Instr: Poster, Jamie
Office: CRT 405; 229-3665
e-mail: poster@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: ONLINE
Media and Internet culture, abbreviated: blogs, mp3s, p2p, copyright and copyleft, identity theft, internet personas, e-commerce, culture jammers, media activism, digital art, web communities, file sharing, "nerd chic", hackers, pornography, MMORPGs, web cams, Web 2.0, instant messaging, fan sites, online comics, online identity, open source and free software debates, dot com economics, censorship, media giants, digital archiving, collective intelligence and a lot more.
In this course students will examine, participate in, and respond to the many technologies, issues, and activities listed above. Each student will carry out a semester-long project, employing several research methods (digital media theories, ethnography, textual analysis, participant observation, critical theories, and/or cultural studies frameworks). The readings and assignments will serve to help students develop critical knowledge of the primary issues and research strategies of digital media studies. We will discover and interrogate the ways in which elements of digital media challenge our assumptions about identity, community, collectivity, media specificity/convergence, consumerism, nationality/globalization, democracy, copyright, activism, sexuality, gaming and many others.
