27343 - Sociology of the New Media (1)

Academic Year 2017/2018

  • Docente: Marco Santoro
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: SPS/07
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Communication Sciences (cod. 8885)

Learning outcomes

The student will be able to analyze digital media technologies and cultures with the aid of sociological concepts and social research tools.

Course contents

What are "new" media? The digital revolution and its myths

The contribution of sociology to the understanding of digital media

Information, communication, participation

Max Weber meets the hacker ethic

The cultural diamond and the digital media

Computers and information society

Cooperation on line, file sharing and the model of the gift

Media, public sphere, and politics

Social relations and identities on line

Ethnographical research of social media

The economy of the web

Big data & society


 

Readings/Bibliography

N. Couldry, Media, Society, World, Cambridge, Polity 2012.

P. Himanen, The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age, Vintage, 2001

d. boyd, It's complicated. The social lives of networked teens, New Haven, Yale UP 2014. Teaching methods

Teaching methods

Face to face lessons with practical exercises of social research

Assessment methods

Oral exam, with the possibility to present a research paper on a topic previously agreed upon

Office hours

See the website of Marco Santoro