FM, Media Theory and Analysis: Digital Media,Network and Society

Digital transformation, rising social inequalities and climate change. These are three of our biggest contemporary challenges and (digital) technologies are at the core of each of them. Yet the views on the roles of technologies are polarised: tech enthusiasts worship them as the ultimate solution, while others alert us to sustained problems, or even to the danger of human extinction by AI. Rather than reproducing this polarised debate, this course asks how we can see through the tech hype while at the same time avoiding mere doom and gloom. How can we assess the roles and impact that digital technologies actually have regarding social change, inequalities and climate change?

The course will be organised around those three themes. The seminars on digital transformation focus on issues such as datafication, technological determinism, AI revolution and hype. Next, we zoom in on inequalities: in what ways are technologies part of the problem or part of the solution for addressing racism, gender inequality or sexual discrimination? The third theme tackles climate change and ecology. Questions include: what are the hidden ecological costs of producing and using digital technologies? What are the downsides of technological solutionism?

Students will have the opportunity to gain academic knowledge to discuss and analyse pressing societal challenges, and how to apply this knowledge in their immediate and future lives as citizens, workers and decision makers. The reading material is interdisciplinary and mostly draws on media studies, sociology, critical theory and science and technology studies, both from the Global North and the South. We will approach digital technologies not in a technical way, but from a humanities and social science perspective. The course should also benefit students’ written and spoken communication skills, together with their media literacy as we will also focus on analysing media discourse around digital technologies.