Political Economy of Digital Media

📜 Course Description

This course investigates interrelations among digital media technologies, economic practices, governmental institutions, and sociopolitical processes. This semester, we’ll examine global industries and supply-chains for digital technologies, labor, and leisure in digital culture, environmental and economic impacts of digital technologies, as well as emerging economies and artificial intelligence.

Technologies & Platforms

• Class website: This website will have your schedule, lectures, instructions, reading materials, and everything else you need. If you're reading this, then you're in the right place.
• MS Teams: We will use MS Teams as the place for you to meet during lab, have class discussions, and talk to me! It's not perfect, but it will serve our purposes.

Microsoft Teams

Choose an option below to get started. Getting Started Teams for Meetings Teams for Chat Teams for Collaboration After Teams has been downloaded, run the application and sign in with your [email protected] and normal UT Dallas password. You will need to authenticate using NetIDplus; if you have not set up a NetIDplus powered by Duo, please visit our NetIDplus Enrollment page.



www.utdallas.edu


• eLearning: We'll use eLearning to turn in your assignments and any other class materials for a grade. However, this website is the source of truth for all dates and activities. So if you want to know when something is due, check here first.
• Miro: We'll use Miro for brainstorming activities. While I prefer actual sticky notes, whiteboards, and anything else likely to make a mess - this digital equivalent will have to work for now.
• Hypothes. Is: This is an online annotation tool we will use as a group. It allows us to set up groups to see each other’s comments, questions, and critiques on the weekly readings.

🧰 What You'll Get Out of This Class

After taking this course, you should be able to recognize the forces behind digital economies. You will also gain a foundation in systems thinking that allows you to view complex systems in their entirety.

• Understand a range of topics at the intersection of political economy and digital media
• Situate political and economic analysis of digital media phenomena in their respective historical and geographic contexts
• Advance proficiencies in critical thinking, research, and writing
• Incorporate insights from existing scholarship into their research and creative practice

💡Helpful Writing Tools

I will mention these writing and organization tools during the semester. They all have a free option. I’ll add to this list as we go through the semester.

• IA Writer
• Trello
• Zotero
• Grammarly
• Evernote
• Notion (what this site is built with)

Writing Resources

• Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• Harvard’s Writing Center

📚 Readings

All readings are provided for you - no need to buy textbooks. I've provided links to all readings on the class website.

🗓 Schedule

🏆 Grading

😢 Plagiarism

Presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with severe consequences. In short, don't do it.