SAMPLE SYLLABUS Brock University Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film COMM/FILM/PCUL 2F00: New Media Literacy Online Course Spring 2014 Course Hashtag: #comm2f00 Course Blog: http://2f00.wordpress.com Instructor: Andrea Zeffiro Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ProfZeff Office Hours: By appointment or via Sakai chat room Wednesday 1:00-3:00 p.m. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This online course addresses new media literacy from a two-fold perspective: 1) as practical training in a basic repertoire of skills and tools essential to functioning in new media environments and 2) as critical analytical training in the key issues and theories related to the contemporary information age. Students are thus required to think critically about new media and to situate its practices and tools within broader social contexts through learning and using the very tools that are the object of study. This form of engaged and reflective pedagogy not only allows students to acquire practical skills and a foundation in the theories and issues related information age post-industrial society but enables them to do so in a manner that requires self-directed research, training, collaboration, and critique. EVALUTIATION CRITERIA Virtual Participation Blog Responses Creative Assignments 10% 50% 40% 1 SAMPLE SYLLABUS PART 1: FROM THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY TO SOCIAL MEDIA MONDAY, MAY 12, 2014. WEEK 2: THE WORLD WIDE WEB 25 YEARS LATER Schäfer, Mirko Tobias. “Introduction” & “Chapter 1: Promoting Utopia/Selling Technology.” Bastard culture! How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011. 9-23, 24-39. “World Wide Web Timeline.” PewResearch Internet Project. 11 March 2014. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/world-wide-web-timeline/ “History of Social Media Graph.” http://ow.ly/wtlEZ Cavazza, Fred. “Social Media Landscape.” 2013. http://irinachoi.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/social_media_landscape_2013.jpg KEY TERMS: World Wide Web, Internet, Technological Determinism, Social Media, Participatory Culture, Online Cultural Production TUESDAY, MAY 20, 2014. WEEK 3: FROM CONSUMERS TO PRODUCERS Levinson, Paul. “Chapter 6: Blogging.” New New Media. 2nd ed. Toronto: Penguin Academics, 2013. 81-116. Bird, Elizabeth.S. “Are We All Produsers Now? Convergence and Media Audience Practices.” Cultural Studies 25 (2011): 502-516. Rosen, Jay. “The People Formerly Known as the Audience.” The Social Media Reader. Ed. Michael Mandiberg. New York & London: New York University, 2012. 12-16. KEY TERMS: blog, blogging, citizen journalism, produser, produsage 2 SAMPLE SYLLABUS MONDAY, MAY 26, 2014. WEEK 4: THE LANGUAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA Rintel, Sean. “Explainer: What are memes?” The Conversation. 13 Jan. 2014. http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-memes-20789 Gleick, James. ‘What Defines a Meme?” Smithsonian Magazine. May 2011. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-defines-a-meme-1904778/?no-ist Davison, Patrick. “The Language of Internet Memes.” The Social Media Reader. Ed. Michael Mandiberg. New York & London: New York University, 2012. 120-134. Sparks & Honey. “Anatomy of a Meme: From Inside Joke to Viral Celebrity.” BigThink. 17 Jan. 2014. http://bigthink.com/amped/anatomy-of-a-meme-from-inside-joke-to-viralcelebrity Kendzior, Sarah. The Power of the Meme. Aljazeera. 30 Oct. 2012. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012102914110457228.html KEY TERMS: meme, intertextuality, indexicality, templatability MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2014. WEEK 5: TECHNO-TRASH Glanz, James. “Power, Pollution and the Internet.” The New York Times. 22 Sept. 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-ofenergy-belying-industry-image.html?ref=technology&_r=0 Blum, Andrew. “A Dive Into the Digital Deep.” The Wall Street Journal. 25 May 2013. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230484090457742237090340934 2 CNN Labs. “This is what the Internet actually looks like: The undersea cables wiring the Earth.” 4 March 2014. http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/tech/gallery/internet-underseacables/ Trautman, Ted. “Excavating the Video-Game Industry’s Past.” The New Yorker. 29 April 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/04/atari-video-gameindustry-crash-of-1983.html KEY TERMS: e-waste, obsolescence, infrastructure, data centres, the cloud 3 SAMPLE SYLLABUS PART 2: THE POLITICS OF PLATFORMS MONDAY, JUNE 9, 2014. WEEK 6: YOUTUBE Paul Levinson. “Chapter 4: YouTube.” New New Media. 2nd ed. Toronto: Penguin Academics, 2013. 41-64. Kinder, Marsha. “The Conceptual Power of On-Line Video: 5 Easy Pieces.” Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube. Ed. Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. 53-62. McIntosh, Jonathan. “A History of Subversive Remix Video Before YouTube: Thirty Political Video Mashups Made Between World War II and 2005.” Transformative Works and Culture. 9 (2012). http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/371/299 KEY TERMS: platform, YouTube, mash-up, remix MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2014. WEEK 7: TWITTER Levinson, Paul. “Chapter 3: Twitter.” New New Media. 2nd ed. Toronto: Penguin Academics, 2013. 29-40. Murthy, Dhiraj. “Towards a Sociological Understanding of Social Media: Theorizing Twitter.” Sociology 46.6 (2012): 1059-1073. Dubbin, Rob. “The Rise of Twitter Bots.” The New Yorker. 15 Nov. 2013. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/11/the-rise-of-twitter-bots.html KEY TERMS: Twitter, micro-blogging, hashtag, digital publics, digital personae 4 SAMPLE SYLLABUS MONDAY, JUNE 23, 2014. WEEK 8: FACEBOOK Paul Levinson. “Chapter 2: Facebook.” New New Media. 2nd ed. Toronto: Penguin Academics, 2013. 13-28. Gehl, Robert W. “‘Why I Left Facebook’: Stubbornly Refusing to Not Exist Even After Opting Out of Mark Zukerberg’s Social Graph.” Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives. Ed. Geert Lovink and Miriam Rasch. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. 220-238. KEY TERMS: Facebook, social networking, walled garden, immaterial labour PART 3: DIGITAL (IN)EQUALITIES MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2014. WEEK 9: WIKIPEDIA Paul Levinson. “Chapter 5: Wikipedia.” New New Media. 2nd ed. Toronto: Penguin Academics, 2013. 65-80. Carr, Nicholas. “Questioning Wikipedia.” Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader. Ed. Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2011. 191-202. Ford, Heather. “The Missing Wikepedians.” Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader. Ed. Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2011. 258-268. KEY TERMS: wiki, encyclopedia, inclusionists, exclusionists, monopolies of knowledge 5 SAMPLE SYLLABUS MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014. WEEK 10: DIGITAL DIVIDES Hargittai, Eszter. “Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses Among Members of the ‘Net Generation’.” Sociological Inquiry 80.1 (2010): 92-113. http://www.webuse.org/pdf/Hargittai-DigitalNativesSI2010.pdf boyd, dana. “Inequality: Can Social Media Resolve Social Divisions?” It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2014. 153-175. Geist, Michael. “Statscan data points to Canada's growing digital divide.” 5 Nov. 2013. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6989/135/ KEY TERMS: digital native, digital divide, media literacy MONDAY, JULY 14, 2014. WEEK 11: MEDIA (IL)LITERACIES Press, Gill. “A Very Short History of Big Data.” Forbes. 5 Sept. 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2013/05/09/a-very-short-history-of-big-data/ The New Yorker. “Infographic: What You Look Like to a Social Network.” The New Yorker. 16 Dec 2013. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/12/infographic-what-you-looklike-to-a-social-network.html Vertesi, Janet. “My Experiment Opting Out of Big Data Made Me Look Like a Criminal.” Time. 1 May 2014. http://time.com/83200/privacy-internet-big-data-opt-out/ Resnick, Sarah. “Leave Your Cellphone at Home.” n + 1. 10 June 2013. https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/leave-your-cellphone-at-home/ Van Buren, Peter. “You Can’t Opt Out: 10 NSA Myths Debunked.” Truthdig. 13 Jan. 2014. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/you_cant_opt_out_10_nsa_myths_debunked_2014 0113 KEY TERMS: meta data, NSA, media literacy 6