293 W19 Fan

293

ENGL 293: Introduction to Digital Media Studies

Professor Lai-Tze Fan

Winter Term 2019

Location: SJ2 2001

Time: Tuesdays, 5:30 – 8:20 pm

Office hours: Tuesday 3 – 5 pm

Course Description:

“Digital media” can seem so pervasive and all-encompassing in our lives that it is often difficult to see the ways in which they influence our education, our culture, and our lifestyles. Yet, from our small habits such as the specific medium we use to read the news, to our increasing investments in topics such as environmental change, do-it-yourself hobbies, and economics in an information age, digital media can play a key role in how—and which—creative and cultural industries, trends, and objects rise and fall.

This course introduces students to a more critical approach to something they encounter every day: digital media. Students will ask themselves such questions as: how has the development of digital media in the last few decades affected how we live our lives? Where do digital media objects come from and where do they go when we’re done with them? In what ways have newer technologies allowed unique cultural industries to emerge? How can various media forms and tools shape the ways in which we undergo literary or textual studies (think of how differently you receive information from a book compared to a movie screen)?

Formatting requirements for all submitted documents

- 1-inch margins all around, 12-point font, Times New Roman, double spaced.

For the purpose of sustainability, please print on both sides of the paper if possible or use scrap paper (paper on which the other side has been used before). Also, please e-mail all documents to me on the deadline date, with your name in the file name.

If you prefer to only submit electronic versions of documents, you are very welcome to!

Digital Project: QR code or text analysis

Submitted document: 5 pages (not including images or photographs of the project) and any links to the project if it is found online.

From the workshops in Week 4 and 5, students will be trained in how to use QR codes or how to perform text analysis with Voyant software. The submitted document will answer some or all of these questions: how was the digital tool applied as part of the project? What was the connection to the class reading and topic of locative media or the digital humanities? What your struggles were in designing or executing the project? What were the results? What were you surprised by? What is the connection of your project to larger cultures and communities with which you also engage: Kitchener-Waterloo, social networks, or social media? If you could do this project again, what would you have done differently?

If the QR code project is chosen, students will use apply what they’ve learned about locative media: encourage digital media users to interact with the spaces, places, and objects around them, to broaden attention beyond the screen. Will you create a scavenger hunt around campus? Will you attach a QR code to a piece of media so that people can learn more about it and think about its physicality? Can you use QR codes to tell an interactive, physical story?

If the text analysis project is chosen, students will input a text of choice (say, a novel you’ve read before, a long poem, a newspaper article, or even an essay) and analyze it for patterns and details using the Voyant platform. Alternatively, the student can choose two texts to compare. What does this macro-level form of text analysis allow you to notice about your chosen text that you might not see from traditional methods of literary analysis? How is your understanding of the text enhanced by digital text analysis?

Essay Proposal (of course, this will not be a contract)

2 – 3 pages, including:

• Proposed thesis statement
• Tentative outline of the essay and its sections
• Proposed bibliography (MLA format): 2 – 3 class readings and annotations of 3 external refereed sources (annotations: provide short explanation of what these texts are about and how you think you will use them)

Refereed sources include: academic journal articles; academic books; encyclopedias

Refereed sources do not include: Wikipedia; social media; mass media (the news); academic book reviews

Final Essay

8 – 10 pages, with at least 5 sources in the Works Cited (MLA format)

Please answer one of the following questions:

1. What is remediation and how does it impact our understanding of content on the digital screen? If you like, you can concentrate on specific examples of remediation to analyze in your essay.
2. Why is materiality so important to understanding digital media—including the data and content in media, but also the physical elements of media (resources, objects, locations, and labourers)?
3. How can digital media be used to enhance or compliment traditional literary or textual studies—including how we interact with film, television, or video games?
4. What are examples of creative and cultural industries? Why are users and their collaboration so important to making them work?

If you would like to write on a unique topic, come ask me first. I am open to this. (:

Class Schedule

I. Digital Media : The Basics 

Week 1: Introduction  (Jan 8)

• discussing the concept of “techne” narratives of media history: oral, writing, print, mechanical, electronic, digital deterministic discourses of “new” media Jay
• David Bolter & Richard Grusin – “Introduction,” Remediation: Understanding New Media

Week 2: Early Media Studies (Jan 15)

• Marshall McLuhan – “The Medium is the Message,” Understanding Media
• Continued: Jay David Bolter & Richard Grusin – “Introduction,” Remediation: Understanding New Media

Week 3: The Structure Of Digital Media  (Jan 22)

• Class work: TBA
• Lev Manovich – pgs 43-65, The Language of New Media

II. Using Digital Media In Literary & Text Studies  

Week 4: Digital Humanities & Text Analysis (Jan 29)

• Workshop: Text analysis using Voyant
• Drucker, Johanna. “Data Mining and Text Analysis.” http://dh101.humanities.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/IntroductionToDigitalHumanities_Textbook.pdf
• OR http://dh101.humanities.ucla.edu/?page_id=48

Week 5: Locative Media  (Feb 5)

• Workshop: Creating QR codes
• Farman, Jason. “Site Specificity, Pervasive Computing, and the Reading Interface.” The Mobile Story: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies, 2013. Ed. Jason Farman.

Week 6: E-literature & Games  (Feb 12)

• Guest speaker: Dr. Sean Braune, Brock University
• Hayles, N. Katherine. “Electronic Literature: What is it?” http://eliterature.org/pad/elp.html

• Digital Project Due 

Week 7: No Class (Feb 19 – Reading Week)

Week 8: Media Archaeology (Feb 26)

• Class work: sketching out essay theses and outlines
• Jussi Parikka – “Introduction,” What is Media Archaeology?

III. Creative & Cultural Industries 

Week 9: Infrastructure & Planned Obsolescence  (March 5)

• Class work: bring in an obsolete object to discuss
• Gabrys, Jennifer. “A Natural History of Electronics.” Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics. 2011.

• Essay Proposal Due 

Week 10: DIY & Maker Cultures (March 12)

• Class work: Arduino demonstration part I
• Sayers, Jentery. “Make, Not Brand: DIY after Big Data.” http://maker.uvic.ca/notbrand/
  • “The Relevance of Remaking.” http://maker.uvic.ca/remaking/
  • “The MLab: An Infrastructural Disposition.” http://maker.uvic.ca/bclib15/

Week 11: Critical Making  (short readings!) (March 19)

• Class work: Arduino demonstration part II
• Hertz, Garnet. “Making Critical Making.”http://conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/PDFs/CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Introduction-pp01to10-Hertz-MakingCriticalMaking.pdf
•  “Interview with Matt Ratto.” http://conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/PDFs/CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Conversations-pp01to10-Hertz-RattoInterview.pdf
• Dieter, Michael and Geert Lovink. “Theses on Making in the Digital Age.” http://conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/PDFs/CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Manifestos-pp15to20-DieterLovink-ThesesOnMaking.pdf
• Oliver, Julian, Gordon Savicic, and Danja Vasiliev. “The Critical Engineering Manifesto.” http://conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/PDFs/CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Manifestos-pp41-OliverSavicicVasiliev-TheCriticalEngineeringManifesto.pdf

Week 12: Convergence Culture I (March 26)

• Henry Jenkins – “Worship at the Altar of Convergence,” Convergence Culture SCREENING: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Week 13: Remix & Sampling Culture  (April 2)

• Hutcheon, Linda. “How? (Audiences),” Adaptation YouTube music and videos by Bad Lip Reading and GirlTalk.