HFMK03521U Media theory and analysis: digital media, network and society

This course aims at offering students a thorough and up-to-date understanding of the digital and its complex interrelations with the social and the cultural. Keeping track of rapid change as well as continuity, answering new questions posed by datafication and algorithms, or tackling digital inequalities requires us to continuously assess and update our theoretical and analytical tools. By discussing key theoretical and analytical frameworks, students will learn how to address complex questions at the intersection of digital media, technology, culture and society.

Our discussions will revolve around central research areas in the study of the digital: networks and social media, human-computer interaction, platforms and infrastructures, data, visibility, algorithms, and (digital) inequalities. This encompasses topics such as the network society, slacktivism, memes, surveillance capitalism, the quantified self, social media influencers and data justice. Questions include: ‘do social media make us more social?’, ‘is privacy dead?’, ‘are data the new oil?’ or ‘do algorithms increase social inequalities?’.

At the end of the course, students will be able to provide a theoretically-informed answer to such questions. They will be able to discuss and critically assess key concepts and theories, master different ways to theorise themselves and know how to build their own theoretical framework to analyse an issue related to the digital.