Time Schedule:
Gina S Neff
COM 597
Seattle Campus
Class description
Theories of Technology & Society. Much of the contemporary literature dealing with information technologies, new media, and digital culture either overlook or oversimplify the complexity of technology as a social phenomenon. This course will provide a theoretical foundation for communication graduate students interested in further study in the department’s core area of technology & society. The course is also appropriate for graduate students in social sciences and humanities who are interested in a grounding their research in theories of the social, political, and cultural contexts for and implications of technological change.
This course will examine the following: --- The history of approaches to innovation and technology in communication and sociology (e.g., Harold Innis, Marshal McLuhan, and Everett Rogers), --- Approaches from the social studies of science and technology (e.g., Bruno Latour, Landon Winner, Judy Wajcman, and Weibe Bijker), --- Emerging theories of new information technology & the Internet (e.g., Manuel Castells, Alex Galloway, and Lev Manovich), and --- Exemplars of research on the intricate relationship between social and technological change situated within a broad range of historical periods and within scholarship from cultural studies, sociology, STS, and communication (e.g., Claude Fisher, Trevor Pinch, JoAnne Yates, Thomas Hughes, Don Slater, and Chandra Mukerji)
Student learning goals
Identify key literatures, topics, and debates in the area of technology & society from a broad multidisciplinary perspective and locate their own research interests within these debates.
Use the theoretical basis of this course to ground further research, prepare for qualifying exams, and do continued coursework in the technology & society area in communication or within their home departments.
Develop an extended paper on a topic of their choice related to course material.
General method of instruction
Reading-intensive Graduate Seminar
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
An extended independent paper.
