Schedule
This is a tentative schedule of topics and readings. It is subject to change.
Jan 15 Course Introduction
Jan 22 Media studies & medium theory
Creeber & Martin, “What is new media?” and “Digital cultures,” from Introduction, Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media (Open University Press, 2009).
Macnamara, “Understanding the mediascape: Philosophies and theories of emergent media”
McLuhan, “The medium is the message” excerpt
Ott and Monk, “Ecological analysis”
Jan 29 Media convergence
Bell, “On the net: Navigating the World Wide Web” from Digital Cultures
Jenkins, “Introduction: ‘Worship at the altar of convergence’”
Boler, “Digital media and democracy: Introduction”
Feb 5 The public sphere, social media, & politics
Dahlberg & Siapera, “Introduction,” from L. Dahlberg and E. Siapera, ed., Radical Democracy and the Internet: Interrogating Theory and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Kahn & Kellner, “Globalization, technopolitics, & radical democracy,” from Dahlberg & Siapera, ed., Radical Democracy and the Internet.
Habermas, “The public sphere”
Poell, “Conceptualizing forums and blogs as public sphere”
Bond et al., “A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization”
Feb 12 Open source, open content, & the “free culture” movement
Boyle, Public Domain (selections)
Lessig, selections TBA
MEDIA ANALYSIS PROPOSALS DUE
Feb 19 Cultural studies (& politics) after 1968
Jeremy Gilbert, Anticapitalism and Culture: Radical Theory and Popular Politics (Berg, 2008), Introduction, ch. 1 & 2
Feb 26 Case studies: The Zapatistas, alter-globalism, & the World Social Forum
Gilbert, Anticapitalism and Culture, ch. 3 & 4
Mar 4-8 Spring Break: No Class
Mar 12 Theorizing global network society
Gilbert, Anticapitalism and Culture, ch. 5
Hardt, “The global society of control”
J. Dean, “Communicative capitalism”
Deleuze & Guattari, “Rhizome”
Mar 19 Case studies: Culture jamming, hacktivism, & other tactical media
Christine Harald, Introduction and Ch. 2 from OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2007).
Renzi, “The space of tactical media”
McKee, “Tactical media, sustainability, and the rise of the ‘new green revolution’”
MEDIA ANALYSES DUE. ANALYSIS PRESENTATIONS.
Mar 26 Global case studies: Color revolutions, the Arab Spring, et al.
Gilbert, Anticapitalism and Culture, ch. 6 and 7
MEDIA ANALYSIS PRESENTATIONS. PROJECT PROPOSALS DUE.
Apr 2 Theorizing global network society (continued)
Galloway & Thacker, “Prolegomenon: ‘We’re tired of trees’”
Connolly, “Steps toward an ecology of late capitalism,” “Is eco-egalitarian capitalism possible?”
Apr 9 E-waste & the material ecologies of global media
Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller, Greening the Media (Oxford U. Press, 2012): Introduction, ch. 2 (“Words”), and ch. 6. (“Citizens”).
Apr 16 New media ecologies, ecomedia & biomedia
Parikka, “Media ecologies & imaginary media”
Thacker, “What is biomedia?”
Other readings TBA
Apr 23 Case study: The Occupy movement
Readings TBA
MEDIA PROJECTS DUE. PROJECT PRESENTATIONS.
Apr 30 Course conclusions
MEDIA PROJECT PRESENTATIONS.
About
We live in a different world than did previous generations of humanity. Billions of humans can access a vast ocean of information at their fingertips. Digital media have helped construct a sphere of thickly networked, hypermediate, and interactive communication links that span all levels of human society around the globe.
How do these new media environments affect and interact with the social and biophysical environments that preceded them, and that continue to undergird them?
The concept of “media ecology” is not new. From the medium theories of Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, and Neil Postman to the media ecologies of Felix Guattari, Matthew Fuller, Jussi Parikka, and others; from the “mental environmentalism” of Adbusters and other culture jammers to the “cultural environmentalism” of public domain defenders like James Boyle and Lawrence Lessig — understandings of media as ecologies and of ecology as mediated converge in many ways today.
We are beyond the old debates between the caffeinated cyberoptimism of the digerati and the anti-technology pessimism of the Heideggers, Elluls, and Zerzans. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t precariously poised over the abyss. Ecological calamity stares us in the face, and we need some kind of new “natural contract” with the planet, as philosopher Michel Serres has called for. How can digital media help us get there?
e2mc seeks to explore the relationships between media and ecologies: material, social, and perceptual ecologies within which mediations play an increasingly powerful, complex, and transformative role. It is devoted to the idea of “evolving ecological media culture”: an evolution of a media culture that is cognizant of its multiple ecological contours and connections.
e2mc begins as an experiment, a class exercise for ENVS 204 “Media Ecologies and Cultural Politics,” a senior undergraduate class at the University of Vermont. But it will not limit itself to traditional pedagogical constraints. Where it leads we will see. We invite any and all to share in the adventure.
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