Contents:

Week 1 What is digital and why does it matter?	Week 6 Economic effects: the rise of the network economy?
Week 2 What is digital convergence and is it happening?	Week 7 Social effects: 'cybersociety' and virtual communities
Week 3 The internet as the model for networked media	Week 8 Political effects: cyberdemocracy or cybertyranny?
Week 4 Digital consumers	Week 9 What is happening to the 'old' (mass) media?
Week 5 Digital producers	Web Resources

Presentations

Week 2 17/10/02 Group C Jose Malcolm Romina	Week 6 14/11/02 Group E Thomas Alison Wendy
Week 3 24/10/02  Group D Kevin Alan Changrib	Week 7 21/11/02 Group B Meina Carla Takako
Week4 31/10/02 Group A Roland Alison Vincent	Week 8 28/11/02 Group F Xin Doreen Sukant
Week 5 07/11/02 Group G Anthony Kate Ning	Week 9

 

Introduction
This course examines aspects of the 'new communications media' or 'digital media' through the following themes:

• Technological innovation.
• Markets, capital and the economy.
• The information society.
• Politics and regulation.
• Convergence and globalisation.

Technological innovation, and in particular the application of computer technology to all forms of communication (convergence and digitisation), creates new products, services and opportunities. Some of these opportunities allow entrepreneurs to create new businesses (e.g. Microsoft, Yahoo), which potentially undermine existing businesses and erode the boundaries between industries. (For example: Is Microsoft a computer software company or a media company?) Technology does not determine economic change in any straightforward way: it has to be adopted or incorporated into the everyday lives of workers and consumers. Often there is a time lag between technological innovation and economic and social change. Many futurists fail to recognise this, and exaggerate the rate at which technology will transform peopleís lives and we critique the tendency towards ëhypeí, which is associated with claims about the revolutionary and deterministic impact of technology. Some of the readings on this course fit into this futurist category and a critical view of these projections will be required.  On the other hand the use of technologies can change and they can adopted with a rapidity that takes policy makers and regulators by surprise.

The second aspect running through the course concerns markets, capital and the economy. Markets can be seen as communication systems linking buyers and sellers (and intermediaries such as advertisers) and the mass media have always been important adjuncts to market processes.  What is the relationship between new media technologies and these systems? Is there an information society driven by an economy with information both an aspect of all markets (in how we find out about products on sale) and a commodity in itself. Is digital technology accelerating the commodification of all social relationships? How are the ëoldí media companies (e.g. the BBC or Disney) responding to the impact of digital technologies? Who are the new players and how do they compete with existing economies of production?

The course is also concerned with politics and regulation. Media have traditionally been regulated in different ways (print relatively unregulated and broadcasting heavily regulated). New communications technologies may at first avoid regulation (as did the Internet) and throw up issues for new forms of regulation (as in proposals for an Office of Communications in the UK to replace regulatory bodies in broadcasting, telecommunications and publishing). Exponents of new interactive media stress their democratic potential; critics point to the new problem of the information rich and the information poor.  We will examine both these progressive views and the challenges to these views thrown up by inequality, imperialism and monopoly.

Convergence and globalisation are key themes in these discussions and need careful attention in the context of new media.  Does digitisation mean convergence?  What are the specific qualities of different media in a computer mediated context? The course will involve attention to the levels at which convergence can be said to operate, particularly in relation to production, ownership and dissemination.  Globalisation is also a central theme. A central question will be: how do the global and the local intersect in the economies of new media?

All of these dimensions are stressed in the weekly topics.

Objectives
At the end of the course you should have:

• An understanding and knowledge of contemporary developments and key theoretical debates in new media in relation to:
• Technological innovation.
• Markets, capital and the economy.
• The information society.
• Politics and regulation.
• Convergence and globalisation.
• An ability to engage critically with these debates by synthesising both (a) a knowledge of what is occurring and (b) a knowledge of the key theoretical debates
• Acquired hands-on experience of using an email discussion list as part of the group discussions amongst those taking the course.
• Used electronic sources (Internet, databases and CD/DV) to research the new media.
• Developed competency in presenting and communicating your ideas to others through computer-based presentational and interactive multi-media software (power-point or web pages) You will be required to use these tools for your seminar presentations.

Seminars
The course is taught through two hour seminars.  Seminars will be held on Thursdays at 2.00 pm in Arts D710.

You will be expected to offer two seminar presentations during the course. Topics and timetabling will be agreed in the first session of term. Presentations will be done on a group basis, based on reading the set texts, and on research using the resources and technologies explored in the course.

Presentations will be given by using Microsoft PowerPoint or a self-authored web site (and data projector). Guidance on how to do this, and how to create presentations in PowerPoint, are available from the computing services: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/USCS/Training/courses.cfm.

Power Point tutorials and HTML tutorials can also be found using the Internet. For example the Computer Science Department at The University of Rhode Island has produced this one: http://homepage.cs.uri.edu/tutorials/csc101/powerpoint/ppt.html.

For each presentation you should give thought to how to present the major points visually, and how to develop these verbally. Text and bullet-points should be brief, and displayed in a font large enough for everybody in the seminar room to read.

Bibliography and reading list
Apart from the normal reading list below, you will find a wealth of other resources in the library. The library is heavily used and it is highly unlikely that you will be able to find all the recommended reading available. In that event you should use the library catalogue and journals to try to locate for yourself other relevant material, and you should make full use of electronic resources.  Many new media texts are online, at least in part. You will probably find Internet resources and the full-text newspaper archives on CD-ROM the most useful for research for the presentations. The library subscribes to The Web of Science, an on-line database with unlimited free access from which you can find bibliographic references to relevant journal articles.

Preliminary Readings:
o John V. Pavlik, New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial Perspectives, Prentice-Hall, 1998
o Robins, Kevin and Webster, Frank. Times of the Technoculture: From The Information Society To The Virtual Life. London: Routledge, 1999.
o Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. (Prioritise Volume 1: The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996 )
o Science as Culture, Volume 11, no 2, 2002 (available in the library and also online through the Athens account system)

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Email: k.s.o-riordan@sussex.ac.uk
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