Cultural Studies of Communication Technology

Catalog description

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. COURSE OVERVIEW. Explores how communication technologies shape and are shaped by culture, power and everyday life. Examines theories of technological change, media history and/or digital culture, including how new and emerging technologies are often met with complex social dilemmas. Draws on historical and contemporary examples to show how technologies such as telegraphy, television, social media and surveillance platforms carry assumptions about progress, identity, work and/or control. Course content may include cases involving political conflict, privacy concerns or online controversy, examined for purposes of critical analysis. RELEVANCE AND APPLICATION. Supports professional preparation in fields concerned with media policy, strategic communication, digital storytelling, user experience, ethics or advocacy. Strengthens civic literacy by analyzing how technological narratives influence public trust, participation and responsibility. Builds awareness of how institutions, governments and communities negotiate access, autonomy and accountability in digital environments. Clarifies how contemporary debates over technology shape journalism, marketing, policy development, design practice and workplace communication. DEEPENING UNDERSTANDINGS. Reveals ways technology is not always neutral but can be embedded within cultural expectations, economic systems and political values. Differentiates between everyday assumptions about innovation and scholarly approaches that analyze who benefits, who is excluded and how technological systems reinforce or redistribute power. Informs reflection on how personal devices, platforms and infrastructures can shape interaction, memory, identity and/or agency. TOPICS AND THEMES. May include study of technological determinism and cultural shaping of technology; utopian and dystopian narratives in media; infrastructures of communication throughout history; surveillance, data tracking and privacy; identity formation in digital communities; automation, labor and human-machine relations; digital inequality and access; governance of communication technologies in democratic and non-democratic contexts. Course materials may include historical case studies or contemporary examples involving censorship, exploitation and/or graphic or profane content as relevant to understanding communication and technology. Prerequisite: Junior or senior classification.