COMS 427 / COMS 598-03, Winter 2020
Social Media Platforms and Policy
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
This course critically examines the cultures, economics and affordances of social media platforms. The development of social media platforms is also discussed in order to understand how global flows of technology and culture converge. This course also examines platform policy and governance.
Instructor
Luciano Frizzera
lucaju@gmail.com
Thursdays: 1:15 pm - 4:00 pm @ CJ 4.246
Office hours: Thursdays 12:15 am - 13:00 pm (Office CJ 4.262) or by appointment
Social media platforms represent a new mode of communication that has become quickly interwoven into the everyday lives of billions of people around the world. As being the “new normal,” these platforms are often taken for granted but regarded with fear or awe when putting in relation to social, cultural, political, and economic issues. The purpose of this class is to break down the mythologies of social media and develop methods of analysis and critical understanding.
This course takes a critical approach to analyze the role and scope of social media by examining socio-historical perspectives regarding technology and society, current trends concerning social media’s impact on contemporary issues, and social scientific theories relevant to communicating via social media. We will draw from a broad range of social theories and methods including Science and Technology Studies (STS), Communication Theory, Software Studies, Human-Computer Interaction, Digital Methods, Cultural Studies, Political Economy, and Science Fiction to critically evaluate the impact of social media on relationships, activism, politics, news media, policymaking, sovereignty, aesthetics, and identity. We will focus on the “socio-technical,” or the relationship between the technical affordances of a platform or technology and the social norms of a user community, and how to use this to understand emerging technologies (and social media that does not exist yet!).
Our emphasis is on the social relations of power and connectivity that are shaped by social media as practices of communication and formations of capital. Specific topics that will be explored include: virtual communities; surveillance and privacy; bots and AI; issues of race and gender; self-representation and aesthetics; social media practices as digital labour and the valorization of capital; the politics of social media platforms as code and interface; the algorithmic culture of big data; production of alternative realities (disinformation and fake news); communities of user-generated content in social media; social media and affective publics; and (always-already) memes and Internet Cats!
Course Objectives
By taking this course, students will gain an understanding of social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Multiplayer Online Games. Specifically, students will understand the strategic use, information policy and governance of digital and social media platforms and tools. Students will also acquire the ability to critically assess social media platforms through an understanding of key concepts such as sociability, identity, self-representation, surveillance and privacy, engagement and activism, democracy, fake news, inequality, and ethics.
Specific Goals
At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Identify, understand and distinguish different platforms and strategies of social media.
- Explore a wide spectrum of topics within the digital social media space in order to be able to understand this transformative ecosystem.
- Know, understand and analyze the multiple social issues of communication in the digital age.
- Analyze, critically examine and be able to distinguish the discourses accompanying the rise of social media in the digital age from their uses and real impacts, and to put them into perspective.
- Develop tactics and strategies (and even short scripts and pieces of code) to research and study and digital ecosystems.
- Apply the knowledge and skills acquired during the course by producing a piece of critical writing.
Course Readings
There is no course pack. All course readings will be available on the course website and at the Concordia Library’s e-journal database. You do not have to complete the suggested readings. They are included to be a resourceful repository for further insights into the topic discussed each week and to help your research.
The textbook required for the course is:
- Dijck, J. van. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Suggested books include:
- Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulations (P. Beitchman, P. Foss, & P. Patton, Trans.). Semiotex(e).
- Crary, J. (2014). 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London: Verso.
- Dijck, J. van, Poell, T., & Waal, M. de. (2018). The Platform Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (REP edition). New York: Vintage.
- Srnicek, N. (2016). Platform Capitalism. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity.
- Mosco, V. (2004). The digital sublime: Myth, power, and cyberspace. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
- Pariser, E. (2012). The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think (Reprint edition). New York, NY: Penguin Books.
- Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (revised edition). Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.
- Standage, T. (2013). Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years (1 edition). New York: Bloomsbury USA.
Pedagogical Approach
The course will take the form of a collaborative space between the professor and students. They will be actively participating in the course, whether through discussions, team presentations, or engagement with social media platforms. The class will be arranged in a seminar-style, where students will be encouraged to expose their ideas, thoughts and critiques about the various subjects. The classroom is considered a safe space: the participants must be supportive of each other, respecting any divergence whenever it arrives: collegiality is very important inside and outside the classroom.
Exercises, practical workshops, readings and guest speakers can also be included in the course. All this material will help students to write an original paper/project as their final assignment. Texts, slides and additional tools, documents or sources will be available on the course’s website. Students are expected to review course information and, if applicable, tools or other additional sources from the course website site.