module specification

The module explores the ways in which digital information and communcations technologies have influenced the cultures, and cultural formations of the contemporary age. It will explore the historical development of the discourse around information and communications technology from the Shannon model of communication, through to mediation theory, network and systems theory, complexity theory, and their analogues in post-structuralist and post-modernist critiques of contemporary cultural production. The module builds on this theoretical foundation by addressing a range of social and cultural issues associated with information and communications technologies, including exlusion, identity, memory, digital histories, and power, politics and participation, and digital aesthetics. 

1. To develop a thorough understanding of theories of digital and communciations cultures.
2. To provide critical frameworks for the understanding and evaluation of the social, political and cultural impact of information and communications technology. 
3. To develop an understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks related to the creation, exploitation and use of information and information technologies

The syllabus may include:

• From bit to IT: Shannon and the digital information and communications technology revolution.
• Cybernetics, cellular automata, and network and systems theory.
• Catastrophe, chaos and complexity.
• The Rhizome: postmodernism and Information and Communications Technologies
• Digital textualities: from oral transmission to writing, and back again.
• Digital textualities: dangerous and transgressive writing
• Digital histories: the unstable record
• Digital histories: the new histories of the digital image
• Digital power, politics, and participation
• Truth, knowledge, and digital communications
• Network identities
• Intellectual property and collaboration
• Open everything: the future of digital and communications cultures

The module will combine lectures and seminars with blended learning through the virtual learning environment. Students will be encouraged to reflect on theories and debates through class discussions and individual activities.

On completion of this module, students will be able to:

1. Understand and be able to critically appraise key debates and issues relating to digital and communications cultures

2. Apply theoretical frameworks to this understanding of the contemporary context of digital information and communications technologies

3. Identify and critically appraise the political and social impact of digital information and communications technologies

4. Understand the wider social, cultural, political and international contexts of information creation, dissemination and use.

The assessment strategy encourages students to approach issues and debates related to digital and communications culture from a variety of perspectives, by combining assessment instruments that test both in depth analysis, and topological representation of those debates and theories.

Berners-Lee, Tim.   Weaving the Web: the Past, Present and Future of the World Wide Web London, 2000.

Bruns, Axel (2008), Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Producage, New York: Peter Lang, chapters 5 & 6.

Castells, Manuel. Communication Power. London, OUP Press. 2009. 

Gillies, John & Cailliau, Robert.   How the Web was Born, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.

Keen, Andrew, The Cult of the Amateur, London, Nicholas Brealey Publishing Ltd. 2008.

Tredinnick, L (2008), Digital Information Culture, Oxford: Chandos Publishing.

Weller, T. (2013), Digital History, London: Routledge.

Weller, T. (2010), Information History in the Modern Age, London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet. London, Penguin. 2009.