295 W21 Fernandez

295

English 295 – Social Media

(Winter 2021, Section 042)

I acknowledge that in Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, we are on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnawbe, and Haudenosaunee peoples.

Instructor: Dr. Stephen Fernandez

Email: sffernandez@uwaterloo.ca

Office Hours: Thursday, 2pm to 4pm, or by appointment (by email; pre-arrangement needed for WebEx)

Lecture: No Live Synchronous Sessions; Classes Will Take Place Asynchronously on LEARN

1. Course Description

This course attends to the popular social media landscape and surveys the theoretical and methodological approaches towards the analysis and understanding of social media as a palpable phenomenon in contemporary digital culture. Throughout the course, you will learn about such topics as social networks, digital identity, memes, labour, the transformation of social relationships, trolling, data politics, privacy, and regulation. Your participation in this course will enable you to critically analyze social media content and platforms; evaluate the content, audience, politics, and effects of social media; identify and assess organizational and regulatory constraints in the social media systems; examine the key issues in social media such as regulation, labour and privacy; as well as understand and reproduce the semantic and symbolic significance of media codes such as memes and celebrity selfies.

2. Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, you will learn to:

• Critically analyze social media content and platforms
• Evaluate the audience, politics, and effects of social media
• Identify and assess the organizational and regulatory constraints in social media systems
• Examine the key issues in social media such as regulation, labour, and privacy
• Understand the semantic and symbolic significance of media codes such as memes and celebrity selfies

3. Mode of Course Delivery

The course will be delivered fully online through LEARN. The assigned readings (journal articles and book chapters) for each week of class are available within the content modules of the LEARN course site. Note that the relevant lecture slides and the video recordings of lectures will be posted to the LEARN site by the Monday of each week. You may review the slides and the recordings at your own pace and draw insights from these materials to facilitate the completion of the assignments for the course.

Note that there will be no live synchronous sessions in this course. Instead, all activities in the course will take place asynchronously. If you need to discuss your ideas for any assignment, or if you have any questions or concerns about the course content, you should contact the instructor via email.

4. Virtual Office Hours

The instructor will hold virtual office hours on Thursdays, between 2pm and 4pm. The office hours will be conducted either by email or via the WebEx portal (appointment required). Email will be the more direct way of communication, whereas the WebEx route will need to be pre-arranged.

You are encouraged to use email to contact the instructor, as it is a more convenient channel to discuss any issue pertaining to the course content or assignment. However, if you would like to discuss any course-related issue through the WebEx portal, you should contact the instructor by email to set up an appointment and reserve a timeslot for the virtual office hours on Thursdays.

5. Communication Policy

As email will be our primary channel of communication in this course, I will endeavour to respond to your message within 24 hours on weekdays (i.e., Monday to Friday).

Any message that arrives on a weekend will be attended to on the next available week day, provided that the week day is not a designated university holiday or a government-approved public holiday.

Note that I will not respond to messages with ambiguous subject lines, such as “What did I miss?”. As young adults, you are expected to adopt a professional tone when crafting your messages. Think carefully about the content of your messages before sending them. Any disrespectful message that contains derogatory or discriminatory content will be reported to the Chair of the English department.

6.1. Special Note on Participation

The Participation Grade for this course is set at 15%.

Each week, you are expected to post responses to the weekly course readings (e.g., journal articles and

book chapters) on the Discussion Forum on LEARN. The length of each response is 100 words, even though you may choose to write a longer response. Each response is worth 1.5%. By the end of term, you must post a total of 10 responses to the Discussion Forum, with one response for each week’s readings. You must ensure that each response is posted to the appropriate discussion thread.

In addition to the weekly responses, you will be evaluated on your level of participation in all assignments and activities, as assessed by the instructor. You are expected to review the course materials for each week of class and to complete all assignments and activities in a timely manner.

Note that if you require an extension on any assignment due to a legitimate reason, such as a medical situation or a family emergency, you should email the instructor before the due date for that assignment to explain your situation.

The instructor reserves the right to solicit official documentation from any student who seeks an extension on an assignment as well as the right to refuse such requests at the instructor’s discretion.

6.2. Special Note on Mental Health and Wellbeing

If you encounter any issue pertaining to mental health and wellbeing, please feel free to contact the instructor via email to discuss the issue. You may also arrange an appointment with the instructor to discuss the matter privately. You can be assured that all discussions are strictly confidential, and your privacy will be fully protected.

If you require professional counselling and psychological services, or other forms of mental health programs, please visit the UWaterloo Counselling Services office in Needles Hall North, 2^nd Floor, or visit their website: https://uwaterloo.ca/campus-wellness/counselling-services

You can also contact Counselling Services by phone at: 519-888-4567 ext. 32655

6.3. Special Note on Basic Needs

Access to the basic needs of life is a crucial aspect of overall wellbeing for any person. Proper nourishment is vital for good physical, cognitive, and mental functioning. If you encounter any trouble accessing such basic needs as food and clean water, please visit the FEDS Office’s Student Food Bank website: https://uwaterloo.ca/feds/feds-services/feds-student-food-bank

You can also visit the FEDS Office at the basement of the Student Life Centre (SLC), or contact the office by phone at: 519-888-4568 ext. 84042, or by email at: recept@feds.ca

7. Course Learning Materials

There is no textbook for this course. The relevant readings (e.g., journal articles, newspaper articles, book chapters etc.) for the course will be provided through the LEARN course site.

For each week’s topic, you are expected to review the relevant course readings at least once. As you review the course readings, make sure to identify important ideas and arguments in the readings and take notes that respond critically to those ideas and arguments. The notes that you take will help you to prepare your response to the readings. Remember that you are required to post your response to each week’s readings to the Discussion Forum on LEARN (refer to Point 6.1 for details).

7.1. Course Readings:

Alhabash, Saleem and Mengyan Ma. “A Tale of Four Platforms: Motivations and Uses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat Among College Students?” Social Media + Society Vol.3, No.1. 1 February 2017. Web. Accessed on 4 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117691544

boyd, danah. “Social Media: A Phenomenon to be Analyzed.” Social Media + Society Vol.1, No.1. 11 May 2015. Web. Accessed on 2 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115580148

Caplan, Robyn and Tarleton Gillespie. “Tiered Governance and Demonetization: The Shifting Terms of Labor and Compensation in the Platform Economy.” Social Media + Society Vol.6, No.2. 29 June 2020. Web. Accessed on 2 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/205630512093663

Cirucci, Angela M. “Normative Interfaces: Affordances, Gender, and Race in Facebook.” Social Media + Society Vol.3, No.2. 28 June 2017. Web. Accessed on 2 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117717905

Eschler, Jordan and Amanda Menking. “‘No Prejudice Here’: Examining Social Identity Work in Starter Pack Memes.” Social Media + Society Vol.1, No.2. 20 April 2018. Web. Accessed on 2 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118768811

Gillespie, Tarleton. “The Politics of ‘Platforms’.” New Media & Society Vol.12, No.3 (2010): 347-364. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809342738 (Available as PDF document on LEARN)

Helmond, Anne. “The Platformization of the Web: Making Web Data Platform Ready.” Social Media + Society Vol.1, No.2. 30 September 2015. Web. Accessed on 2 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115603080

Munger, Kevin. “TikTok is a Unique Blend of Social Media Platforms – Here’s Why Kids Love It.” The Conversation. 26 August 2020. Web. Accessed on 4 December 2020. https://theconversation.com/tiktok-is-a-unique-blend-of-social-media-platforms-heres-why-kids-love-it-144541 (Available as PDF document on LEARN)

Robinson, Sandra. “Databases and Doppelgangers: New Articulations of Power.” Configurations Vol.26,

No.4 (2018): 411-440. https://doi.org/10.1353/con.2018.0035 (Available as PDF document on LEARN)

Roose, Kevin. “Can Social Media Be Saved?” The New York Times 28 March 2018. Web. Accessed on 12 August 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/technology/social-media-privacy.html

Schwemmer, Carsten and Sandra Ziewiecki. “Social Media Sellout: The Increasing Role of Product Promotion on YouTube.” Social Media + Society Vol.4, No.3. 14 August 2018. Web. Accessed on 2 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118786720

Sentf, Theresa M. and Nancy K. Baym. “What Does the Selfie Say? Investigating a Global Phenomenon.” International Journal of Communication 9 (2015): 1588-1606. (Available as PDF document on LEARN)

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. “Facebook’s New Move Isn’t About Privacy: It’s About Domination.” The Guardian.                                                                    7 March 2019. Web. Accessed on 22 October 2019.                                                        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/facebook-privacy-domination

van Dijck, Jose. “Digital Photography: Communication, Identity, Memory.” Visual Communication 7.1                                                                   (2007): 57-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357207084865 (Available as PDF document on LEARN)

Zhang, Zongyi. “Infrastructuralization of Tik Tok: Transformation, Power Relationships, and Platformization of Video Entertainment in China.” Media, Culture & Society 21 July 2020. Web. Accessed on 4 December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720939452 (PDF document on LEARN)

• Note: The full information for the course assignments stated above are available as separate PDF documents located within the “Course Syllabus” module on the LEARN course site. All assignments in this course will be completed individually.

9. Weekly Schedule

10. University Policies

10.1 – Academic Integrity

In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of

Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility.

See UWaterloo Academic Integrity webpage: https://uwaterloo.ca/academic-integrity/

328. Arts Academic Integrity webpage: https://uwaterloo.ca/arts/current-undergraduates/student-support/ethical-behaviour for more information.

10.2 – Discipline

A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offences, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean.

When misconduct has been found to have occurred within the context of the course, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 – Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 – Student Discipline. https://uwaterloo.ca/secretariat-general-counsel/policies-procedures-guidelines/policy-71

For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties: https://uwaterloo.ca/secretariat-general-counsel/policies-procedures-guidelines/guidelines/guidelines-assessment-penalties