Network Cultures

Discipline Objectives:
The aim of this subject is to introduce you to key issues relating to electronic media technologies. In particular, it aims to provide you with frameworks for understanding the genealogies of new media and their relationships to older technologies. You will be asked such questions as what is a medium? What is technology? What is culture? How do these intersect with each other? Drawing on debates that focus on the relations between the body, mind and new media technologies, you may even be asked to consider what it means to be human?

Learning Objectives
After successfully completing this unit, you will have:
1.    developed your independent research skills
2.    enhanced your ability to develop and formulate a coherent argument
3.    developed your analytical and conceptual skills
4.    enhanced your problem solving skills
5.    extended your ability to communicate both verbally and in writing
6.    become familiar with the use of online technologies
7.    become familiar with the use of participatory and social networking media

Content
The following is a list of themes or concepts which will be addressed throughout the course of the semester:
•    the relations between media, culture and technology
•    the genealogy of new media
•    wikis, blogs and social software
•    mobility and personalisation
•    telepresence and telesthesia
•    electronic aesthetics
•    cyber-activism
•    peer to peer