New Communication Technologies and Moral Panic

Catalog description

In the mainstream media and other public arenas, we commonly encounter stories about our "new" media environment and its harmful effects on sociality and cognition. Rather than treating our digital moment as a radical rupture with the past, this course situates the "digital revolution" within an extended history of technological and communications revolutions. Through a close examination of social panics about the effects of "old" media (books, film, television and even the written word itself), students will investigate both how the meaning of new technologies and media is socially shaped and how new media may influence social behavior. Finally, students will establish and explore social issues at the heart of debates about new media technologies including, but not limited to, issues of class, gender, youth, sex, violence, and the relationship between work and leisure.