Media and Technology

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
2020
AUTHOR AND TUTOR OF THE COURSE
Polina Kolozaridi

Polina Kolozaridi is a social researcher focusing on the internet. Her key research interest are concentrated around issues of how do we know, feel, anticipate and imagine technologies. She is from Tomsk, Siberia and now mostly based in Moscow. In Moscow Polina coordinates a grassroots community of researchers (academic and independent ones) called club for internet and society enthusiasts (http://clubforinternet.net/). With the other club members Polina organises initiative research projects and acts as knowledge activist. She holds courses about internet studies, amateur online media, and critical data studies.
E-mail: poli.kolozaridi@gmail.com
COURSE ASSISTANTS
Maria Kasakowa and Lilith Grigoryan
ABSTRACT
The course will give a set of focused reflection approaches towards media and technology how they exist in different fields. The course is based on an overview of different approaches towards these two concepts. The course includes seminars, reading sessions, and discussions that allow students to set their own goals and track their progress during the course.
STUDY OBJECTIVES
Each of the students will elaborate his/her own checklist of goals within the topics of the course. The course will start with the discussions of contemporary problems and research topics, followed by the observation of important theories and approaches. Then the course will return to contemporary issues.

The key aims of the course are to introduce students to the problems of media and technology and focus on two particular intersections of problematization: urban and digital.
EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
— Students will be able to understand and evaluate key approaches to media and technology research.

— Students will understand the relevant social issues and how media and technology theories intertwine in them.

— Students will be able to grasp the relationship between technologу and media theories and a diverse set of individual, social, and professional practices.
STRUCTURE OF THE COURSE
The course is divided into several parts:

At the very beginning, students will discuss the problematic aspects of media and technology. The key aim of the course is to track the transformation of knowledge and approaches to the subject. We start with explicating the groundings of tacit knowledge and try to situate and problematize it.

The next step is to map theories and metaphors of technologies and media. Students start to do that in groups during the seminar and later on continue working in asynchronous mode.

Simultaneously students will be working on short essays that will help to develop their own thoughts and ideas according to the theoretical approaches.

The final part of the course will consist of conversations with people from particular research fields and discussions of their approaches. Students will study two spheres: urban and digital media+technologies in order to make a collective interview with theorists and write a short sum-up of those.

At the end of the course, there will be a creative test and an exam. The exam will be held in the form of a personal consultation. With each student, we will discuss their transformation during the course and evaluate it. There will be no exam grades, the final grade will be based on the midterm grades.
  1. 18/11 Overview of the theme. Key terms and controversies. Contemporary cases of media and technology problematization.
Asynchronous class (will arrive on 16/11):
Very short historical intro-mapping. Setting the objectives for the course and self-checklists.

Synchronous class:
We start with the discussion of the key problematic topics. How the problematization of technology and media might change through the years. What makes us change our understanding of these topics (books, movies, personal experience, events, and news?).
A short discussion. Collective check-list. Introduction to the course.
2. 19/11 All this mess: media and technology intertwined.
A short homework for it (short notices in Telegraph):
Each group/person finds a contemporary article on the topic and presents it for the discussion in a few sentences. We chose a media in the previous class, e.g. it can be a telegraph article.

Some examples:
  • Cyborg. A border between a person and the machine
  • Information society as a concept. The official documents of different countries about Information society + theories.
  • Mediated culture and/or religion. How different cases might work in cultural and religious contexts.
  • Algorithmic journalism and working with datafied contexts with different instruments.

Synchronous class:
 Then we try to reconstruct how students' knowledge is made up. What are the sources of our knowledge and problematization. We use Miro or some similar instrument to make up the map, and then during the whole course students enriche their maps with some approaches, as well as clarifying the connections and conflicts between them.

Asynchronous class:
 In the evening we send an asynchronous part with some key points from the class discussion and ideas on the development of the problems according to the issues.
3. 26/11 What is wrong with technology? + What is going on with media? Mapping the theoretical approaches and digging into philosophy, social studies, and anthropology.
Asynchronous class:
a form + links to the key controversial issues of how different theorists, artists, empirical researchers develop the distinction or combination of what is media and technology. The task is to choose the favourite approach and present how it might work as well as what question does it suppose or prohibit, what are the limitations.

Some of the approaches are: Technology and imagination/imaginaries. Technology and machine as a metaphor. STS, anthropology. Cybernetics. McLuhan, media-centrism. Media as an institute. Accelerationism of some kind. Frankfurt school.

The key idea is to understand how particular intellectual movement works with terms and issues+problems around it.

Synchronous class:
The students present the chosen approaches and discuss how they work:
a_ with the issues from the class 2 (in groups)
b_ in contrast to each other (altogether discussion)

In the final discussion we choose the questions to reflect on as well as the gaps in the approaches. Finally, we discuss the time capsule for the future researchers and add it as a part of the mapping key task.
4. 02/12 Intersection 1: Urban+media+materiality
Asynchronous class:
A short introduction to the topic that includes the annotated bibliography (Anthropology and digital anthropology. Big data and the city. Smart city. Manovich. Cerrone. Philosophy. Amin and Thrift. Media and materiality. Gillespie) + task to make a short list of questions for the forthcoming interview with the references to 1-3 texts from the list.

— small task to take pictures or make screenshots (of apps and websites concerning urban agenda) of one or several urban media and technologies and make a notice about it (to be discussed in the class)

Synchronous class:
Part 1. A collective interview with a person who is an author of papers/research from the reading list
Part 2. Sum-up of the interview. Discussing the place of the approach through media+technology lenses. Presentation and discussion of the pictures.
5. 16/12 Intersection 2: Internet+digital+technology
Asynchronous class:
A short introduction to the topic that includes the annotated bibliography (Internet as media and technology. Critical review of internet history. Cybernetics. New media as a term. Participatory culture. Social media and anthropological approaches. danah doyd. OII.)
+ task to make a short list of questions for the interview with the references to one to three texts from the list.

— small task to analyze own smartphone apps and features a la Genevieve Bell (screenshots/video + short reflection to be discussed in the class)

Synchronous class:
Part 1. A collective interview with the author of the papers/research from the reading list.
Part 2. Sum-up of the interview. Discussing the place of the approach through media+technology lenses. Presentation and discussion of the pictures.
6. 23/12 or so. Exam
During the exam we meet with each student with their checklists and discuss what worked well and what went wrong.
ONGOING ASSESSMENT
— A1: interview questions (3-4 questions) for urban media+technology researcher + references and explanation of the questions + reflection of the answers or the interview itself

— A2: interview questions (3-4 questions) for internet media+technology researcher + references and explanation of the questions + reflection of the answers or the interview itself

— A3: knowledge transformation track. Students will elaborate their own approach on the topics we have discussed throughout the whole course from the very beginning. During the course we move from one approach and intersection to another in order to unlock the variety of ways of knowing about the media and technology. The final task includes the log of this path + reflection of the process and challenges for the further courses.
INTERIM ASSESSMENT
At the end of the course, there will be a creative test and an exam. The exam will be held in the form of a personal consultation. Students will discuss their personal checklists with the examiner, observing and analysing what was done, how their aims transformed, which expectations were fulfilled and which were not and why. There will be no exam grades, the final mark will be based on the grades from ongoing assignments and attendance.

Mfin = Matt * 0,2 + A1 * 0,2 + A2 * 0,2 + A3 * 0,4
 Matt — attendance
A1 — assignment 1
A2 — assignment 2
A3 — assignment 3
LITERATURE
1. What is wrong with technology?

Basic:
  1. Simondon, G. On the mode of existence of technical objects
  2. Mumford, L. (1971). Technics and human development: the myth of the machine, vol. I (pp. 381-410). Harvest Books.
  3. Heidegger, M. (1954). The question concerning technology. Technology and values: Essential readings
  4. Latour, B. (1990). Technology is society made durable. The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), 103-131.
Additional:
  1. Suchman, L. (2007). Human-machine reconfigurations: Plans and situated actions. Cambridge university press.
  2. Stiegler, Bernard, and Irit Rogoff. 2009. Transindividuation. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/14/61314/transindividuation/
  3. Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus, 121-136.
  4. Hughes, T. P. (1987). The evolution of large technological systems. The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology, 82. 1. Easier to read 2. Easier to copy
  5. Pinch, T. J., & Bijker, W. E. (1984). The social construction of facts and artefacts: Or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other. Social studies of science, 14(3), 399-441. Click the link on the right side of the website to dowload the file (Access to Document —> Social Studies of Science-1984-Pinch-399-441)
  6. Wyatt, S. Technological Determinism Is Dead; Long Live Technological Determinism
  7. Geert Lovink and Yuk Hui - Digital Objects and Metadata Scheme (to read together with Heidegger and Simondon)
2. What is going on with media?

Basic:
  1. Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P. J., & Foot, K. A. (Eds.). (2014). Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society. MIT Press.
  2. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  3. Kittler, F. (2009). Towards an ontology of media. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(2-3), 23-31.

Additional:
  1. Mitchell, W. J. T., & Hansen, M. B. (Eds.). (2010). Critical terms for media studies. University of Chicago Press.
  2. Livingstone, S. (2005). Audiences and publics: When cultural engagement matters for the public sphere (Vol. 2). Intellect Books. Partial Access
  3. Winthrop-Young, G., & Gane, N. (2006). Friedrich Kittler: an introduction. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(7-8), 5-16.

3. Urban + City

Basic:
  1. Amin, A., & Thrift, N. (2002). Cities: reimagining the urban. Polity Press.
  2. McQuire, S. (2008). The media city: Media, architecture and urban space. Sage. 1. Restricted Access (30-day free trial) 2. Google Books (partial access)
Additional:
  1. Tifentale, A., & Manovich, L. (2015). Selfiecity: Exploring photography and self-fashioning in social media. In Postdigital aesthetics (pp. 109-122). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
  2. Cerrone, D., Lehtovuori, P., López Baeza, J., Raspeig, D., Vicente, S., & Lehtovouri, A. P. (2018). Integrative urbanism: using social media to map activity patterns for decision-making assessment, 4-6. Conference paper. Proceedings IFKAD.
  3. Evgeny Morozov and Francesca Bria (2018) RETHINKING THE SMART CITY Democratizing Urban Technology
  4. Activists confusing CCTV cameras
  5. + about pandemic
4. Internet + Digital

Basic:
  1. Sandvig, C. (2013). The Internet as infrastructure. In The Oxford handbook of internet studies. Restricted Access
  2. Markham, A. N. (2003, October). Metaphors reflecting and shaping the reality of the Internet: Tool, place, way of being. In Association of internet researchers conference, Toronto, Canada (pp. 16-19).
  3. Dutton, W. H. (2013). Internet studies: The foundations of a transformative field.
Additional:
  1. Consalvo, M., & Ess, C. (Eds.). (2011). The handbook of internet studies (Vol. 14). John Wiley & Sons. Google Books (partial access)
  2. Wiener, N. (2019). Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. MIT press.
  3. Rainie, H., & Wellman, B. (2012). Networked: The new social operating system (Vol. 419). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Books (partial access)
  4. Tiidenberg, K., & Gómez Cruz, E. (2015). Selfies, image and the re-making of the body. Body & society, 21(4), 77-102.
  5. Wellman, B., & Rainie, L. (2013). If Romeo and Juliet had mobile phones. Mobile Media & Communication, 1(1), 166-171.
  6. Hui, Y. (2012). What is a digital object?. Metaphilosophy, 43(4), 380-395.
  7. Lovink, G. (2012). What is the social in social media. E-flux Journal, 40(12), 2012.
  8. Geert Lovink - Cybernetics for the Twenty-First Century: An Interview with Philosopher Yuk Hui

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