Connected Media Practices

Who owns your tweets? Can a “like” make a difference in the world? What kind of society is social media making?

This course is a critical, collective immersion into the practices of social networking, online and off. Rather than simply taking established platforms like Facebook and Snapchat for granted, we will experiment with a wide variety of networks in order to expand our tactical repertoires. We will study the dominant structures and business models of the social-media ecosystem in order to spread messages effectively. But will we also explore ways of subverting and opting out of that ecosystem in order to create networks of our own.

Students need not have prior experience with particular social-media platforms or computer languages, but they should expect to teach themselves some. By the end of the course, the class will produce a whitepaper outlining the structure, function, and economy of an online social-media platform.

• Gain hands-on experience with a variety of social-media networks
• Learn to think critically and tactically about networked society
• Cultivate habits of contributing to and protecting a commons
• Practice entrepreneurship and teamwork

Each student is expected to:

• adhere to the shared agreements decided upon by the class.
• participate in leading one of our class sessions, as well as the online discussion leading up to it, using a platform of their choosing.
• be an active participant in every online and class discussion and demonstrate thoughtful engagement with the course material, augmenting the course material with relevant sources.
• help devise a plan for a common final project and identify a role to play within that process.
• turn in a portfolio reflecting one's contributions to the final project:
  • Produce a contribution to the whitepaper of approximately 1800-2000 words, plus at least one example of multimedia such as images, wireframes, screenshots, or videos.
  • Articulate a challenge or problem and present background research on how other platforms have addressed similar challenges and what options could be explored.
  • Present 1-3 specific, plausible solutions appropriate to our platform, with pros and cons.
  • Each contribution should be compatible with those of the class as a whole.
  • Format the text in Chicago style, in Markdown, with citations by hyperlink (no bibliography or footnotes), as well as correct spelling and grammar.
• contribute to evaluating one another's contributions to discussion and the final project.

Grades will be determined as follows:

• 40 points - quality and persistence of participation in discussions, online and in class
• 20 points - effectiveness in fostering a vibrant discussion in class and online, and in contributing useful materials for us to consider
• 30 points - contributions to the final project, as demonstrated by a portfolio due on the final day of class
  • 10 points - outline
  • 20 points - final
• 10 points - anonymous feedback from fellow students on contributions to the final project

If you cannot attend a class, please discuss the reason ahead of time with the instructor. Otherwise it will affect the participation grade.

• We are all networks now
• Futures past and present
• How the network sees you
• Commoners
• Sharing, on-demand
• App imaginaries
• Decisions
• Games and hacks
• Mobilization
• Privacy, openness, hygiene
• Victims and vigilantes
• Blockchains
• Wasting time online

This syllabus is a living document. Any part of it may be brought up for discussion and modified by a consensus of those present during any official class period.