Political and social aspects of digital interactive media

NB! This is only a development "sandbox" - the real course will be located at the Owl Academy.

Main idea - to introduce various political and social issues in the field of new media, to promote awareness of and to discuss the diverse circle of related problems.

The Course:

• 16 weeks (one semester/term) - one 1.5-hour session (lecture or lab) weekly plus independent work.
• 3.0 Estonian academic credits, 4.0 ECTS credits

Lectures/topics:

1. Towards the information society
2. The networked world
3. Censors vs Cyberspace
4. The Big Brother on Menwith Hill (privacy and eavesdropping)
5. The Digital Divide
6. The Ubiquitous Computing and network society
7. The Hacker Ethic in a Networked World
8. The Empowerment: Different People, Digital World
9. From Hacktivism to Cyberwar
10. e-Democracy, e-Elections and e-Government (social movements, participatory democracy and the Net)
11. Global networks in global politics
12. Social software, social engineering (not so much security but social aspects of manipulation)
13. Gender issues off- and online (Susanna)
14. New Media and culture (seminar?; Susanna)
15. Play of life in the theatre of networks (Susanna).
16. Narration, storytelling, non-linear media (Susanna?)

...

Assessment:

• paper + slides + oral presentation
• assignments
• link portfolio (Technorati or similar)
• blog

Readings:

• Barlow, J. P. (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
• George, J.F. (2003) Computers in Society: Privacy, Ethics and the Internet. Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey
• Himanen, P. (2004) Challenges of the Global Information Society. report for the Committee for the Future in Parliament of Finland.
• Himanen, P. (2001) Hacker Ethic. Random House
• Himanen, P. (2002) Häkkerieetika ja informatsiooniajastu vaim. Kunst, Tallinn (Estonian translation of Hacker Ethic)
• Lessig, L. (2004). Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. The Penguin Press.
• Martin, B. (1998) Information Liberation: Challenging the Corruptions of Information Power. Freedom Press, London.
• Smith, M.A., Kollock, P., eds (1999). Communities in Cyberspace. Routledge
• Stallman, R. (2002). Free Software, Free Society. Ed. Joshua Gay. GNU Press
• Wynants, M., Cornelis, J., eds (2005) How Open is the Future? Economic, Social and Cultural Scenarios inspired by Free & Open-Source Sofware. CrossTalks, VUB Brussels University Press 2005.