HFMK03530U Cancelled Digital Media Structures and Creative Film and Media Industries: Seminar B

In this seminar, we focus on the actors, practices, and structures that constitute digital cultures in networked societies. An emphasis will be on specific fields of digital communication deemed essential for modern democracies and the negotiation of shared norms and values: journalism, politics, media industries, and the civil society. Processes of digitization forced actors in these fields to adapt to or co-create digital media environments that have become essential for today´s communicators to remain relevant and gain or maintain influence and power. We will investigate how journalists, politicians, entrepreneurs, activists, and ordinary users engage in and contribute to digital cultures, how their media-related practices (do not) change due to the ongoing digitization, and which networked structures emerge from their doings both locally and globally. For digital journalism, we discuss the strategies addressing digital content production, economic challenges, and the employment of digital technologies/platforms to reach audiences and remain a trusted pillar of democratic control and orientation. Regarding politics, we will take a look at social media campaigning and the possibility for politicians and parties to be in direct contact with the potential voter on social media, which fundamentally changed the political culture and communication—just as much as phenomena like shitstorms, fake news, and hate speech did. This then leads us to the role and responsibilities of the “Big Tech” intermediaries, which created the digital platforms and services that unleashed digital communication with all its positive and negative effects we witness today, including the potential of bottom-up social, cultural, and political engagement of activists, influencers, and ordinary users who shape public discourses in a plethora of arguments, opinions, and emotions.