2017/18 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue

ARTF5194M Technology, Media and Critical Culture

30 creditsClass Size: 15

Module manager: Dr James Lavender
Email: j.lavender@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2017/18

Module replaces

Module replaces (free text description) ARTF5020M Cities and Film and ARTF5192M Technology, Media and Critical Literacy

This module is not approved as an Elective

Module summary

Each week students will explore diverse cases of technological and media culture and will be asked to consider the extent to which each case carries the potential for providing a basis for critical reflection, with specific regard to contemporary social, political and ethical concerns.

Objectives

The main objective of this module will be to foster critical, reflexive, ethical and socially responsible approaches to technological culture, in theory and in use. A range of critical approaches to media and technology will be considered, in order to explore the diverse configurations of power, individuation, collectivity and social control engendered by the epochal technological changes of industrial modernity and contemporary hypermedia culture.

Learning outcomes
- To develop an awareness of the critical and contextual factors affecting the design, promotion, production and consumption of media and technological culture.
- To foster a critically reflexive relationship to the real and imagined uses of technology, across a range of media-based applications.
- To engage with the ethical, social and political implications of technological culture, in its practical deployments and as an object of critical enquiry.
- To be able to write a scholarly assessed essay that is in dialogue with the main themes of the module.

Skills outcomes
Critical media and digital literacy skills.

Syllabus

The main critical focus of this module will be the work of key figures working in the digital humanities and digital studies, including N. Katherine Hayles, Bernard Stiegler and Catherine Malabou.

Weekly themes:
Week 1 - Introduction
Week 2 - Pharmacologies of technology
Week 3 - The Problem of attention in digital networked culture
Week 4 - Reading and writing in a digital age
Week 5 - 'Audiovisualisation' versus automation
Week 6 - Reading Week
Week 7 - Surveillance and 'subveillance'
Week 8 - Ambience and 'immersion'
Week 9 - Locate and mobile media-making I
Week 10 - Locative and mobile media-making II
Week 11 - Summary/conclusion

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lecture	10	1.00	10.00
Seminar	10	2.00	20.00
Private study hours			270.00
Total Contact hours			30.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			300.00

Private study

Students will be expected to develop their own assessed projects as part of their independent study. They will have the option of developing these projects collaboratively in small groups. Students will also be expected to write and research their assessed essays independently.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Progress will be formatively monitored periodically in class and summatively monitored in the module evaluations and end of module assessments.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	4000 word contextual essay	40.00
Project	200 Word Project report	20.00
Portfolio	Electronic Portfolio	40.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

The e-portfolio exercise is conceived to build on the traditional portfolio format, but with the emphasis on students’ exploring new media technology and enriched media content as a main focus of their assessments. Students will be given a choice of focus. The options they can choose from will vary in the amount of technical competency and media literacy required, but all require some engagement with these skills sets. Students will be expected to demonstrate an ability to effectively document their learning process. They will also be expected to make use of digital tools in order to curate and critically engage with relevant content. Additionally they must also show a requisite level of engagement with relevant academic materials. Students will be briefed on this assessment at the beginning of the module and throughout. Students will also have to contextualize their e-portfolio findings by writing a project report and to show that they have engaged intellectually and academically with the module materials by writing a 4,000 word assessed essay.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 23/01/2018

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