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  3. Master in Communication Sciences
  4. Area of specialisation in Contemporary Culture and New Technologies
  5. Digital Practices and Critical Media

Digital Practices and Critical Media

Objectives

  1. To map the digital practices in contemporary culture, of individual and collective interactions, through their technological possibilities and new media.
  2. Identify "digital gestures" that encompass social, political, cultural and aesthetic dynamics with the materialities of digital objects, but also model the relationships of multitudes and social agents, in their individual and collective agency.
  3. Recognize through a critical approach in the field of new media, from a perspective of deconstructing these technological possibilities in their relationship with DIY culture, social movements and alternative media in the contemporary.
  4. Identify strategies and practices, online or outside it, to think of hybrid participation as a critical choice, in the context of contemporary digital activism and the construction of a networked society.

General characterization

Code

02107679

Credits

10.0

Responsible teacher

Maria Madalena Túbal Miranda

Hours

Weekly - 3

Total - 280

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

  • Atton, Chris, ed. The Routledge companion to alternative and community media. Routledge, 2015;
  • Berry, D. M. (2015). Critical theory and the digital. Bloomsbury Publishing USA;
  • Chun, Wendy. H. Kyun. (2016). Updating to remain the same: Habitual New Media. MIT press;
  • Castells, Manuel. Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the Internet age. John Wiley & Sons, 2015;
  • Fuchs, Christian. (2011). Foundations of critical media and information studies (Vol. 52). Taylor & Francis;
  • Gerbaudo, P. (2012). Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism. Pluto Press;
  • Jenkins, Henry, et al. By any media necessary: The new youth activism. Vol. 3. NYU Press, 2018;
  • Hands, J. (2010). @'is for Activism: Dissent, Resistance and Rebellion in a Digital Culture. Pluto Press;
  • Mitchell, W. J. T., & Hansen, M. B. (Eds.). (2010). Critical terms for media studies. University of Chicago Press;
  • Weibel, Peter. (Ed.). (2015). Global activism: Art and conflict in the 21st century. ZKM, Center for Art and Media;
  • Pink, Sarah, et al. Digital ethnography: Principles and practice. Sage, 2015.

Teaching method

The expository methodology will accompany a practice of reading and interpreting with active participation based on oral presentations. In addition to bibliographic, multimedia or audiovisual references, practical cases will be analyzed in class, in order to frame a research methodology and preparation for practical investigation. Written work will also be proposed, in the form of an essay, based on the learning contents.

Evaluation method

Assessment - Class participation in plenary debate mode (20%); Oral presentation, for the assessment of argumentation and analysis of a problem (20%)(40%), Practical work to develop an alternative and critical strategy for the use of new media, within the scope of individual or collective cultural, social or political action. The proposal must involve an action framed in the digital practices addressed, with a reflection on the process. (30%), Written essay that presents an argument or analysis of a practical case that takes into account or a historical / ethnographic survey and the theoretical-practical framework presented (2500 words) (30%)

Subject matter

  1. Recognize the transformations in individual and collective interactions of technological innovation in new media, through mobile multimedia gadgets and migration to online sharing platforms for collective practices.
  2. To understand the globality of "digital gestures", from "clickactivism" to "mass self-communication" at the beginning of the 20th century. XXI - in movements like OccupyWS, M12M to the recent #BLM.
  3. Critically approach in the field of new media its relationship with DIY culture. Identification of resistance and counter-power strategies of social movements and alternative media in their digital practices.
  4. Identify practical cases of appropriation and creation in social networks and the use of digital gadgets. Examples such as "hashtags" to networked artivism. Analysis of digital practices of cultural, political and social expression, through qualitative methodologies of sociocultural, discursive or visual analysis.
  5. To create a practical exercise with qualitative and critical methodologies for the digital context. Theoretical-practical analysis of a case with critical, interdisciplinary and creative resources, using digital media.

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: