78150 - Communication and Digital Media

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Political, Social and International Sciences (cod. 8853)

Learning outcomes

After completing the course, the student: - will have a basic knowledge of the sociology of communication in its evolution, - knows the main forms and communication functions, as well as the most important theories / schools / research in communications, - have critical knowledge of the phenomena related to communication and media, - knows how to apply the empirical tools of analysis of the communication processes in contemporary society

Course contents

The class aims to describe and analyze the main sociological theories upon the following topics:

  1. Contemporary society and globalization;
  2. The sociology of the media;
  3. Media and socialization;
  4. Communication and meta communication;
  5. Production, consumption, prosumerism;
  6. Sociology of digital media;
  7. Networked publics: invisible audiences, public/private boundaries, context collapse;
  8. Social Media and Big Data;
  9. Actor Network Theory.

A printed detailed syllabus will be provided to students the first day of class.


Readings/Bibliography

  • H. Jenkins, Convergence Culture. When old and new media collide, New York University Press, New York, 2006.
  • N. Couldry, Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice, Polity press, London, 2012.
  • P. Degli Esposti, Essere prosumer nella società digitale. Produzione e consumo tra atomi e bit, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2015.
  • Two readings chosen from those available in the class online repository.

Programme integration for non attending students:

M. Castells, Communication Power, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013; and three articles available on the online platform.

 

Teaching methods

Lectures, seminars and interactive presentations.
Students are expected to be prepared on the assigned readings before each class.
Participation is expected and rewarded.

Assessment methods

Attending students:

 Each week the student will be asked to present a short written paper (at least 5) and during the course to perform at least one individual or group presentation.
A mid-term test will be scheduled.
At the end of the course the student must present a final paper. 

The final evaluation is based on the following criteria:

  1. Weekly assignments (20%)
  2. Active participation in activities and presentation (20%)
  3. Midterm Test (30%)
  4. Final Paper (30%)

Non attending students:

Exam is composed by a 4000 words paper (Chicago style) and an oral exam on the textbooks and reading material. 

  1. Paper has to be delivered 7 days before the oral exam.
  2. Evaluation criteria 50% paper and 50% oral exam.
To register the final grade is necessary that you enrol in the official dates in the website Almaesami

Teaching tools

The teaching materials will be available to the students.
The course will experiment the use of Moodle and Office 365 platforms as innovative digital collaboration tools for teaching, hosting materials and tutorials.

Office hours

See the website of Piergiorgio Degli Esposti