Description

Autumn 2006
Class MW 2:30-4:20 SMI 205

Department of Communication, University of Washington

This course will investigate both basic concepts in new media and the role of new media technologies in modern life. The course will be organized around the spheres of social life in which new media technologies play a role: politics, community, economics, culture, and both personal and global contexts. This course has several objectives:

  • to teach students about the technologies, ideas, people, and cultural meanings of new media;
  • to give students cultural literacy and practical familiarity with new media;
  • to teach students to develop sophisticated critiques about the role of technology and innovation in communication and culture through short, regular writing assignments.

The course itself has no mandatory pre-requisites. Students with at least one other upper-level course in communication, anthropology, sociology or political science will be best prepared for the pace and expectations of this course.

This class will be a workshop in which the instructor, students, and guest lecturers present the basic concepts of new media. As much as this is a class about communication, culture, and new media, it is also an opportunity for you to choose the questions and themes you find most interesting in the social sciences. Although you are required to write about many aspects of technology and culture, there is a lot of room for intellectual exploration in your writings; much of the content of this class will depend on the topics that interest students. Students will finish the course with a good reference packet of notes, reviews, and other handouts. E-mail will be used to conduct class business outside of class meeting times. Several of the assignments will evolve into large online collective projects that generate public buzz beyond our classroom.