Teaching Plan Information

Presentation

Digital technologies have radically transformed our societies. From the dawn of the internet to the current digital media landscape, these technologies have had a huge impact on the way we interact, work and vote, among other actions. The aim of this course is to introduce the main aspects of the influence of digitalization on our everyday life. The subject is divided in three parts.

In the first part, the students will learn about the characteristics and evolution of digital technologies, and the dawn of social networks and digital platforms. This part of the course will also focus on the presentation of the self, the characteristics of the interaction online, and the application of different media effects theories, such as agenda-setting, framing, or parasocial interaction in digital environments.

The second part of the course is about the impact of digital technologies on communication and politics. It starts with a short description of the evolution of the relationship between politics and media technologies, and how politicians have adapted their strategies to the characteristics of these technologies. This module is focused on the use of social networks by politicians, and the role these platforms have in political communication. Concepts such as big data, algorithms, algorithmic ethics, microtargeting, privacy and surveillance are introduced. The last session of this second part is about the new technologies applied to political communication, and their impact on society. We introduce the use of artificial intelligent in politics, as well as the creation of new spaces for digital interaction such as TikTok, the Metaverse and Virtual Reality Environments.

The final part of the course is devoted to news consumption and the theory of Hybrid Media System, digital inequalities, data poverty, and digital activism.

Associated skills

PROGRAMME SPECIFIC SKILLS

BC6. To possess and understand knowledge that lays the groundwork or opportunity for being original in the development and/or application of ideas, often in a research context.

BC8. To be able to integrate knowledge and deal with the complexity of making judgements based on information that may be incomplete or limited, including reflections on the social and ethical responsibilities associated with the application of their knowledge and judgements.

BC9. For students to know how to communicate their conclusions and knowledge and the ultimate reasons underpinning them to specialised and nonspecialised audiences in a clear, unambiguous way.

BC10. For students to possess learning skills that enable them to continue studying in a way that may largely be self-directed or autonomous.

GC1. To analyse the digital and emerging media, as well as the cultural phenomena around them, using a critical sociocultural perspective with suitable theoretical and methodological development.

CC2. To collaborate actively on teams to reach objectives shared with other individuals or organisations.

CC3. To assess and apply fundamental ethical considerations when conducting research projects.

COURSE SPECIFIC COMPETENCES

SC1. To use the main theories, approaches and methodologies needed to analyse and assess digital culture and the emergence of new media.

SC2.  To design and carry out a basic, applied or practice-based research project on the digital culture sector and the emerging media.

SC3. To analyse data obtained from applying qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods within basic or applied research.

SC4. To analyse digital culture and the emerging media and the practices associated with them, addressing their communicative, social, political, technological and economic dimensions.

SC6. To develop scholarly contents in different media and formats for both specialised and nonspecialised audiences.

SC8. To assess the potential of applying the theories, methodologies, concepts and results of one’s own research to underpin decision-making in the professional field.

SC9. To assess the current state of the scholarly study of digital culture and the new media, formulating hypotheses geared at conducting relevant research in the corresponding field or subfield.

Learning outcomes

LO1. Chooses appropriate theories and methodologies to study digital culture and the emerging media.

LO2. Applies the most relevant theories and methodologies according to the research objectives.

LO3. Formulates objectives, questions and hypotheses appropriately when conducting research.

LO4. Identifies the strong points and limitations of a research project.

LO5. Appropriately identifies, processes and analyses data sets.

LO7. Analyses the languages of the digital and emerging media and their communicative and expressive specificities.

LO8. Uses a sociocultural perspective to analyse and interpret the texts, communicative/narrative forms and interaction formats characteristic of the digital environment and compares them appropriately with other media.

LO9. Analyses and assesses the experiences and cultural practices of users and audiences in the new media environment, paying attention to the interactive-participative dimension.

LO10. Uses academic and specialised literature databases to review the existing literature and develop theoretical frameworks.

LO11. Creates bibliographies following the format and style criteria appropriate for each research project.

LO13. Identifies and analyses the different dimensions (social, cultural, economic, political, technological) expressed and affected by the digital media and productions.

LO17. Defends the research orally before a specialised audience.

LO23. Justifies decisions taken using a theoretical and methodological underpinning based on their research experience.

LO24. Appropriately assesses a research project from an ethical standpoint to identify potential risks, as well as the most suitable protocols to adopt (personal data management, subjects at risk, etc.).

LO25. Develops and implements the ethical protocols needed to conduct a study.

LO26. Identifies and creatively resolves any potential critical situations that may arise during a research process.

LO27. Plans research projects with the potential to make original, relevant contributions in the corresponding academic field/subfield.

Sustainable Development Goals

10 Reduced inequalities # 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this subject.

Contents

The course will be formed by 3 blocks:

Part I. An Introduction to Digital Society. The social impact of digital technologies.

1. An Introduction to Digital Society.

• The emergence of the Internet and its impact on communication and society.
• The impact of the introduction of new technologies in society. A general introduction on how digital communication has transformed the way we live, work, and love. 
• Main characteristics of digital media: online, interaction, disintermediation.

Readings

Postman, Neil (1998). Five things we need to know about technological change. https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/postman.pdf

2. The influence of digital media on everyday life. The emergence of social networks.

• A short history of social networks.
• Digitalization of the self (self-presentation, interaction, parasocial interaction).

Communication and relationships. How are our relationships being shaped and sustained in and between various domains, including family and work? Online presence as a key part of people’s public identity. Shaping your identity in digital media. Managing digital identities. Context collapse. Current trends in online public profiles.

• The commodification of self-presentation.

Readings

boyd, d. and Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1).

Dijck, J. van (2013). “You have one identity”: Performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn., Media, Culture & Society, 35(2), 199–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712468605

3. Digital society and media effects.

• Context collapse, imagined audiences. A critical approach to digital platforms and their impact on society.
• Media panics, or media effects? An introduction to the causes of media panics and the foundations of media effects. 
• Data and representation. How we live with and trust the algorithms and data analysis used to shape key features of our lives?

II. Digital media and political communication

Concepts: Citizenship and politics, how our understanding of citizenship is evolving in the digital age

4. Political communication in the Internet era. The impact of digital media on political communication. From Meyrowitz to boyd.

Marwick, A. and boyd, danah. “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse and the imagined audience”. New Media and Society, 13(1), 114–133, 2011.

Social networks and political communication. The role of social networks in present political communication.

Social networks and democracy. Data-driven populism.

5. The culture of surveillance. Big data approaches. Cambridge Analytica. Privacy, digital traces, microtargeting and the ethics of big data. Surveillance. Big data, data mining, data storage, analytics, user data

Readings

Lyon, D. (2018). The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

van Dijck, José (2014). Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big data between scientific paradigm and ideology. Surveillance and Society, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v12i2.4776.

Zuboff, Shoshana (2020). Home or Exile in the Digital Future. In Zuboff, S., The Age of Surveillance Capitalism the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

6. Artificial Intelligence and Political communication nowadays. New horizons and spaces for political communication. Tiktocracy. Metaverse and beyond.

Readings

Marco Dehnert, Paul A Mongeau, Persuasion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Theories and Complications of AI-Based Persuasion, Human Communication Research, Volume 48, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 386–403, https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqac006

S Shyam Sundar, Eun-Ju Lee, Rethinking Communication in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, Human Communication Research, Volume 48, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 379–385, https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqac014

III

Contents and mandatory readings

7. News consumption in the digital era. 

Introduction to the theory of Hybrid Media System. Main perspectives and concepts on news consumption. Incidental news exposure in the digital context. Active audiences and the digital public sphere.

Required reading

Lindell, Johan & Mikkelsen Båge, Else. “Disconnecting from digital news: News avoidance and the ignored role of social class”. Journalism, 1-18, 2022.

8. Digital inequalities

Main perspectives on digital inequalities. Levels of inequality. An intersectional approach to digital inequality. Data poverty. 

Required reading:

Lutz, Christoph. “Digital inequalities in the age of artificial intelligence and big data”. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 1, 141-148, 2019.

9. Online activism

A new definition of social movements in the digital era: a network of networks. The nexus between digital media and online activism. The mediation opportunity structures. Knowledge production within digital activism.

Required reading:

Pavan, Elena & Felicetti, Andrea. “Digital media and Knowledge Production Within Social Movements: Insights from the Transition Movement in Italy”. Social Media + Society, 1-12, 2019.

Teaching Methods

The teaching methods include lectures and practical work, in the forms of reading, watching, listening, brainstorming debates, case-studies and presentations. Every theory session will have a 45 to 60 minutes lecture. Readings will be discussed. Then, students will watch and listen to contents on the subject that will be discussed until the end of the session. Short activities are proposed.

Evaluation

Deliverable 1 (sessions 1 to 6)

Evaluation:

Students must write a literature review on one of the following topics:

(1) the impact of digital technologies in society and politics;

(2) the evolution of the presentation of the self in digital media/platforms: from chats and blogs to TikTok;

(3) parasocial interaction in short-video sharing platforms;

(3) political communication in digital media;

write a short writing (2-3 pages approx) about the topic.

Students must also outline a proposal for political communication in currently popular digital media platforms, and are encouraged to create a piece of content to ilustrate the strategies/trends in political communication nowadays. 

Deliverable 2 (sessions 7 to 9)

Evaluation:

Students are expecting to complete the assigned readings before class and to contribute to discussion during the session.

Students must choose one of the following topics (news avoidance, digital inequality or online activism) and write a short writing (3 pages approx) about the topic. Essays must be structured as follows:

Describe and analyze any key conceptual issues that must be addressed by work on the question (e.g., a writing on news avoidance might discuss different ways of conceptualizing news avoidance).

Describe the central arguments/debates in the literature on the question (e.g., a writing on inequality might focus on different levels of inequality -such as gender inequality, class inequality, age inequality …-

Describe the thorny methodological issues that hinder work on the issue (e.g., a writing on social movements might discuss the ethics problems to work with sensitive data from social media).

Offer criticisms and/or suggest pathways for future research.

Students are encouraged to attend a personal meeting out of class by appointment with instructor Laura Pérez-Altable to discuss and prepare their exercises.

Bibliography and information resources

Boczkowski, Pablo J. Abundance: on the experience of living in a world of information plenty. New York: Oxford University Press; 2021.

Chadwick, Andrew. The hybrid media system: politics and power. London: Oxford University Press; 2013.

Della Porta, Donatella. “Progressive Social Movements and the Creation of European Public Spheres”. Theory, Culture and Society, 1-15, 2022.

Denner, N., Heitzeler, N. & Koch, T. Presentation of CEOs in the media: a framing analysis. European Journal of Communication 33(3), 271-289; 2018

Dibble, J. L., Hartmann, T., & Rosaen, S. F. Parasocial Interaction and Parasocial Relationship: Conceptual Clarification and a Critical Assessment of Measures. Human Communication Research, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12063

Fenton, Natalie. “Fake Democracy: The Limits of Public Sphere Theory”. Javnost - The Public, 25:1-2, 28-34; 2018.

Gerbaudo, Paolo. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press; 2012.

Gil-Lopez, T., Shen, C., Benefield, G. A., Palomares, N. A., Kosinski, M., & Stillwell, D. One size fits all: Context collapse, self-presentation strategies and language styles on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/ zmy006

Kalogeropoulos, Antonis; Toff, Benjamin & Fletcher, Richard. “The Watchdog Press in the Doghouse: A Comparative Study of Attitudes about Accountability Journalism Trust in News, and Naws Avoidance”. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 1-22; 2022.

Leith. Alex P. “Parasocial cues: The ubiquity of parasocial relationships on Twitch”, Communication Monographs; 2021. DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2020.1868544

Marwick, A. and boyd, danah. “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse and the imagined audience”. New Media and Society, 13(1), 114–133, 2011.

Mattoni, Alice. “A media-In-Practices Approach to Investigate the Nexus Between Digital Media and Activists’ Daily Political Engagement”. International Journal of Communication, 14, 2828-2845; 2020.

Milan, Stefania & Treré, Emiliano. “The Data Gaps of the Pandemic: Data Poverty and Forms of Invisibility”. In Social Movements and Politics During COVID-19. Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2022.

Nikki, Usher. News for the rich, white, and blue: how place and power distort American Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press; 2021.

Palmer, Ruth & Toff, Benjamin. “Neither Absent not Ambient: Incidental News Exposure From the Perspective of News Avoiders in the UK, United States, and Spain”. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 1-19; 2022.

Robinson Laura, Schulz Jeremy, Blank, Grant; Ragnedda, Massimo; Ono, Hiroshi; Hogan, Bernie; S. Mesch, Gustavo; R. Cotten, Sheila; B. Kretchmer, Susan; M. Hale, Timothy; Drabowicz, Tomasz; Yan, Pu; Wellman, Barry; Harper, Molly-Gloria; Quan-Haase, Anabel; S. Dunn, Hopeton; A. Casilli, Antonio; Tubaro, Paola; Carvath, Rod; Chen, Wenhing; B. Wiest, Julie; Dodel, Matías; J. Stern, Michael; Ball, Christopher; Huang, Kuo-Ting & Khilnani, Aneka. “Digital inequalities 2.0: Legacy inequalities in the information age”. First Monday, 25:6; 2020.

Rasmussen, L. (2018). Parasocial Interaction in the Digital Age: An Examination of Relationship Building and the Effectiveness of YouTube Celebrities. The Journal of Social Media in Society Spring.

Robinson Laura, Schulz Jeremy, Blank, Grant; Ragnedda, Massimo; Ono, Hiroshi; Hogan, Bernie; S. Mesch, Gustavo; R. Cotten, Sheila; B. Kretchmer, Susan; M. Hale, Timothy; Drabowicz, Tomasz; Yan, Pu; Wellman, Barry; Harper, Molly-Gloria; Quan-Haase, Anabel; S. Dunn, Hopeton; A. Casilli, Antonio; Tubaro, Paola; Carvath, Rod; Chen, Wenhing; B. Wiest, Julie; Dodel, Matías; J. Stern, Michael; Ball, Christopher; Huang, Kuo-Ting & Khilnani, Aneka. “Digital inequalities 3.0: Emergent inequalities in the information age”. First Monday, 25:6; 2020.

Seidman, G. (2013). Self-presentation and belonging on Facebook: How personality influences social media use and motivations. Personality and Individual Differences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.10.009.

Soler-i-Martí, Roger; Fernández-Planells, Ariadna & Pérez-Altable, Laura. “Bringing the future into the present: The notion of emergency in youth climate movement”. Social Movements Studies, 2022. (in press).

Toff, Benjamin & Palmer, Ruth A. “Explaining the Gender Gap in News Avoidance: “News-Is-For-Men” Perceptions and the Burdens of Caretaking”. Journalism Studies, 20:11, 1563-1579, 2019.

van Dijck, José. “You have one identity”: Performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn. Media, Culture and Society, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712468605

Teaching Plan Information

Presentation

Digital technologies have radically transformed our societies. From the dawn of the internet to the current digital media landscape, these technologies have had a huge impact on the way we interact, work and vote, among other actions. The aim of this course is to introduce the main aspects of the influence of digitalization on our everyday life. The subject is divided in three parts.

In the first part, the students will learn about the characteristics and evolution of digital technologies, and the dawn of social networks and digital platforms. This part of the course will also focus on the presentation of the self, the characteristics of the interaction online, and the application of different media effects theories, such as agenda-setting, framing, or parasocial interaction in digital environments.

The second part of the course is about the impact of digital technologies on communication and politics. It starts with a short description of the evolution of the relationship between politics and media technologies, and how politicians have adapted their strategies to the characteristics of these technologies. This module is focused on the use of social networks by politicians, and the role these platforms have in political communication. Concepts such as big data, algorithms, algorithmic ethics, microtargeting, privacy and surveillance are introduced. The last session of this second part is about the new technologies applied to political communication, and their impact on society. We introduce the use of artificial intelligent in politics, as well as the creation of new spaces for digital interaction such as TikTok, the Metaverse and Virtual Reality Environments.

The final part of the course is devoted to news consumption and the theory of Hybrid Media System, digital inequalities, data poverty, and digital activism.

Associated skills

PROGRAMME SPECIFIC SKILLS

BC6. To possess and understand knowledge that lays the groundwork or opportunity for being original in the development and/or application of ideas, often in a research context.

BC8. To be able to integrate knowledge and deal with the complexity of making judgements based on information that may be incomplete or limited, including reflections on the social and ethical responsibilities associated with the application of their knowledge and judgements.

BC9. For students to know how to communicate their conclusions and knowledge and the ultimate reasons underpinning them to specialised and nonspecialised audiences in a clear, unambiguous way.

BC10. For students to possess learning skills that enable them to continue studying in a way that may largely be self-directed or autonomous.

GC1. To analyse the digital and emerging media, as well as the cultural phenomena around them, using a critical sociocultural perspective with suitable theoretical and methodological development.

CC2. To collaborate actively on teams to reach objectives shared with other individuals or organisations.

CC3. To assess and apply fundamental ethical considerations when conducting research projects.

COURSE SPECIFIC COMPETENCES

SC1. To use the main theories, approaches and methodologies needed to analyse and assess digital culture and the emergence of new media.

SC2.  To design and carry out a basic, applied or practice-based research project on the digital culture sector and the emerging media.

SC3. To analyse data obtained from applying qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods within basic or applied research.

SC4. To analyse digital culture and the emerging media and the practices associated with them, addressing their communicative, social, political, technological and economic dimensions.

SC6. To develop scholarly contents in different media and formats for both specialised and nonspecialised audiences.

SC8. To assess the potential of applying the theories, methodologies, concepts and results of one’s own research to underpin decision-making in the professional field.

SC9. To assess the current state of the scholarly study of digital culture and the new media, formulating hypotheses geared at conducting relevant research in the corresponding field or subfield.

Learning outcomes

LO1. Chooses appropriate theories and methodologies to study digital culture and the emerging media.

LO2. Applies the most relevant theories and methodologies according to the research objectives.

LO3. Formulates objectives, questions and hypotheses appropriately when conducting research.

LO4. Identifies the strong points and limitations of a research project.

LO5. Appropriately identifies, processes and analyses data sets.

LO7. Analyses the languages of the digital and emerging media and their communicative and expressive specificities.

LO8. Uses a sociocultural perspective to analyse and interpret the texts, communicative/narrative forms and interaction formats characteristic of the digital environment and compares them appropriately with other media.

LO9. Analyses and assesses the experiences and cultural practices of users and audiences in the new media environment, paying attention to the interactive-participative dimension.

LO10. Uses academic and specialised literature databases to review the existing literature and develop theoretical frameworks.

LO11. Creates bibliographies following the format and style criteria appropriate for each research project.

LO13. Identifies and analyses the different dimensions (social, cultural, economic, political, technological) expressed and affected by the digital media and productions.

LO17. Defends the research orally before a specialised audience.

LO23. Justifies decisions taken using a theoretical and methodological underpinning based on their research experience.

LO24. Appropriately assesses a research project from an ethical standpoint to identify potential risks, as well as the most suitable protocols to adopt (personal data management, subjects at risk, etc.).

LO25. Develops and implements the ethical protocols needed to conduct a study.

LO26. Identifies and creatively resolves any potential critical situations that may arise during a research process.

LO27. Plans research projects with the potential to make original, relevant contributions in the corresponding academic field/subfield.

Sustainable Development Goals

10 Reduced inequalities # 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this subject.

Contents

The course will be formed by 3 blocks:

Part I. An Introduction to Digital Society. The social impact of digital technologies.

1. An Introduction to Digital Society.

• The emergence of the Internet and its impact on communication and society.
• The impact of the introduction of new technologies in society. A general introduction on how digital communication has transformed the way we live, work, and love. 
• Main characteristics of digital media: online, interaction, disintermediation.

Readings

Postman, Neil (1998). Five things we need to know about technological change. https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/postman.pdf

2. The influence of digital media on everyday life. The emergence of social networks.

• A short history of social networks.
• Digitalization of the self (self-presentation, interaction, parasocial interaction).

Communication and relationships. How are our relationships being shaped and sustained in and between various domains, including family and work? Online presence as a key part of people’s public identity. Shaping your identity in digital media. Managing digital identities. Context collapse. Current trends in online public profiles.

• The commodification of self-presentation.

Readings

boyd, d. and Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1).

Dijck, J. van (2013). “You have one identity”: Performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn., Media, Culture & Society, 35(2), 199–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712468605

3. Digital society and media effects.

• Context collapse, imagined audiences. A critical approach to digital platforms and their impact on society.
• Media panics, or media effects? An introduction to the causes of media panics and the foundations of media effects. 
• Data and representation. How we live with and trust the algorithms and data analysis used to shape key features of our lives?

II. Digital media and political communication

Concepts: Citizenship and politics, how our understanding of citizenship is evolving in the digital age

4. Political communication in the Internet era. The impact of digital media on political communication. From Meyrowitz to boyd.

Marwick, A. and boyd, danah. “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse and the imagined audience”. New Media and Society, 13(1), 114–133, 2011.

Social networks and political communication. The role of social networks in present political communication.

Social networks and democracy. Data-driven populism.

5. The culture of surveillance. Big data approaches. Cambridge Analytica. Privacy, digital traces, microtargeting and the ethics of big data. Surveillance. Big data, data mining, data storage, analytics, user data

Readings

Lyon, D. (2018). The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

van Dijck, José (2014). Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big data between scientific paradigm and ideology. Surveillance and Society, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v12i2.4776.

Zuboff, Shoshana (2020). Home or Exile in the Digital Future. In Zuboff, S., The Age of Surveillance Capitalism the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

6. Artificial Intelligence and Political communication nowadays. New horizons and spaces for political communication. Tiktocracy. Metaverse and beyond.

Readings

Marco Dehnert, Paul A Mongeau, Persuasion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Theories and Complications of AI-Based Persuasion, Human Communication Research, Volume 48, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 386–403, https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqac006

S Shyam Sundar, Eun-Ju Lee, Rethinking Communication in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, Human Communication Research, Volume 48, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 379–385, https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqac014

III

Contents and mandatory readings

7. News consumption in the digital era. 

Introduction to the theory of Hybrid Media System. Main perspectives and concepts on news consumption. Incidental news exposure in the digital context. Active audiences and the digital public sphere.

Required reading

Lindell, Johan & Mikkelsen Båge, Else. “Disconnecting from digital news: News avoidance and the ignored role of social class”. Journalism, 1-18, 2022.

8. Digital inequalities

Main perspectives on digital inequalities. Levels of inequality. An intersectional approach to digital inequality. Data poverty. 

Required reading:

Lutz, Christoph. “Digital inequalities in the age of artificial intelligence and big data”. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 1, 141-148, 2019.

9. Online activism

A new definition of social movements in the digital era: a network of networks. The nexus between digital media and online activism. The mediation opportunity structures. Knowledge production within digital activism.

Required reading:

Pavan, Elena & Felicetti, Andrea. “Digital media and Knowledge Production Within Social Movements: Insights from the Transition Movement in Italy”. Social Media + Society, 1-12, 2019.

Teaching Methods

The teaching methods include lectures and practical work, in the forms of reading, watching, listening, brainstorming debates, case-studies and presentations. Every theory session will have a 45 to 60 minutes lecture. Readings will be discussed. Then, students will watch and listen to contents on the subject that will be discussed until the end of the session. Short activities are proposed.

Evaluation

Deliverable 1 (sessions 1 to 6)

Evaluation:

Students must write a literature review on one of the following topics:

(1) the impact of digital technologies in society and politics;

(2) the evolution of the presentation of the self in digital media/platforms: from chats and blogs to TikTok;

(3) parasocial interaction in short-video sharing platforms;

(3) political communication in digital media;

write a short writing (2-3 pages approx) about the topic.

Students must also outline a proposal for political communication in currently popular digital media platforms, and are encouraged to create a piece of content to ilustrate the strategies/trends in political communication nowadays. 

Deliverable 2 (sessions 7 to 9)

Evaluation:

Students are expecting to complete the assigned readings before class and to contribute to discussion during the session.

Students must choose one of the following topics (news avoidance, digital inequality or online activism) and write a short writing (3 pages approx) about the topic. Essays must be structured as follows:

Describe and analyze any key conceptual issues that must be addressed by work on the question (e.g., a writing on news avoidance might discuss different ways of conceptualizing news avoidance).

Describe the central arguments/debates in the literature on the question (e.g., a writing on inequality might focus on different levels of inequality -such as gender inequality, class inequality, age inequality …-

Describe the thorny methodological issues that hinder work on the issue (e.g., a writing on social movements might discuss the ethics problems to work with sensitive data from social media).

Offer criticisms and/or suggest pathways for future research.

Students are encouraged to attend a personal meeting out of class by appointment with instructor Laura Pérez-Altable to discuss and prepare their exercises.

Bibliography and information resources

Boczkowski, Pablo J. Abundance: on the experience of living in a world of information plenty. New York: Oxford University Press; 2021.

Chadwick, Andrew. The hybrid media system: politics and power. London: Oxford University Press; 2013.

Della Porta, Donatella. “Progressive Social Movements and the Creation of European Public Spheres”. Theory, Culture and Society, 1-15, 2022.

Denner, N., Heitzeler, N. & Koch, T. Presentation of CEOs in the media: a framing analysis. European Journal of Communication 33(3), 271-289; 2018

Dibble, J. L., Hartmann, T., & Rosaen, S. F. Parasocial Interaction and Parasocial Relationship: Conceptual Clarification and a Critical Assessment of Measures. Human Communication Research, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12063

Fenton, Natalie. “Fake Democracy: The Limits of Public Sphere Theory”. Javnost - The Public, 25:1-2, 28-34; 2018.

Gerbaudo, Paolo. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press; 2012.

Gil-Lopez, T., Shen, C., Benefield, G. A., Palomares, N. A., Kosinski, M., & Stillwell, D. One size fits all: Context collapse, self-presentation strategies and language styles on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/ zmy006

Kalogeropoulos, Antonis; Toff, Benjamin & Fletcher, Richard. “The Watchdog Press in the Doghouse: A Comparative Study of Attitudes about Accountability Journalism Trust in News, and Naws Avoidance”. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 1-22; 2022.

Leith. Alex P. “Parasocial cues: The ubiquity of parasocial relationships on Twitch”, Communication Monographs; 2021. DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2020.1868544

Marwick, A. and boyd, danah. “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse and the imagined audience”. New Media and Society, 13(1), 114–133, 2011.

Mattoni, Alice. “A media-In-Practices Approach to Investigate the Nexus Between Digital Media and Activists’ Daily Political Engagement”. International Journal of Communication, 14, 2828-2845; 2020.

Milan, Stefania & Treré, Emiliano. “The Data Gaps of the Pandemic: Data Poverty and Forms of Invisibility”. In Social Movements and Politics During COVID-19. Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2022.

Nikki, Usher. News for the rich, white, and blue: how place and power distort American Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press; 2021.

Palmer, Ruth & Toff, Benjamin. “Neither Absent not Ambient: Incidental News Exposure From the Perspective of News Avoiders in the UK, United States, and Spain”. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 1-19; 2022.

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