Course description

How many times have you checked your e-mail already today? Do you have an account on Facebook, My Space, or Friendster? Have you ever downloaded an MP3? When you visit your family during the holidays, do slower connection speeds drive you up the wall? How many text messages have you sent or received on your phone since the beginning of the week?

Today, we are all part of the network. Our lives are more intertwined with new media than ever before. Emerging communication technologies are faster, more powerful, and thoroughly portable.

Though computer literacy no longer guarantees a lucrative job upon graduation, employers are still desperate for technically sophisticated workers. But computer skills are only one aspect of technical literacy. It is also important to cultivate a critically informed stance towards the Internet, personal computers, and other communication technologies that are transforming our understanding of what it means to be human.

This course simultaneously examines both the theory and the practice of new media. A significant amount of time is devoted to practical aspects of multimedia design, but we will also investigate sociological, political, and economic dimensions of our changing media landscape.

Topics to be discussed include:

• Utopian perspectives in technology criticism


• The dot.com boom and the new economy


• The “flat world” and global outsourcing


• Smart mobs and on-line activism


• Fundamental principles of graphic design and web usability


• Identity and community in virtual worlds


• Welcome to the Panopticon – databases, surveillance, and on-line privacy

Course requirements and materials

Readings will be drawn from the "course packet" and from the two textbooks. The bookstore might not yet have Critical Cyberculture Studies , as it was published so recently that the ink is still wet. The Web Style Guide is available on-line for free, and you can also order it from Amazon.

• David Silver and Adrienne Massanari (2006) Critical Cyberculture Studies. New York: NYU Press.
  
• Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton (2002) Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, Second Edition. Yale University Press.

Most of the course readings can be found on-line in mulitple locations. The rest of the readingwill be made available via password-protected electronic reserves. Students, researchers and members of the broader community who are trying to track down a copy of any of the reserved readings, should feel free to contact me for advice about how to proceed.

You are not required to purchase a manual on HTML or Macromedia Dreamweaver, and should be able to complete all class assignments using handouts and on-line resources. However, many students feel more comfortable if they also have a manual. Local bookstores offer a staggering array of technical guides that are optimized for a variety of learning styles. If you need help figuring out which one is right for you, I would be happy to help you select an appropriate manual. When calculating your textbook budget, you can assume that a typical manual costs between $30 and $50. Before buying such a book, please touch base with me.