Digital culture

Course - Digital Culture

This e-course was supported by the European Union through the European Social Fund

• Contents

• Introduction
• Objectives
• Learning outcomes
• Structure
• Key readings and references
• Tools and how to start
• Facilitator and contacts

Introduction

Digital Culture stands for the contemporary phase of communication technologies, one that follows 19th-century print culture and 20th-century electronic broadcast culture, and that is deeply amplified and accelerated by the popularity of networked computers, personalised technologies and digital images. The emergence of digital culture is usually associated with a set of practices based on the ever more intensive use of communication technologies. These uses imply more participatory behaviors on the user side, an ever more visually riched environment and connection features that excel personal dimensions. Digital culture stands first of all for the changes brought about by the emergence of digital, networked and personalized media in our society and the passing from communication phases centered on print and broadcast media, to more personalized and networked media, that use digital compressing and processing capacities at their core. The consequences of such processes in societal terms and the means via which media technologies transform our modes of interaction and representation, broadly constitute what is called “digital culture”. www

Objectives

The main objective of the course is to promote the acquisition of theoretical competences on the subject of digital culture. Nowadays society is more than ever immersed in a flow of technological innovations that shape our interactions and mediate our access to things and to other individuals. In this subject we will basically discuss why and how the future will be digital and fragmented. Objectives are: to understand the nature of the changes underpinning both social and technological transformations, with a special emphasis on the consequences of those for the individual and society. Other objectives include the acquisition of theoretical and empirical information on the subject of digital culture and its implications for the study of media and computing.

Learning outcomes

To understand the role of digital culture in current society; to relate digital culture with media culture; to understand the basis of activity theory; to understand the role and nature of social capital theory. Other outcomes include the acquisition of competences on the analysis and interpretation of key texts on the history and evolution of media theory and digital culture issues.

Structure

1. What is digital culture
2. Digital culture and media technology
3. Media and culture
4. The nature of digital culture
5. The changing media environment
6. Technology and society: social capital and network theories
7. Question about digital culture.

Key readings and references

• Gere, C (2002), Digital Culture, London: Reaktion Books
• J. McCarthy & P Wright (2004), Technology as experience, MA: MIT press.
• Jan Ll. Harris and Paul A. Taylor (2005) Digital Matters, Theory and culture of the matrix, London: Routledge
• Kittler, F & Ogger, S (2001) “Perspective and the Book” Grey Room, No. 5. (Autumn, 2001), pp. 38-53.
• Kressel, H (2007), Competing for the future. How digital innovations are changing the world, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Levinson, P (1999), Digital McLuhan: a guide to the information society, London: Routledge.
• Mitchell, W.J.T (2008), “Addressing media”, MediaTropes eJournal Vol I (2008): 1–18