syllabus

DMST 2200: Critical Approaches to Digital Media Spring 2008

Professor: Adrienne Russell

Sturm Hall Room 334 Mondays and Wednesdays 10:00-11:50

Office Hours: Wednesdays 12:00-1:00

Office: Sturm Hall 216 Contact: adrienne.russell@du.edu

Course Blog: http://spring3250.blogspot.com/

This course introduces students to the historical, economic, social and behavioral context of the digital media with particular emphasis on the Social Web—the so-called web 2.0 technologies focused on social interaction and community.
The rapid growth of participatory culture online through, for example, interactive news sites, community boards, bookmarking, tagging, virtual worlds, gaming, IM, social networking, and blogging has significant social implications and brings up issues of privacy, intellectual property, and the nature of community and public engagement. This class will explore these issues as they manifest in various cases including politics, youth culture, activism, news and art. Particular emphasis will be placed on the question of how new media differs from mass media across various fields of cultural production (music, news, advertising, for example) and on what influence new digital products and practices might have on these industries and on cultures and societies more generally.

The objectives of this course are two-fold: 1) to become familiar with the various cultural, economic, and political forces that help shape the digital technologies and practices and that vie to determine its future; 2) develop analytical and theoretical tools to examine a specific Internet space, issue, topic, or phenomenon. The aim of this course is not simply to accumulate facts, but to develop analytical and theoretical tools to examine digital media products and practices. We will use two methods in our research. The first centers on our own observations. Students are encouraged to bring to class on a regular basis digital media artifacts that relate to the issues and ideas being covered in class. The second method is based on close reading of the assigned texts. Students are expected to have read the assigned chapters and articles before the class period for which they are scheduled to be discussed. Classes will combine lectures, student presentations, and discussion. We'll conduct discussions both within the traditional classroom setting and on a course blog. Please remember that discussion is a way of helping you to see different sides of issues and to evaluate different arguments. It is essential in the development of your thinking that you participate in discussions and that you work to express your thoughts effectively.

REQUIRED BOOK
Henry Jenkins. Convergence Culture. NYU Press. 2006.

ORGANIZATION OF COURSE AND ASSIGNMENTS
Blog
You will receive an invitation via email to join our blog group. Please follow the directions in the email. This is not an extended discussion format as much as it is a graffiti wall and an ongoing exercise in collaborative linking. At least once a week by Sunday at midnight you must contribute to our blog a link and a short review (1 paragraph) of a site, article, art project, news story, or other resource relevant to that week's reading assignments. Also you are required to comment on at least 2 other blog posts each week.

Exams
There will be two exams. They will be essay exams and you will be allowed to use any resource you like to inform your work including consulting with classmates, the web, books, articles, email exchanges with your parents, whatever. You must, however, use your own words to craft the answers to the questions and you must do so in the time allotted for the exam.

Presentation
In order to integrate diverse material into the course, each student will present in class a digital media product (an ad, a website, a video clip, an article, a video game etc.) and present it, explaining how it exemplifies, problematizes, or in some way helps illuminate an issue or idea that we are discussing in the course. The assignment is intentionally not strictly defined. Here are a few guidelines to consider as you plan your presentation: 1) you must show a digital media product in class; 2) be prepared to talk to the class about how your media product is related to a particular topic, issue, or theory; 3) consider preparing some questions for the class to encourage involvement in the analysis of your media product; 4) consider focusing on a media product you are particularly familiar with that others may not be (for example, if you are from a country other than the US presenting something from where you grew up, or if you are really into cell-phone ring-tones bring in your phone and some ideas about how ring-tones relate to the larger issues being addressed in the course); 5) be prepared to speak for at least 10 minutes and not longer than 20 minutes; 6) be absolutely sure to present on the day on which you signed up to present; 7) come talk to me or send me an email if you need help coming up with or refining an idea.

ACADEMIC HONESTY
Please be honest in your work. You are expected to express your thoughts in your own words and to use citations when using other people’s words or ideas. Any form of dishonesty in this class will result in an F, either for the assignment or for the entire course, depending on the incident. If you have questions or are unsure about a particular practice, please ask me for help before you turn in the assignment in question.

SCHEDULE WEEK 1
M 3-24 | intro W 3-26 | where old and new intersect Reading:
1. Jenkins intro; Please find at least 3 blogs you like and 3 blogs you don’t like and be prepared to discuss why.
WEEK 2
M 3-31 | what is the social web and where did it come from?
Reading:
1. Kelly, Kevin. "Wired 13.08: We Are the Web." Wired News. 1 Jan 2005. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html;
2. O’Reilly, Tim. “What is Web 2.0” http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
W 4-2 | what is the social web and what can we do with it?
1."List of social networking websites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 16 Jul 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
2. Bruns, Axel, “Introduction,” Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage http://snurb.info/files/Produsage%20-%20Introduction.pdf
WEEK 3
M 4-7 | who controls the internet: amateurs and code
Reading:
1. Jenkins ch 1
2. Lessig, Lawrence. “Code is Law.”
W 4-9 | who controls the internet: corporations
1. Wu, Tim. “Yes, Google Is Trying To Take Over the World.” Slate. >http://www.slate.com/id/2178158/<
2. Manjoo, Farhad. “The corporate toll on the Internet,” Salon >http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/04/17/toll/index.html<
WEEK 4
M 4-14 | who controls the internet: governments
Reading:
1.Hogge, Becky. “The Interent’s fading promise.” Open Democracy.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/media/internet_fading_4634.jsp
2. Electronic Frontier Foundation resources:
http://www.eff.org/patriot/
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism/antiterrorism_chill.html
W 4-16 | net neutrality
Reading/viewing:
1. Jon M. Peha, William H. Lehr, Simon Wilkie. “The State of the Debate on Network Neutrality.” http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/192/100
2.“Net-neutrality.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
3. NetNeutrality (what would happen) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eszI8A3AUZ0
4. Ask Ninja. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H69eCYcDcuQ
WEEK 5
M 4-21| Exam
W4-23 | Kids: digital natives and helpless victims
1. Jenkins 5
2. Class handouts
WEEK 6
M 4-28 | social networking and the meaning of friendship
Reading:
1. Boyd, Danah. “Why Youth Heart Social Networks.” http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf
2.Pew Internet and American Life project. “Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview.” Jan. 7, 2007. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_SNS_Data_Memo_Jan_2007.pdf
3. Pew Internet and American Life project. Teens, Privacy, and online social networks. April 18, 2007. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Privacy_SNS_Report_Final.pdf
W 4-30 | politics: new and old tools and practices
Reading/viewing:
1. “New Media, Old Politics?” MIT Communication Forum. http://mitworld.mit.edu/play/238/
2. Tryon, Chuck. “‘Why 2008 Won’t Be Like 1984’: Viral Videos and Presidential Politics.” Flow. http://flowtv.org/?p=143
3. Heffner, Alexander. “YouTube Debates.” CJR. http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/youtube_debates.php
4. Castells, Manuel. “Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society.” International Journal of Communication. v.1 2007. http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/issue/view/1
Sites to check out:
http://www.moveon.org/
http://www.campaignads.org/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
http://www.mittromney.com/
WEEK 7
W 5-5 | pop and politics Reading:
1) Jenkins 4
2) Jenkins 6
3) Future Active handout in class
Sites to check out:
http://www.mccainblogette.com/
http://politicalremix.wordpress.com/
http://www.theyesmen.org/
W 5-7 | transformation of cultural industries
Reading:
1. Adrienne Russell, Mimi Ito, Todd Richmond, and Marc Tuters. “Culture.” http://networkedpublics.org/book/culture
2. Jenkins 2
3. Jenkins 3 WEEK 8
M 5-12 | future of entertainment
Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
Quarterlife http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022703374_2.html
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/iltw/2007/12/16/webtv/index.html
W 5-14 | news
Reading: 1. Jenkins Conclusion
2. Rosen, Jay. "PressThink: The People Formerly Known as the Audience." Department of Journalism at New York University. 27 Jun 2006. http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html
3.Diggnation http://digg.com/users/diggnation
WEEK 9
W 5-19 |wikipedia debates
Reading:
1.Daniel Terdiman. “Wikipedia Faces Growing Pains.” Wired. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/01/66210
2.Chris Anderson. “Jimmy Wales.” Time. April 30, 2006 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187286,00.html
3.“Will Wikipedia Mean the End Of Traditional Encyclopedias?” The Wall Street Journal Online invited Mr. Wales to discuss the topic with Dale Hoiberg, editor-in-chief of Britannica. Sept 12 2006. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115756239753455284.html
W 5-21 | Future of the social web
1. Cascio, Jamais. "WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon." 4 May 2005. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002651.html
2. Googlezone http://blogoscoped.com/videos/epic-2015.html
3. Anderson, Chris. “Free.” Wired http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free WEEK 10
W 5-28 | Final Exam