IM902 Approaches to the Digital
IM902
Approaches to the Digital
Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Modules
IM904 Digital Objects, Digital Methods
IM919 Urban Data - Theory and Methodology
IM923 User Interface Cultures: Design, Method and Critique
IM931 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Machine Learning
IM934 Ecological Futures: Science, Culture and Media
IM939 Data Science Across Disciplines: Principles, Practice and Critique
IM942 Visualisation Foundations
IM949 Data Visualisation in Science, Culture and Public Policy
IM950 Scaling Data & Societies
QS906 Big Data Research: Hype or Revolution?
20/30 CATS - (10/15 ECTS)
30 CAT - CORE FOR MA IN DIGITAL MEDIA AND CULTURE
Term 1
Computer networks, devices, and infrastructures structure and facilitate much of our social, political and cultural life.
This core module introduces students to an array of approaches to studying digital media and culture. The module follows a trajectory through the different layers of digital culture (from infrastructure to search engines, memes and more). Weekly discussed is focused through an ongoing engagement with the Web, as a key bundle of digital technologies. As we pass through each layer, we place careful attention on specific technical artifacts (e.g. protocols, cookies and image formats) and explore how culture is made and unmade through different forms of technical mediation. By the end of this module, you will have a good overview of key debates in digital media, past and present. Through lab sessions, you will explore and reflect upon some of the key digital artifacts that shape contemporary culture from and think about how these can be used to inform critical and creative practice.
Module Convenor
Dr Michael Dieter
Assessment
For 20 CATS
- 30% Group web project;
- 70% Research essay, 3,000 words.
For 30 CATS
- 20% Book review, 1000 words;
- 30% Group web project;
- 50% Research essay; 4,500 words.
Indicative Syllabus
Week Two: Introduction
Week Three - Power, Discipline and Control
Week Four - Networks and Protocol
Week Five - Platformization and Multisided Markets
Week Six - Media Convergence and Participation
Week Seven - Memes and Virality
Week Eight - Data Capture and Counterveillance
Week Nine - Playbor and Ubiquitious Work
Week Ten - Infrastructures and Ecologies
Illustrative Bibliography
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.
Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. “On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge.” Grey Room 18 (2004): 26-51.
Coleman, Gabriella. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy. London: Verso, 2014.
DiSalvo, Carl. “Design and the Construction of Publics”, Design Issues 25.1 (2009): 48-63.
Helmond, Anne and Carolin Gerlitz. “The Like Economy: Social Buttons and the Data Intensive Web.” New Media & Society (2013): 1-18.
Kelty, Christopher. Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Kittler, Friedrich. “Theoretical Presuppositions.” Optical Media: Berlin Lectures 1999. Trans. Anthony Enns. London: Polity, 2010. 29-46.
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.
Lovink, Geert. Networks without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.
Manovich, Lev. Software Takes Command. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.
Mitchell, W. J. T.; and Mark B. N Hansen. Eds. Critical Terms for Media Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Gillespie, Tarleton; Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot. Eds. Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.
Parikka, Jussi. What is Media Archaeology? Cambridge: Polity, 2013.
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.
Rogers, Richard. Digital Methods. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.
Scholz, Trebor. “Platform Cooperativism vs. the Sharing Economy.” Medium, 2014. https://medium.com/@trebors/platform-cooperativism-vs-the-sharing-economy-2ea737f1b5ad
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.
Terranova, Tiziana. “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy.” Social Text 63.18-2 (2000): 33-58.
Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Monfort Eds. The New Media Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
Learning Outcomes
The module aims to encourage students to:
- 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.
Important Registration Information:
CIM Students
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You will need to make your optional module choices using the degree specific CIM module webform available in the CIM welcome page. All further instructions will be available to you on the webform.
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The webform opens on Monday 12th September at 12:00 noon BST and closes on Monday 19th September at 12:00 noon BST
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Gheerdhardhini (CIM PG Coordinator) will register you for your chosen modules, confirming your place in the module by 30th September, Friday.
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If there are any queries, please get in touch with Gheerdhardhini via cim@warwick.ac.uk
External Students
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Computer Science – Please register your interest in the CIM module with the PG Administrator in your home department - DCS.PGT.Support@warwick.ac.uk
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Psychology - Your PG Administrator will be in touch before Term 1 about registering interest for CIM modules
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All other external students - Please contact the CIM PG Coordinator (Gheerdhardhini) via email (cim@warwick.ac.uk), to request your optional module choice at the latest by Week 1 : Wednesday, 5th October, 17.00 BST.
PLEASE NOTE
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Please be advised that you may be expected to have access to a laptop for some of these courses due to software requirements; the Centre is unable to provide a laptop for external students.
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Please be advised that some modules may have restricted numbers and places are allocated according to availability and inter-departmental arrangements.
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Please note that a request does NOT guarantee a place on the module and is subject to availability.
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Gaining permission of a member of CIM teaching staff or a member of staff from your home department or filling in the eVision Module Registration (eMR) system with the desired module does NOT guarantee a place on that module.
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Requests after the specified deadline will not be considered.
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For external students - Only after confirmation of a place from CIM PG Coordinator can students’ or their home departments confirm their registration on eVision/MRM. Registrations by students who have not received confirmation of a place from CIM will be rejected via the system.
NOTE – The above-mentioned registration deadline also applies to the CIM optional modules running in Term 2. We will consider registrations again in the first week of Term 2, but only in relation to modules where there is availability.
We are normally unable to allow students (registered or auditing) to join/leave the module after the second week of it commencing.