Introductory description

Computer networks, devices and infrastructure today undergrid nearly all form of societal, political and cultural life. Police and hospitals, schools and transport, traffic lights and government bodies, elections, museums and artists rely on software systems for their everyday performance. Whether used for tracking, organising, evaluating, creating, designing or communicating, digital technology and its use irreversibly transforms the fabric of everyday life, defining the horizon of the future.
Given the widespread implications of such ‘digitalization,’ this module offers an introduction to how different disciplines beyond computer science have approached the digital methodologically and epistemologically.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week Two – Media Theory
Week Three – Software Studies
Week Four – Media Archaeology
Week Five – Social Studies of Media Technologies
Week Six - Political Economy of Information
Week Seven - Design Research
Week Eight - Anthropology of Digital Culture
Week Nine - Net Criticism

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• By the end of the module students will:• Gain a theoretical and practical understanding of systematic challenges brought in relation to digital infrastructures across disciplines;• Acquire an advanced and interdisciplinary grounded conceptual vocabulary and a creative methodological approach towards the multiform phenomena of the digital era and their interpretations;• Innovatively and independently evaluate digital phenomena and apply conceptual and methodological frameworks that yield original and sound interpretative analyses;• Develop and demonstrate independent interpretative analysis through experimental practice, discussion, and forms of academic writing.

Indicative reading list

(a) Bunz, Mercedes. ‘As You Like It: Critique in the Era of Affirmative Discourse.’ Unlike Us: Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2013. 137-145.
(b) Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. “On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge.” Grey Room 18 (2004): 26-51.
(c) Coleman, Gabriella. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy. London: Verso, 2014.
(d) DiSalvo, Carl. “Design and the Construction of Publics”, Design Issues 25.1 (2009): 48-63.
(e) Helmond, Anne and Carolin Gerlitz. “The Like Economy: Social Buttons and the Data Intensive Web.” New Media & Society (2013): 1-18.
(f) Kelty, Christopher. Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
(g) Kittler, Friedrich. “Theoretical Presuppositions.” Optical Media: Berlin Lectures 1999. Trans. Anthony Enns. London: Polity, 2010. 29-46.
(h) Latour, Bruno. “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (With Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk).” Proceedings of the 2008 Annual International Conference of the Design History Society. Eds. Fiona Hackne, Jonathn Glynne and Viv Minto. Falmouth: Universal Publishers, 2009. 2-10.
(I) Lovink, Geert. Networks without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.
(j) Manovich, Lev. Software Takes Command. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.
(k) Mitchell, W. J. T.; and Mark B. N Hansen. Eds. Critical Terms for Media Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
(l) Gillespie, Tarleton; Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot. Eds. Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.
(m) Parikka, Jussi. What is Media Archaeology? Cambridge: Polity, 2013.
(n) Pasquinelli, Matteo. “Google’s PageRank Algorithm: A Diagram of the Cognitive Capitalism and the Rentier of the Common Intellect.” Deep Search: The Politics of Search Beyond Google, Felix Stalder and Konrad Becker (eds) Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2009, pp. 152-162.
(o) Rogers, Richard. Digital Methods. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.
(p) Scholz, Trebor. “Platform Cooperativism vs. the Sharing Economy.” Medium, 2014. https://medium.com/@trebors/platform-cooperativism-vs-the-sharing-economy-2ea737f1b5ad
(q) Siegert, Bernhard. “Cultural Techniques: Or the End of the Intellectual Postwar Era in German Media Theory.” Theory, Culture and Society 30.6 (2013): 48-65.
(r) Terranova, Tiziana. “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy.” Social Text 63.18-2 (2000): 33-58.
(s) Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Monfort Eds. The New Media Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.

Interdisciplinary

The module addresses debates on digital change and evolution within and across a variety of disciplines. It requires students to evaluate these debates using methods drawn from a variety of disciiplines.

Subject specific skills

The ability to:

• Identify and distinguish between how different key disciplinary formations characterise the digital;
• Reflect on the advanced debates on digital change within and across disciplines, and be able to creatively and independently evaluate and interpret existing scholarship;
• Critically interpret and analyse digital phenomena using advanced conceptual vocabularies and methods within and across disciplines;
• Produce independent research that creatively interprets and practically applies some of the approaches offered in the course of study.

Transferable skills

The ability to:

• Plan and produce independent and creative research, while being able to reflect on its disciplinary roots and to present it to a wider audience;
• Connect theoretical and conceptual knowledge and the understanding of practice, especially in relation to the subject specialism;
• Leverage a confidence and competence in interdisciplinarity for further study and work.