SAMPLE SYLLABUS

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%
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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