Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Advanced seminar to discuss issues in the interplay between contemporary society and new computer/communication technologies, at the level of comprehensive theories of society, on one hand, and major public policy, on the other. This course can be repeated once for credit if second topic is different (up to a maximum of two times).

COURSE DETAILS:

For the past two decades, we have accepted that a significant part of culture is digital. Our digital technologies have developed  into  seemingly  contradictory platforms  that  provide  opportunities  for  contestation  and  distraction,  or  political  mobilization  and commercialization.  Similar to advances in the Internet and social media, blockchain innovations are rapidly impacting money, decentralized finance, gaming, governance, art and music, among many other fields and industries.There  are  a  myriad  of  expanding  opportunities  and risks in blockchain that are learned from social  media  and  big  data and reacting to them. Newer waves of disruptive innovations like blockchain, Bitcoin, and Ethereum are rapidly impacting money, decentralized finance, gaming, governance, art and music, among many other fields and industries.

In  this  course,  we will explore how various stakeholders shape these sociotechnical spaces and imaginaries. We will learn how scholars are documenting and making sense of how blockchain technologies are impacting our digital culture.We will also explore how people, money, science, technologies, innovation culture, and power are shaping the space and social change.Throughout this course we will address the relationship between these concepts and others, including the information society, gender, race, perspectives of the global south, and cultural anxieties and hopes about technology. We will put these lessons into practice by designing a communication and blockchain project that connects to real-world applications.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

• Achieve a command of current research and theory in Communication approaches to the information society and digital culture
• Achieve an understanding and command of blockchain concepts, technologies, and controversies
• Analyze how power, identity, and politics shape the development of the information society and the role of disruptive technologies and digital culture.
• Constructively engage with innovators and critics of the development and adoption of blockchain technologies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other projects and platforms.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: