SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

CMNS 353-4

SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Prerequisites:

CMNS 253; and CMNS 261 or 362.

Overview:

This course will examine the social, political, and cultural dimensions of information technology (IT) in a variety of settings. We will investigate what it means to live in “an information society” using a mix of theoretical approaches and concrete case studies. By the end of the course students should:

1. be familiar with a number of theories about technology and its place in society;
2. be able to think critically about the design, marketing, consumption, and use of IT in modern societies;
3. have developed the research skills necessary to ask and answer social science questions about IT;
4. have developed some expertise on the how IT is being conceptualized, designed, and used in a particular field (e.g., the health care sector).

Topics to be covered include: access to/control of information, technology and work, privacy and surveillance, culture and identity, commodification of information, IT in developing countries, and globalization. Students will have the opportunity to work in groups and research a specific IT application in detail.

Required Texts:

Custom courseware, which will be available from the bookstore (plus one textbook TBA).

Course organization:

This course consists of a 2-hour lecture and a 2-hour lab, each of which meet once a week (lectures: Tuesday afternoon; labs: Tuesday morning).

Assignments and grading:

Students will be graded based on five components:

Team Project 35%
Final Paper 25%
Mid-term Exam 15%
Reflection Papers 15%
Participation 10%

Note that there is NO final exam for this course.

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will also follow Policy T10.02 with respect to intellectual Honesty, and Academic Discipline (see the current Calendar, General Regulations Section).