Com 631

TIFFIN UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES

Minimum Course Content Guide

Course Number:       COM 631
 

Course Name:             New Media  

Prerequisite:               None

Course Description:  This course examines the origins and evolution of new media and its social, cultural, legal, and political implications.

From social media such as Facebook and Twitter, to blogging, Wikipedia, YouTube, smart phones and tablets, online and new media are changing our culture and society in significant ways.  These commercial, participatory technologies can empower users, but they also bring with them a variety of complex issues when it comes to communicating in an increasingly digital world.  As media technologies evolve, they are producing new contexts for engagement and raising important questions related to issues such as identity, community, civility, privacy and freedom of expression.

How people relate to each other in this electronic environment is changing our culture and society in ways we are just now beginning to understand.  Not just in how we do things, but in how we create meaning and understand our world.   In the process, new media are challenging our sense of place and the way in which we portray ourselves and perceive others.

Through a series of readings, online explorations, discussions, interactions and writing assignments, students will come to understand the characteristics and implications of new media and their impact on our society.

Goals:

1. Develop an understanding of the origins of new media and the virtual, public spaces it creates.

2. Examine, understand and be able to critique different types of new media and the questions they raise.

3. Understand how and why people portray themselves online the way they do through social media and blogs.

4. Understand the influence of commercial interests in the development of new media technologies and the agendas behind them.
   
   
5. Be able to critically evaluate the creation of knowledge and understanding in participatory media.

6. Understand the risks and benefits of new media use and the impact it can have on personal and professional life.

7. Develop an understanding of the First Amendment and freedom of expression in the online environment.

8. Become knowledgeable about the cultural, social, legal and political issues pertaining to privacy, surveillance, anonymity, copyright, piracy, defamation of character, hate speech, cyber bullying, indecency and obscenity in the new media environment.
   
   
9. Use research skills in exploring, interacting, and writing about new media.

Evaluations:
Students will be evaluated based on:

The amount and quality of participation in discussions

Analysis and critique of new media artifacts such as profiles, blogs, YouTube videos and wikis
Short essays

Final paper

Online meetings

Minimum Topic Outline:

·      The history and evolution of new media

·      Online communities and society

·      The emergence of virtual communities

·      Blogs, collaboration and credibility

·      The beginnings of social networking

·      Facebook and identity

·      Participatory media

·      New media and hype

·      YouTube and user-generated content

·      Lessons from Wikipedia

·      Constructing knowledge in an era of wikis

·      New technology, Twitter and tweets

·      Gatekeeping in the digital era

·      Constructing meaning form Internet photo collections

·      Old law, new technology

Topics

o   Blogs and Fog

Finding value in the haze of blogosphere

o   Smile...You’ve been TUBED!

User generated video and the new media environment

o   A crisis in credibility?

Wikipedia, reality, and the search for truth

o   The Interest in Pinterest

People, places and Internet photo collections

o   Me, Myself and I
Shyness, Loneliness and Narcissism on Social Networks

o   You’re so vain…
Perception, Vanity and Online Personas

o   Everybody’s business…

Social Media as Social Currency

o   You’ve been tagged!

You, Facebook and your (potential/former) employer

o   Bullies and Bozos
Cyberbullying

o   You can’t say that

Censorship and New Media

o   You shouldn’t say that
Ethics and Social Media

o   Did I say that?  Follow the breadcrumbs…
Your electronic trail

Textbooks and Readings

Levinson, Paul.  (2012).  New New Media.  Boston, MA: Pearson.

Rheingold, H. (1993).  The Virtual Community.  Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press.

Samoriski, J.H. (under revision).  Issues in Cyberspace: Communication, Technology, Law and Society

on the Internet Frontier.  Buckland, MA: Paideia Publishing.

Kirkpatrick, D. (2010).  The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the

 World.  New York: Simon & Schuster

Journal Articles

Keren, Michael.  (2010). Blogging and Mass Politics.  Biography.  33:1. 

Armstrong, Cory and McAdams, Melinda.  (2011).  Blogging the time away?  Young adults’        motivations for blog use.  Atlantic Journal of Communication.  19  113-128.

Lingel, Jessa & Naaman, Mor.  (2011).  You should have been there, man: Live music, DIY           content and online communities.  New Media & Society.  14(2).

Maggiore, Peter.  (2012). Viewer discretion is advised: Disconnects between the marketplace of    ideas    and social media used to communicate information during emergencies and public            health crises.  18 Mich. Telecomm. Tech. Law Rev. 667. 

Stafford, Tom & Bell, Vaughan.  (2012). Brain network: Social media and the cognitive      scientist.          Trends in Cognitive Science.  16(10).

Sundin, Olof.  (2010). Janitors of knowledge: Constructing knowledge in the everyday life of        Wikipedia editors.  Journal of Documentation.  67 (5).

Gorgeon, Arnaud & Swanson, Burton.  (2011).  Web 2.0 according to Wikipedia: Capturing an     organizing vision. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and         Technology

            62(10). 1916-1932.

Zhao, Xiaoli & Bishop, M.J.   (2011).  Understanding and supporting online communities of        practice: Lessons learned from Wikipedia.  59.  Education Tech Research Dev. 711-735.

Francke, Helena & Sundin, Olof. (2012).  Negotiating the role of sources: Educators’ conceptions of         credibility in participatory media.  Library & Information Science    Research.  34.  169-175.

Carter, G. & Arroyo, Sarah.  (2011).  Tubing the future: Participatory pedagogy and YouTube U             in         2020.  Computers and Composition. 28.  292-302.

Tripp, Stephanie.  (2012).  From TVTV to YouTube: A genealogy of participatory practices in    video.  Journal of Film and Video.  64. 

Juhasz, Alexandra.  (2009).  Learning the five lessons of YouTube:  After trying to teach there, I don’t   believe the hype.  Cinema Journal 48, No. 2.  145-150.

Jones, J. , 2011-05-25 "Why Tube? Applying the Uses and Gratifications Framework to Social Media    Production Motives" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International    Communication Association, Boston: MA. 2012-06-18 from             http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p491083_index.html

Kim, J.  (2012).  The institutionalization of YouTube: From user-generated content to       professionally generated content.  Media, Culture and Society 34(1).  53-67.

Lazaroiu, George.  (2011).  Conceptualizing gatekeeping in the digital era.  Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 3(1).  152-159.

Crandall, D. & Snavely, N.  (2012).  Modeling people and places with Internet photo collections.             Communications of the ACM 55(6).  52- 60.

Harrison, T. & Barthel, B. (2009).  Wielding new media in Web 2.0: Exploring the history of         engagement with the collaborative construction of media products.  New Media & Society         11(1).  155-178.

Boyd, D. & Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of

Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Ryan, T. & Xenos, Sophia.  (2011).  Who uses Facebook?  An investigation into the relationship

between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage.  Computers in Human Behavior.  Vol. 27. pp.  1658-1664.

Smith, P. & Kidder, D.  (2010).  You’ve been tagged!  (then again, maybe not): Employers and

Facebook. Business Horizons.  Vol. 53.  Pp. 491-499

Kierkegaard, Sylvia.  Twitter thou doeth?  Computer Law & Security Review.  Vol. 26.  Pp. 577-594

Hanna, R., Rohm, A. et al.  (2011).  We’re all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem.

 Business Horizons.  Vol. 54.  Pp. 265-273.

Rheingold, H. (1993) "The Heart of The Well," from The Virtual Community.  Cambridge, MA: 
             MIT Press.

Beckstrom, D.C.  (2008)  Who’s looking at your Facebook profile?  The use of student conduct codes     to censor college students’ online speech.  Willamette Law Review.  Vol. 45.  p. 261.

Boyd, D. (2007).  Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage

social life.  MacArthur foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham).  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Ellison, C., Steinfield, Charles, et al.  (2007). The benefits of Facebook “Friends:”  Social capital and

college students’ use of online social network sites.  Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.  Vol. 12., Issue 4. 

Kane, B. (2010).  Balancing anonymity, popularity, & micro-celebrity:  The crossroads of social

 networking and privacy.  Albany Law Journal of Science and Technology. 20: 327. 

Kaupins, G. & Park, S. (2011)  Legal and ethical implications of corporate social networks.  Employee

Responsibilities and Rights Journal.  23:83.

Walker, C., Rajan, B. et al.  (2011). An exploratory study of cyberbullying with undergraduate

university students. Tech Trends.  Vol. 44, No. 2.

Fournier, S. & Avery, J. (2011). The uninvited brand.  Business Horizons.  Vol. 54.  Pp. 193-207.

Grimmelmann, J.  (2009).  Saving Facebook.  Iowa Law Review.  Vol. 92.  P. 1137.

Carnegie Units (135 hours):

Activity/Assignment:	Minimum Hours Expected:
Reading	50
Web Explorations (Site critiques, YouTube, wikis)	15
Online discussion and reaction	20
Exploratory Essays	20
Class Live Pro participation	5
Final Paper: Research & Writing	25
TOTAL	135