108D W22 Fernandez

English 108D – Digital Lives (Winter 2022, Section 003 & Section 004)

Territorial Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that we are living and working on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (also known as Neutral), Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes ten kilometres on each side of the Grand River.

Instructor: Dr. Stephen Fernandez

Email: sffernandez@uwaterloo.ca

Office Hours: Thursday 10:30 am – 12:30 pm, and by appointment (By Email or Zoom)

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

Course Description

This course explores the ways in which social media and other digital media objects can influence our communities as well as how we represent ourselves and others through digital communication. What do we mean by “digital lives”? How are “digital lives” different from biological conceptions of “life”? In seeking a broader definition of “lives”, we will examine the rendering of both human and nonhuman lives in digital environments and the seemingly ubiquitous digitization of everyday experiences in the real (i.e., physical) world. Students taking this course will get to study the complexities of online and participatory cultures and to reflect on their place and practices within those cultures. To facilitate our exploration, we will consider the following questions as the term unfolds:

How do digital media technologies affect interpersonal interactions and relationships?

How might the incorporation of digital media technologies into fields of education, commerce, and healthcare influence the ways in which humans learn, work, play, live, and care for others?

In what ways do digital media technologies and the cultural content produced with these technologies impact the accessibility and inclusivity of public spaces online and in real life, particularly for persons with disabilities and people living with mental illness?

The course will include a variety of readings on cybercultures, new media, and digital communication, and students will also be offered the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge through the development of original creative projects.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate some of the following skills:

• Analyze and interpret practices of self-presentation and the socio-cultural implications of participatory cultures in digital communication.
• Speak and write confidently and knowledgeably about digital media, civic life online, and the rendering of human and nonhuman forms of life in digital environments.
• Conduct effective research and analysis in the style of academic writing and through the development of creative, speculative, or applied projects.

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.

Virtual Office Hours

The instructor will hold virtual office hours on Thursdays, between 10:30am and 12:30pm. The office hours will be conducted either by email or via the Zoom portal (appointment required). Email will be the more direct way of communication, whereas the Zoom 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 Zoom portal, you should contact the instructor by email to set up an appointment and reserve a timeslot for the virtual office hours on Thursdays.

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 weekday, provided that the weekday 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.

Course Readings (Available on LEARN)

Coleman, Beth. “What is an Avatar?” Hello Avatar: Rise of the Networked Generation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. 1-10.

CCA Journalism Interest Group Report. “Women and Selfie Culture.” 2015.

Goggin, Gerard and Christopher Newell. “The Business of Digital Disability.” The Information Society: An International Journal 23.3 (2007): 159-168.

Karches, Kyle E. “Against the iDoctor: Why Artificial Intelligence Should Not Replace Physician Judgment.” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 39 (2018): 91-110.

Salter, Anastasia. “Virtually Yours: Desire and Fulfillment in Virtual Worlds.” The Journal of Popular Culture 44.5 (2011): 1120-1137.

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

Turkle, Sherry. “Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self.” Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies. Ed. James E. Katz. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.

Reference Text

Bugeja, Michael J. Interpersonal Divide in the Age of the Machine. 2^nd ed. Oxford and New York, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-269-3_4

• Loanable Copy Available at Wilfrid Laurier University Library (Call No.: HM846.B84 2018)
• NOTE: There is NO TEXTBOOK for this course. Students are not required to purchase the reference text. The weekly lectures will cover relevant content drawn from chapters within the reference text. In addition to the information provided in the lecture slides/notes, students may choose to refer to the text for personal enrichment.

Accommodation for Students with Disabilities

Note for students with disabilities: The AccessAbility Services office located in Needles Hall,

Room 1132, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with the AccessAbility Services office at the beginning of each academic term. Office Contact: access@uwaterloo.ca

If you would like to discuss your specific learning needs in person, please let me know at your earliest convenience. If you require any course material in an alternative format, feel free to let me know. You can get in touch with me by email.

** NOTE: Please refer to the specific documents on LEARN that contain detailed instructions for the Selfie Essay assignment and the Major Project (with four separate components). The two documents (one for the Selfie Essay and one for the Major Project) can be found in the COURSE SYLLABUS module of the LEARN course site for ENGL108D.

Late Assignment Penalty

Late assignments will incur a 5% grade deduction for every day beyond the official due date.

If you require an extension on any individual-based assignment, please inform the instructor BEFORE the date on which that assignment is due. Official documentation is required for any extension request.

Please note that the due date for group-based assignments cannot be extended.

The FINAL DUE DATE for ALL ASSIGNMENTS is: Monday, April 18, 2022, by 11:59PM.

No assignment will be accepted after April 18, 2022.

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.

Automatic Assignment of Groups for Major Project

Due to the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic and the asynchronous format of this remote-learning course, the Major Project groups comprising of four (4) students each will be automatically assigned. The assignment of group members will proceed alphabetically. No changes will be permitted.

Rules for Group Participation in the Major Project

All students participating in the completion of the group-based components of the Major Project must observe the following rules in order to satisfy the group-work requirement in the course.

1. All members in the group must actively participate in the completion of the group-based components of the Major Project.
2. All members in the group are expected to foster and maintain a culture of respect towards other members in the same group.
3. In the event of disputes among members of the group, it is the responsibility of all group members to contact the instructor as soon as possible to discuss the issue at hand. As a responsible adult, each student is expected to handle potential conflicts in a mature manner. Any statement or action that is deemed disrespectful or derogatory towards another person will be referred to the Chair of the Department for disciplinary action.

Special Notes

Special Note on Participation

The Participation Grade for this course is set at 10%.

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 1.0%. 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.

The final date to post all 10 responses to the Discussion Forum is: April 11, 2022, by 11:59PM.

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.

Special Note on Mental Health and Wellbeing

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

Academic Freedom at the University of Waterloo

Policy 33, Ethical Behaviour states, as one of its general principles (Section 1), “The University supports academic freedom for all members of the University community. Academic freedom carries with it the duty to use that freedom in a manner consistent with the scholarly obligation to base teaching and research on an honest and ethical quest for knowledge. In the context of this policy, 'academic freedom' refers to academic activities, including teaching and scholarship, as is articulated in the principles set out in the Memorandum of Agreement between the FAUW and the University of Waterloo, 1998 (Article 6). The academic environment which fosters free debate may from time to time include the presentation or discussion of unpopular opinions or controversial material. Such material shall be dealt with as openly, respectfully and sensitively as possible.” This definition is repeated in Policies 70 and 71, and in the Memorandum of Agreement, Section 6.

University Policies

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/

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

​​​​​​​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