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5 Outline
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Due by midnight Tuesday, September 8th (350-400 words).
Taylor (2014:50) argues that the fate of creative people, in the new economy, is to “exist in two incommensurable realms of value and be torn between them–on the one side, the purely economic activity associated with straightforward selling of goods or labor; on the other the fundamentally different, elevated forms of value we associate with art and culture.” Your hybrid writing assignment this week is to describe these two realms and the challenges they pose for artists, teachers, activists and others who view their work as serving “the public good.”
Please note: Class participation and hybrid assignments account for 40% of your final grade. If you do not complete the hybrid assignment you will be counted as absent for that day.
Y Prof. Bullock’s response to Hybrid Assignment 01
Really nice job, all of you, thinking through some of the questions Astra Taylor (2014), Fred Turner (2006), and Trebor Scholz (2013) raise. Reading your responses prompted me to think more too. I’d like to highlight a few issues that cut across these works, about the connection of technology to operations of governance and economy. As many of you noted, the emergence of digital media alters assumptions about what divides labor and leisure, a change that has implications for the way we conceptualize the self. We will revisit this issue in the weeks ahead.
As we begin to question how digital media alters “the playing field,” it is helpful to note who the players are. With social media platforms like YouTube, WordPress, and Instagram, people with access can easily become self-publishing authors and artists. But, as Astra Taylor (2014:33) reminds us, we should not be quick to assume that “access” means the playing field is more level. The old-media model (legacy media) has not disappeared. Instead, many of these players (Conde Nast, Reddit, and Fox) have joined forces with new upstarts (Reddit, Vice Media, and Maker Studios). And though it is far easier to find an audience for your message, it is difficult for artists, musicians, and writers to make a living from this work.
In this age of oversharing, Trebor Scholz (2013) argues, we should not overlook that our preferences are being sold as user data by Facebook to advertisers. Scholz encourages us to consider how this alters the way labor is conceptualized. Questions about privacy rights are complicated by a blurring of the distinction between leisure and work. Some of you asked whether we are actively participating in our own exploitation. To this I would add whether we are now caught up in a boundless process of self-promotion?
Finally, Fred Turner (2006) notes how differently digital media is viewed in the 1990s in comparison with attitudes about computing in the 1960s. How did the association of computing with centralized bureaucracy become displaced with the utopic visions attributed to online communities today?
w Digital Media and Society Syllabus August 27, 2015
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Due by midnight Tuesday, September 1st.
Your writing assignment this week is to write 250-300 words responding to Part 2 of the assignments we began in class. Make sure that your assignment begins with a brief introduction. Include your name and whether your written response addresses the work of Taylor, Turner, or Scholz. Please note: Class participation and hybrid assignments account for 40% of your final grade. If you do not complete the hybrid assignment you will be counted as absent for that day.
B Readings for Thursday, September 3rd
Required reading:
Taylor, Astra. 2014. The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.
Recommended:
Cormode, Graham and Balachander Krishnamurthy. June 2008. First Monday, Volume 13 Number 6-2.
Y Welcome
Hi everyone,
Welcome to Digital Media and Society. This class is an exploration of the connection of digital media to various social and institutional changes that have altered the nature of government, education, health, the news, and labor today.
A little bit about me: I received my PhD in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center in May 2015. My work addresses the influence of technology on the way social problems are conceptualized in the social sciences. I study the history of information in connection to digital information technology. When we study the connection of digital media to the way social problems are conceptualized, we begin to see how our behavior is changing. I am interested in exploring the implications of this shift.
Open whatever e-mail account you prefer to use to conduct class business. In an e-mail addressed to me (@ ebullock@ccny.cuny.edu), please take a few moments to write down the username you would like to be associated with our course website as well as your first and last name. Now spend a few minutes writing something about yourself and your relationship to digital media. In addition to telling us how you use the Internet (i.e., for shopping, news, to keep in touch with family) you can reflect on where and when you access the Internet or if there are times and places when you restrict your access.
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Classroom
