The canvas calendar is updated throughout the semester and course changes will be reflected in the calendar with as much notice as possible.

How do new media and tech facilitate or challenge democracy, collaboration and community building? The ambition of this course is to understand the historical and contemporary importance of media in creating communities. We hone your critical media literacy and examine how both new and existing communities are imagined, constructed and represented in online media and tech. 

By questioning whether the internet decreases or increases social contact and intimate relationships, this course takes seriously the kinds of community and collaboration that are thriving due to online culture. You will be encouraged to reflect and analyze differences in new media use between the United States and Scandinavia. 

The internet facilitates the opportunity to search for information, engage in political activism, connect with friends and distant family, engage in new communities, stay curious and much more. However, the content and algorithms can also be a hidden form of power, they can challenge norms and privacy or expose experiences, behaviors and points of views we may not agree with, find disturbing or violating. Therefore, the course also sheds light on the dark side of the web.

During our week-long study tour to Brussels - the heart of the European Union - we explore the relationship new media, politics, power and democracy. We will use the EU as a case for collaboration and co-creation and learn about the EU and European history.

Learning Objectives   

In this course, you will:

1. Trace changes in both available media and theoretical frames to understand “media” and “tech”.
2. Explore, compare, and contrast Denmark, Sweden, EU and The US as case studies for critical analysis of new media, tech, communities and collaboration
3. Reflect on the relationship between new media and changing commnunities in relation to specific contexts/examples, including your own experiences and hands-on activities
4. Demonstrate mastery of course material and reflect on how it applies to your lived reality

Teaching Methods 

This course will be taught using a combination of methods. There is a strong emphasis on participation and class discussions and while I am responsible for the overall structure of the class, all of us will contribute to the production of knowledge. Although there are some lectures and guest lectures, the class will mainly be student driven through (small and large) group work and debates. 

Overall, the aim is to create a classroom space characterized by respect and willingness to listen/consider others’ perspectives, where it is safe to explore ideas together and individually, even when they are not fully conceptualized or thought through. This requires a great amount of trust in each other and a willingness and curiosity to consider each other’s arguments.

Required Readings 

Course readings are found on Canvas. Before each class, you are expected to read the texts and watch the films/videos assigned for the class.

Canvas discussions

Before most classes you are required to post at least one entry to our Canvas discussions page. You are required to complete thoughtful canvas responses to readings, guest lectures, study tour visits, and field studies. Your instructor will provide you with more information. Please post relevant links, images, videos, texts, discussion questions etc.

Grading

**To be eligible for a passing grade in this class you must complete all of the assigned work**

A word about grades 

I realize that grades are important to you, but try not to let your anxiety about grades deter you from taking intellectual risks and learning just for the joy of learning. I do not grade to punish or reward you just as my grade is not an indication of my evaluation of you as a person. I grade you to give you my honest assessment of your academic performance. 

Readings

Please notice they are subject to change

• America’s DIY Phone Farmers, (2019), Motherboard

• Aral Balkan (2016) "Beyond The Clouds" and "Ethical Design and Democracy"
• Aral Balkan (2018): An extended cut of a recent interview on cyborg rights, surveillance capitalism, and ethical design on Italian national television channel Rai 1. 
• A viral video that appeared to show Obama calling Trump a 'dips---' shows a disturbing new trend called 'deepfakes', in Business Insider, 2018.
• "Breaking News" (podcast by Radiolab, 2017)
• Cadwalladr (2018) Cambridge Analytica: "‘I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower"
• Birkegaard & Martiny (2016) ”Open Media Science”
• Bhargava (2018) "The Algorithms Aren’t Biased, We Are
• Botsman (2017) "Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens"
• Crawford (2016) "Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem"
• Domningos, Pedro (2018): The Master Algorithm. 
• Dustin (2018) "Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women"
• Chad Marlow, Senior Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU
  & Maryiam Saifuddin, Open Cities Fellow, Sunlight Foundation (2018): "How to Stop "Smart Cities" From Becoming "Surveillance Cities".
• Chun & Keenan (2005) excerpt from “New Media, Old Media” 
• Clark (2018) "We are merging with robots. That's a good thing."
• Deepfakes are about to make revenge porn so much worse (2018) Mashable.
• Devlin (2017) "AI programs exhibit racial and gender biases, research reveals" 
• Enli, Gunn (2015). Mediated authenticity : how the media constructs reality.
• Fagan (2018) "A viral video that appeared to show Obama calling Trump a 'dips---' shows a disturbing new trend called 'deepfakes'" 
• Foucault (1975) excerpt from “Discipline and Punish
• Gary Liu (2018) "The rapid growth of the Chinese internet" (TED.com)
• Greenhall (2018) "Generation Omega"
• Griffiths (2018) "Addicted to social media?"
• Fronteer Strategy: Whitepaper #1 (2009) & Whitepaper #4 (2012)
• “Collaboration - On the edge of a new paradigm?” (documentary, 2015)
• How much of the Internet is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually (2018) Ny Magazine
• Internet of Things: The next big opportunity for media companies, Accenture Report, 2018
• Jeffries (2011) “Friedrich Kittler obituary”
• John Mauldin (2018) "China Is Building The World's Largest Innovation Economy
• Kosinski et al. (2013) "Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior"
• Lomas (2018) "Duplex shows Google failing at ethical and creative AI design"
• McLuhan (1964) excerpt from "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man"
• IFTF (2015) “Human+Machine Futures forecasts map”
• Lewis (2017) "'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia"
• Michael C. Wenderoth (2018) "China Is Innovating Faster Than You Imagine" 
• Nadra Nittle (2018) "Spend “frivolously” and be penalized under China’s new social credit system" 
• Pew Research Center (2018) "Gender and Jobs in Online Image Searches" (select what you find relevant) 
• Raynolds & Lewis (2017) "Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse"
• Ruiz (2018) "Deepfakes are about to make revenge porn so much worse",

• RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION: FROM COLD WAR TO KANYE, nytimes.com (2019) part 1: Meet the KGB Spies who inventer fake news.

• RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION: FROM COLD WAR TO KANYE, nytimes.com (2019) part 2: The seven commandments of Fake News.

• RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION: FROM COLD WAR TO KANYE, nytimes.com (2019) part 3: The worldwide war on truth.

• Turkle (2015) excerpt from “Reclaiming Conversation”
• Tracy Chou (2017) "Without the humanities, great tech cannot exist. Here's why"
• Ulanoff (2018) "Did Google Duplex just pass the Turing Test?"
• Siapera (2011) McLuhan and Kittler excerpt from “Understanding New Media”
• Shoshana Zuboff (2015), Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization.
• The Propaganda Model Today (2018):Filtering Perception and Awareness, Edited by, Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy & Jeffery Klaehn
• Turkle (2018) "There Will Never Be an Age of Artificial Intimacy"
• #VoCo. Adobe MAX 2016 (Sneak Peeks) (8 min)
• What What the West Got Wrong About China, Part 1 (listen from 09.45-21 min) (11 min)

Academic Regulations  

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:

• Course Enrollment and Grading
• Attendance
• Coursework, Exams, and Final Grade Reports

DIS - Study Abroad in Scandinavia - www.DISabroad.org