MALS 70000 Introduction to Graduate Liberal Studies
New Media: Historical Reflections and Critical Current Practices
Thursdays 6:30-8:30
Spring 2015 [27452]
Professor Joan Greenbaum
Analyzing and engaging with new media is a great jumping off place to get acquainted with liberal studies. We will reflect on historical examples of ‘new media’ including telephones, radio, television, as well as digital media, and examine the arguments and concepts that surrounded the introduction of these media. Currently popular media envelopes us in hype, particularly about social media. Using a critical eye and an interdisciplinary analytical lens, we will dissect popular media slants around current issues in new media. Popular ideas and practices will be filtered through concepts from history, philosophy, literature, science, art, and their socio-economic underpinnings. In studying (and using) new media this seminar’s focus is on material culture–the artifacts that we as socio-economic societies shape and that, in turn, inform our lived experience.
While this seminar relies heavily on the traditions of graduate education (reading, writing, discussion, citations, critical sources), we are also interested in expanding our understanding of learning by engaging with many forms of media including images, websites, tweets, clips, films, etc. Issues such as educational practices, surveillance, jobs, inequality, identities, public spaces and social justice will be explored. Course processes and products include: independent research; active analysis and discussion of syllabus materials; a collective (or individual) short empirical project; two short essays reflecting on course materials; one term paper; and a presentation (individually or collectively). A course website will be used to supplement class discussion see https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/
jgreenbaum@gc.cuny.edu
Office: 6304.25
https://joansplace.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
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Course processes and products:
Our aim this semester is to tear apart the false technological determinism that pervades most mainstream media, fatally setting debates into the binary realm as if a given media/app/use is either ‘good’ or ‘evil’. In doing so we will carefully examine historical examples of how different media came into being and spread through use, and how those uses change over time. Given limited seminar time we will cover only a selection of different media and issues, but you are free to go beyond this in your essays, research and mini project.
- Essays: 2 short (2-3 pages) 20% each
Each essay should engage and reference course materials and relate the author(s)’s concept(s) to an issue using current mainstream media (ie. newspaper, online, magazine articles or news shows clips). Your analysis should include a critical understanding of any form of technological determinism. (with references)
- Term paper proposal (1 page plus selected references)
One page proposal of topic and theme for term research paper including at least three references.
- Mini research project: (empirical) collectively or individually with short description and presentation (15%)
Choose a media that interests you (ie. printing, telephone, radio, tv, video/dvd, street cameras, smart phones, Facebook, twitter, tumblr, etc), and a) interview 5 friends/colleagues in the context of experiencing the media; and b). describe a brief socio-political-history of the media in relation to their current use. Each group or individual should meet with me to discuss their project. Credit for the project will be given based on the presentation (group or individual) and either its description and results in the Term paper, or in a separate 1-2 page write-up.
- Term paper: (10 -15 pages) 30%
This paper can build on your mini project if you choose to, but should include an historical analysis of a media in specific situations (ie. early telephone operators and uses of Skype or Facetime now). Class discussion and further examples will help you choose your research topic. Similar to the essays your work should critically examine current mainstream media reports of ‘fears or triumphs’ associated with the media (with references).
- Class and website participation: (weekly encouraged) 15%
In addition to the obvious issue of coming to class prepared to discuss the assigned materials, you are expected to post on some of the syllabus topics (either in response to another posting, or on your own). Participation, in part, is not based on cluttering the website or class time with comments, but on your comments on the assigned readings and enthusiasm in going beyond what is assigned and perhaps finding links and articles that others may be interested in.
Meetings with me are expected, at minimum following your proposals for the mini research project & term paper proposals. The subject we are approaching this semester is amazingly broad, and a critical part of graduate work is narrowing our research interests and topics.
Books to borrow or buy:
Briggs, Asa & Peter Burke, 2013, A Social history of the Media, from Gutenberg to the Internet, Polity Press, 3rd edition.
Cuban, Larry, 1986, Teachers and Machines, the classrooom use of Technology since 1920, Teachers College Press.
Fischer, Claude, 1992, America Calling, A social history of the telephone to 1940, Univ of Calif Press.
Streeter Thomas, 2011, The Net Effect, Romanticism, Capitalism and the Internet, NYU Press.
Suggested Reading:
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz, 1997, Social history of American Technology, Oxford Press.
Greenbaum, Joan, 2004, Windows on the Workplace, Monthly Review Press.
Mandilberg, Michael (ed) 2012, The Social Media Reader, NYU Press.
Ullman, Ellen, 1997, Close to the Machine, Technophilia and its Discontents, City Lights Books, (memoir)
See also additional reading selections on website.
