OAFP 5525 - Digital Inequality: Participation, Production and Pluralism in the Internet Era

The dawn of the internet age unleashed an optimism that digital technology would be the great equalizer, allowing everyone to participate in the new digital public sphere. This course will question this online pluralism, given persistent offline inequalities. Can anyone produce online content or participate in digital politics or the start-up economy? If not, what are the constraints, as well as the possibilities and policies for more digital egalitarianism? Students will learn to contextualize everything from hashtags to apps, given gender, class, ethnicity and race inequalities. Students will draw empirical and theoretical insight from readings, videos, discussions, and their own online data they will learn to download and analyze themselves. By design, this course is very hands-on and participatory, and each class will situate students' own experiences as critical for learning about digital inequalities.

Jen SCHRADIE

Enseignement électif

English

This rigorous course requires that students not only prepare for each class by reading sections of academic articles and books, as well as any assigned watching of videos and listening to videos or podcasts, but also by taking notes, writing responses and being prepared to discuss them with the whole class, as well as in small-groups. Throughout the semester, students will also be preparing, in stages, their final assignment by learning to access and download data from social media platforms.

Not applicable

Spring 2020-2021

1. Reading Responses and Comments (15%) 2. Fieldwork and Analysis (15%) 3. Social Media Data Analysis This assignment is in four stages and is thus graded accordingly. A. Downloading Social Media Data (10%) B. Outline of Paper Analyzing the Data (15%) C. Class Presentation of the Paper (20%) D. Final Paper Analyzing the Data (25%) Assignment details will be thoroughly discussed and posted on Moodle.

This is an interactive course that respects that students have unique strengths in how they best participate in learning. Each class session will incorporate a diverse format of pedagogical methods, including group-work, videos, guest speakers, social media Q&A and analysis, as well as student or professor presentations and discussions.