in the immediate family (in which you must attend the funeral) or other situations of similar gravity. Absences due to other meaningful conflicts, such as job interviews, family celebrations, travel difficulties, student misunderstandings or personal convenience, will not be excused. Students who will be absent from a major exam must notify the Dean’s Office prior to that exam. Absences from class due to the observance of a religious holiday will normally be excused. Individual students who will have to miss class to observe a religious holiday should notify the instructor by the end of the Add/Drop period to make prior arrangements for making up any work that will be missed. The final exam period runs until ____________
ACADEMIC HONESTY
As stated in the university catalog, any student who commits an act of academic dishonesty will receive a failing grade on the work in which the dishonesty occurred. In addition, acts of academic dishonesty, irrespective of the weight of the assignment, may result in the student receiving a failing grade in the course. Instances of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of Academic Affairs. A student who is reported twice for academic dishonesty is subject to summary dismissal from the University. In such a case, the Academic Council will then make a recommendation to the President, who will make the final decision.
STUDENTS WITH LEARNING OR OTHER DISABILITIES
John Cabot University does not discriminate on the basis of disability or handicap. Students with approved accommodations must inform their professors at the beginning of the term. Please see the website for the complete policy.
SCHEDULE

PART I – NEW MEDIA, NEW WORLDVIEWS

 

Week 1. Introduction and Course Overview: Why Study Digital Culture?

 

Reading:
Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1976), pp. 87-93.
Charlie Gere, Digital Culture, (2002), pp. 11-20.

Watching:
Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message, tv interview, excerpt, 1977.
The Incredible Machine, documentary, 1968.

 

Week 2. Technology in History

Reading:
Walter Benjamin, A Short History of Photography, 1931.

 

Watching:

Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera, 1929, excerpt.

The Story Behind Earth’s Most Famous Photo, YouTube video.

Face to Face, The PicturePhone, YouTube video, 1970


Week 3. Old Media and New Media

 

Reading:
Lev Manovich, Principles of New Media, in The Language of New Media, 2001.

Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation, Understanding New Media, 2000, excerpt (pp. 21-50).


Watching:
Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Hole in Space, 1980.
Evolution of the Desk, by the Harvard Innovation Lab, 2014

 

Week 4. A Brief History of the Computer and the Internet

 

Reading:
James Curran, The internet of history: rethinking the internet's past, in Misunderstanding the Internet, Routledge, 2016.

Sadie Plant, Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture, excerpt.

Watching:
William Gibson on the dawn of the Internet, tv interview, 1997.
Fred Turner, From Counter Culture to Cyber Culture, lecture, 2013.

 

Week 5. Interface and Hypertext

 

Reading:
Ted Nelson, A File Structure for The Complex, The Changing and the Indeterminate, 1965.
Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths, 1941.

Watching:
Werner Herzog, Lo and Behold, Documentary, 2016 - excerpt.

 

Week 6. Hacker Culture

 

Reading:
Pekka Himanen, in The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age, 2001, excerpt.
Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, excerpt.

 

Watching:
Hackers - Wizards of the Electronic Age, Documentary, 1985.

Week 7. Midterm review


Midterm review / test.



PART II – PARTICIPATORY CULTURES

 

Week 8. Open Source and Creative Commons

 

Reading:
Richard Stallman, Why software should not have owners, 1994.

 

Watching:
Revolution OS, Documentary, 2001.
Why is free software important? Richard Stallman, Video, 2013.
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, Documentary, 2014.

 

Week 9. The rise of Web 2.0

 

Reading:
Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, 2008, excerpt.
Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 2006, excerpt.

 

Watching:
Henry Jenkins, Henry Jenkins on Participatory Culture, Video, 2013.

 

Week 10. Memes & Viral Content

 


Reading:
Limor Shifman, Defining Internet Memes, in Memes in Digital Culture, 2013.
Valentina Tanni, To a Person with a Smartphone Everything Looks Like a Meme, 2021.
Ryan Milner, Logics: The Fundamentals of Memetic Participation, in The World Made Meme. Public Conversations and Participatory Media, MIT Press, 2016 (pp. 11-41)
Caspar Chan, Pepe the Frog Is Love and Peace: His Second Life in Hong Kong, in Chloë Arkenbout, Jack Wilson and Daniel de Zeeuw (edited by), Critical Meme Reader: Global Mutations of the Viral Image, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2021.

 

Watching:
How This Frog Meme Became A Symbol Of Hope And Hate, Video 2019

Bernie Sanders meme goes viral, Video, 2021

 

PART III – SURVEILLANCE, DATA EXTRACTIVISM AND AI



Week 11. Computer vision and Data surveillance

Reading:
Trevor Paglen, Invisible Images (Your Pictures Are Looking at You), 2016.
Will Knight, The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI, 2017

 

Watching:

Coded Bias, Documentary, 2020.
Memo Atken, Learning to see, artist video, 2017

 

Week 12. New Extractivism and Digital Labour

 

Reading:
Kate Crawford, Vladan Joler, Anatomy of an AI System, 2018

Vladan Joler, New Extractivism. An assemblage of concepts and allegories, 2020.

 

Week 13. Algorithmic Culture and Machine Learning

Reading:

Valentina Tanni, The Great Algorithm, Aksioma, 2022.

 

Watching:

Ben Grosser, Facebook Demetricator, Order of Magnitude, Go Rando, various dates.

 

 

Week 14. Wrap up