Amazon.com and the Cybereconomy

Catalog description

This course will introduce students to the complexities and controversies around the meteoric growth of the digital economy, with a focus on the biggest company of them all, Amazon. We will examine questions that range from labor conditions and consumerism to data harvesting, algorithmic marketing, and monopoly concerns. By drawing on insights from cultural anthropology, economics, history, and other disciplines, the course will give students a new understanding of how e-commerce is changing the structure of our economy, society, and everyday lives. Students will do an individual research project on some aspect of Amazon for a final project.