2023/24 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ARTF1052 Networks, Environments and Cultures

20 creditsClass Size: 70

Module manager: Dr Dibyadyuti Roy
Email: D.Roy1@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2023/24

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Module summary

Beginning with the proliferation of technology following World War 2 and continuing up to the present, this module locates the interconnectedness of networks, its environments, and cultures as an analytic for understanding our contemporary world. Through analysing the social, political, and aesthetic implications of user-driven and algorithmically mediated networks, the module will address questions around identity formation, knowledge production and cultural institutions in the networked age. Emphasis will be placed on the historical trajectory that leads to the emergence of the world wide web, internet cultures, and current new media platforms. On this module you will be encouraged to explore the role of networks in amplifying/mitigating divide(s)—both analogue and digital—as well as the role of networks in shaping our cultural consciousness and memory.

Objectives

1. Introduce students to the interactions between new forms of networked media technologies, their users and environments, the emergent cultures, and the developing discourses
2. Provide a critical understanding regarding the artistic, political, and cultural facets of the internet and other emergent media that will help students better understand the contemporary paradigms in the field of network studies.
3. Allow students to develop a self-reflexive understanding and a critical approach to web-based and computational cultures, through exposure to divergent perspectives on data, governance, and society

Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the module, students will:
1. Develop an ability to interpret the theories and concepts underlying the social, cultural, and political aspects of the network, and put it in dialogue with shifting configurations of culture, media, and art
2. Think critically about the nature of networked environments and cultures as well as how identities are constructed and contested in such spaces
3. Develop the capacity to create rational frameworks for the varied contexts of networked cultures and media: including design, activism, art, philosophy, political theory, and urban studies
4. Develop the capacities to express their ideas both orally and in writing.
5. Demonstrate their competence and preparation for independent and innovative scholarly research through evaluating and drawing upon appropriate sources and conceptual frameworks

Skills outcomes
Critical literacies in working with and around networked, platforms, cultures, and environments

Syllabus

The syllabus is organized around several conceptual themes that may include some/all the following
· Historical background: Society, Modern Science, and Technology: Tracing a concise history of the development and teleology of network studies and network cultures
· Hierarchies and Networks: Locating the complex dynamics, similarities and differences between hierarchies and networks
· The Social, The Technological and its Overlaps: Situating the epistemic and ontological origins of networks in its social and technical contexts including the overlaps.
· Networks and Networlds: Differentiating between networks and Networld environments; Communication paradigms, the power frameworks and counter power potentialities that are espoused in such networks and network cultures
· Algorithms, Big Data and Surveillance Capitalism in the Networked Age: Analyzing Big Data, Open Data, Algorithmic biases and Surveillance Capitalism within network societies.
· The Gender of Networks: Understanding the linkages, interactions, and processes through which gendered bodies and networks interact.
· Networks and New Becomings: Analyzing the anomalous objects and processes in networked cultures and the new possibilities and challenges that they engender, especially in a post Covid-19 landscape.
· The Analog lives of Networked Data in Majority Worlds Afterlives of data and computational cultures in the context of the Global South and Majority World contexts.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lectures	10	2.00	20.00
Fieldwork	1	6.00	6.00
Independent online learning hours			4.00
Private study hours			170.00
Total Contact hours			26.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

As a part of the assessments for this module students will accomplish a diverse and contextually relevant series of assessments including a group project, as well a series of reflective logs/responses.
The group project will emerge from the fieldwork that will be done as a part of the module where the students and the instructor will visit a local museum. Before this visit, the students will be assigned into groups and provided with a specific prompt for the group project. The students will develop the group project on an online platform and will convey their approach to the project through a 15-20 minute recorded (asynchronous) video that will accompany the final submission. Each group will receive feedback from the instructor along with peer feedback.
Two reflective logs (500-750 words) will be due in Weeks 4 and 8 where in the student will apply the theoretical vocabulary and conceptual learning from the class to a networked artifact.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Group Project	.	50.00
Reflective log	.	50.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Reflective log will be in weeks 4 and 8. The resit for the Group Project will require the student to develop an individual 8-10 minute video essay analysing and reflecting on at least two projects developed by their peer groups.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 11/10/2023

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