Class 1 – Thursday, February 1st – Introductions
Introductions, Course Overview, Course, Expectations
What is does “Communication” mean in today’s society?
Screenings – Various
Class 2 – Thursday, February 8th – Social Media
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
Virginia Hefferman, WIRED, Who will Take Responsibility for Facebook?
Henry Jenkins, Taking the You out of Youtube,
http://henryjenkins.org/2006/11/googtube_tv_20_or_bubble_20.html
Jeffrey Rosen, The Web Means the End of Forgetting, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
How the Technological Design of Facebook Homogenizes Identity and Limits Personal Representation, Ben Grosser, Glimpsedome, 2015.
Class 3 – Thursday, February 15 – Blogging vs Traditional News
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
Tony Rogers, http://journalism.about.com/od/trends/a/bloggersjournalists.htm Can Bloggers Replace Journalists
The Atlantic, The Rise of the Professional Blogger, by Benjamin Carlson, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/the-rise-of-the-professional-blogger/307696/
Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities: http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/369.pdf
Class 4 – Thursday, February 22- Media and Political Campaigns
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
Cell Phones, Social Media and Campaign 2014, http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/03/cell-phones-social-media-and-campaign-2014/
The role played by social media in political participation and electoral campaigns, http://epthinktank.eu/2014/02/12/the-role-played-by-social-media-in-political-participation-and-electoral-campaigns/
Crossing the Campaign Divide: Dean Changes the Election Game, https://depts.washington.edu/ccce/assets/documents/iozzi_bennet_crossing.pdf
Pithy, Mean and Powerful: How Donald Trump Mastered Twitter for 2016, The New York Times, Michael Barbaro, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/politics/donald-trump-twitter-use-campaign-2016.html
Class 5 – Thursday, March 1 – Crowdsourcing and User Generated Content
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
- The Rise of Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
2.“The Decline and Fall of Tech on Digg”, Richard MacManus, April 16, 2008: https://readwrite.com/2008/04/16/digg_the_decline_and_fall_of_tech/
3. The Blurring Line Between Amateur and Professional, The Atlantic, 2010
Class 6 – Thursday, March 8 – Digital and Reality Television
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
1. “The Future of T.V.: Digital, Traditional And Something In Between”, Forbes Online, Lori Kozlowski, 3/12/2015.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2014/03/12/the-future-of-digital-t-v/
2. Review: Smart We Live in Public Probes Web Genius’ Hubris, Wired,
http://www.wired.com/2009/10/review-we-live-in-public/
Video Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XSTwfdFwIY
3. “The Messy, Confusing Future of TV? It’s Here”, Kevin Roose, The New York Times, August 2017, http://nyti.ms/2EQ94Uw
Class 7 – Thursday, March 15th – The Internet of Things / Locative and Physical Media
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
“A Manifesto for Networked Objects: Why Things Matter”,
Julian Bleeker: http://bit.ly/TeEEYH
Neil Gershenfeld and JP Vasseur, As Objects Go Online
The Promise (and Pitfalls) of the Internet of Things
Michael Hohl, “Calm Technologies 2.0: Visualising Social Data as an Experience in Physical Space”, Parsons Journal of Information Mapping. http://bit.ly/hohlpim
Class 8 – Thursday, March 22 – Media in a Changing Global Culture
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
1. Elizabeth Thoman and Tessa Jolls, Media Literacy: A National Priority for a Changing World, http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/media-literacy-national-priority-changing-world
2. Henry Jenkins, “Eight Traits of the New Media Landscape”, http://henryjenkins.org/2006/11/eight_traits_of_the_new_media.html
3. BBC, Does globalization mean we will become one culture?, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120522-one-world-order
Class 9 – Thursday, March 29th – Today’s Youth and the Media
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
Dana Boyd, It’s Complicated: Chapter 7: Literacy are today’s youth digital natives? pages 176 – 198.
Link: ItsComplicated (PDF)
Watch: Generation Like – Douglas Rushkoff
Thursday, April 5 – NO CLASS SPRING BREAK
Class 10 – Thursday, April 12 – Media Theory
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
The Medium is the Message, by Marshall Mcluhan
Link: http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf
Class 11 – Thursday, April 19 – Online Communities and Groups
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
Michelle Kasprzak: Abundance in Scarcity: http://bit.ly/1FwEHJb
Dana Boyd: Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?
http://www.danah.org/papers/KnowledgeTree.pdf
Clay Shirky: A Group is it’s Own Worst Enemy: http://bit.ly/3sLmGz
Clay Shirky Gin, Television, and Social Surplus: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008009.html
Class 12 – Thursday, April 26 – Piracy and Privacy
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
Paul Tassi, Forbes, “You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You”
Timothy J. Seppala, The Pirate Bay shutdown: the whole story (so far)
http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/16/pirate-bay-shutdown-explainer/
Zachary M. Seward, Everything we know about how people watched “The Interview” and what it means for the future of internet video
Class 13 – Thursday, May 3 – Mashups and Their Consequences.
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
Mashups: The new breed of Web app, An introduction to mashups: http://bit.ly/6JisC
Jenkins, Henry: Taking the You Out of YouTube?: http://bit.ly/2KOh6
Grey Album Producer Danger Mouse Explains How He Did It, http://bit.ly/hEOUS
Dmytri Kleiner & Brian Wyrick – InfoEnclosure 2.0: http://bit.ly/wPVpX
Sasha Frere-Jones, 1+1+1+1=1 The New Math of Mashups, The New Yorker
Class 14 – Thursday, May 10th – Apps, Blockchain, and Digital Currency
Class Activity Designed by Students
READ:
1. The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App, Forbes, 2014.
2. The Rise of Chat Apps, Wired, 2014.
3. The Fierce Battle for the Soul of Bitcoin, Wired 2014.
4. How Bitcoin Ends, Douglas Ruskoff, Fast Company, 2018
5. Blockchain Will Disrupt Every Industry, Vala Afshar, Huffinghton Post, 7/10/2017., http://bit.ly/2qWWDAx
Blockchain Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r43LhSUUGTQ
Class 15 – Thursday, May 17 – Final Projects Presentations
What is your idea for the future of communications?
Students present their concepts to guest critics.