Social Media – Spring 2010
English 654: Advanced Studies in Rhetoric, Writing, Technology and Culture
Spring 2010 Special Topic: Social Media
Instructor: Asst. Professor Alice Robison, Arizona State University English Dept.
This is a fluid syllabus of the graduate seminar (advanced PhD-level) on social media that I am teaching this semester (Spring 2010). The course is changing according to the needs of the students and the pace of our learning, so please consider this an in-progress document.
Special thanks to (no particular order) Nancy Baym, Howard Rheingold, Judith Donath, Liz Losh, Trebor Scholz, Fred Stutzman, Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel for access to their syllabi, which are also available online. Note: I’m posting this online in hopes that others teaching classes like this one will find it as useful. Consider it my contribution to the commons.
Description
How does meaning-making happen in and around the contexts of contemporary social media? In what ways are affinities for these media enabling us to think differently about what it means to read, write, and participate? While much has been made about both media consumption and production, we have yet to understand what it means to truly participate in the their situated contexts.
This course is a fair split between both thinking about and using social and digital media. Our in-class work will involve traditional discussion and analysis, but out-of-class work will require students gain fluency in the discourse of a virtual community of their choice—an activity that may or may not involve the use of specific tools for media production. What’s important is that students learn how to be apprenticed into a community of fans, producers, thinkers, and meaning-makers.
It should be noted that this class does not involve in-class tutorials. In other words, we will not be spending class time teaching each other how to produce and share materials. Instead, we will investigate what it means to be members of various media-making communities. Our goal is not just production but participation. In other words, it is not enough to know how to edit an entry on Wikipedia; we need to learn about and understand the Wikipedia community and what our edits mean within that context.
This semester we will trace the trajectory of digital cultures and social media over the course of the past 20+ years, focusing especially on intersections between several areas of thought, research, and production. These include: human-computer interaction, communication studies, media studies, literacy studies, rhetoric, sociology, business, learning sciences, and journalism. Most readings for the course are already published online, but a handful of them will need to be accessed through the university libraries.
Keywords: wiki; blog; Twitter; Flickr; file-sharing; Creative Commons; free culture; fans; participatory culture; SMS; tagging; virtual worlds; videogames; grassroots media; play; identity; networks; smart mobs; LOLcats; xkcd; 4chan; Facebook; MySpace; del.icio.us; memes; YouTube; RSS; collaborative learning.
Goals for Student Learning
- A deep understanding of contemporary contexts for media use, production, and circulation.
- A working knowledge of several digital and social media tools and applications.
- To think in new ways about how information and culture are shared and organized.
- Make meaningful assessments of their participation in virtual communities.
- Understand that similar research questions are answered differently in different academic contexts.
- Be exposed to a wide array of scholarship from across the university and beyond and to appreciate how knowledge-production works in other disciplines.
- To learn how to ask for and receive help when acquiring new technological skills and cultural insights.
- Complete a full-length seminar paper ready for publication.
Expectations
This course will be taught as an advanced graduate seminar. Reading and writing will be heavy, and active participation—both online and off—is required.
In keeping with ASU attendance standards, students may miss one class with no penalty. A second class missed will result in a reduction of one letter grade. A third absence prevents the student from receiving a passing grade in the course.
There is an expectation that students will help develop and maintain an online community for our class. This will take place via our web space on the Ning.com network. Regular blogging, sharing, and forum discussions are part of this course and will take place, at minimum, on a daily basis. Students without regular access to a computer or broadband network speeds are encouraged to use one of the many computing commons areas throughout campus in order to fully participate in our online class community.
Texts
Most readings are already published online. On the syllabus, online readings are marked with a ** symbol. Please seehttp://delicious.com/ajrobison/ENG654 for links to many of the items in the required reading list. For readings not already published online, visit my Box.net file folder labeled “ENG654.” There is also a link in the “Box.net Files” tab on our Ning.com class site. On the syllabus, downloadable readings are marked with a ^^ symbol. Note: these downloadable readings meet standards for copyright via Fair Use or a Creative Commons license. Some are personal copies shared by their authors.
There are also four books required. They are:
Bauerlein, M. (2008). The dumbest generation. Tarcher Press.
Gee, J.P. (2008). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Johnson, S. (2006). Everything bad is good for you. Riverhead Books.
Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2008). Digital literacies: Concepts, theories, and practices. Peter Lang.
Assessments and Assignments
Assignment details will be distributed within the first few weeks of class after we have established the character and pace of our group. In general, students can expect the following.
- Active use and discussion of readings on our class forum on the Ning.com website. Contributing to this collective discourse will help us keep a record of our learning over time. Please post notes in the Forums section of the website. We should have a weekly discussion thread. (20%)
- A semester-long digital literacies assignment will commence with the third week of class. It will be required as part of your progress toward a publishable research paper. This will include an annotated bibliography due March 23rd. (10%)
- A draft of a formal research paper of 6000+ words is required and due April 20th. (15%)
- A final formal research paper of 6000+ words is required and due on May 11th. (55%)
While the final paper will serve as the major determiner of your grade in the course, the virtual community assignment and learning blog will count for half your grade. You are encouraged to find a common thread among those three major projects so as to make your writing and thinking work (ahem) seamlessly. On the whole, students will be evaluated on the following criteria.
- Meeting deadlines and expectations articulated by the instructor.
- Consistent participation, engagement, and attendance.
- Listening and responding fairly to ideas and questions posed by others.
- Reflective and intellectual consideration of how the concepts of the course affect to their own research interests and fields of study.
- Consideration of the implications and significance of the ideas produced by themselves and others.
