WRTG 3020: Tech­nol­ogy & Amer­i­can Culture

Sec­tion 035: Dig­i­tal Identity

Fall 2015

• Full Syl­labus doc­u­ment PDF

Overview

This course pro­ceeds from the fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing that we are in the midst of an appa­ra­tus shift beyond lit­er­acy toward an emerg­ing par­a­digm of “elec­tracy.” Ulmer explains that ‘Elec­tracy “is to dig­i­tal media what lit­er­acy is to alpha­betic writ­ing: an appa­ra­tus, or social machine, partly tech­no­log­i­cal, partly insti­tu­tional” (Net­worked 2009). The effects of this shift impact not only com­mu­ni­ca­tion and iden­tity for­ma­tion, but cul­tural forms and social expe­ri­ence as well: one goal of this course is to both study and employ the tech­no­log­i­cal tran­si­tions and new logic famil­iar to us in net­work soci­ety toward pro­duc­tive ends. A sec­ond part to this premise is that the prior “tele­vi­sion age” involved audi­ences’ pas­sively receiv­ing the dom­i­nant cul­ture as “con­sumers”; in con­trast, the “net­work age” sit­u­ates us in a par­tic­i­pa­tory role regard­ing infor­ma­tion, media, cul­ture and discourse.

What rela­tion­ships and effects are there between dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy, new cul­ture forms, and net­work rhetoric? What does this mean for you and us, indi­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively, in terms of iden­tity expe­ri­ence and self under­stand­ing? We will both study and exploit the rhetor­i­cal impli­ca­tions of this on-going shift for new forms of dis­course about tech­nol­ogy and culture—as well as for our dig­i­tal iden­ti­ties tech­no­log­i­cally medi­ated by net­worked cul­tural forms and social activ­i­ties. The key under­stand­ing will be achieved by study­ing and apply­ing the modes of net­work rhetoric preva­lent today—digital cul­ture, memes, viral cir­cu­la­tion, remix, social plat­forms, new interfaces—examining these rhetor­i­cal phe­nom­ena with our course inquiry about iden­tity expe­ri­ence. Con­sid­er­ing new iden­tity roles, we will explore the “pub­lic ped­a­gogy” (Portman-Daley) poten­tial observed in par­tic­i­pa­tory cul­ture and dis­course communities.

“Par­tic­i­pa­tory media include (but aren’t lim­ited to) blogs, wikis, RSS, tag­ging and social book­mark­ing, music-photo-video shar­ing, mashups, pod­casts, dig­i­tal sto­ry­telling, vir­tual com­mu­ni­ties, social net­work ser­vices, vir­tual envi­ron­ments, and videoblogs.” —Howard Rein­gold

 

Gen­er­at­ing insights through research, obser­va­tions, and expe­ri­ence, we will com­bine crit­i­cal think­ing and rhetor­i­cal strate­gies in our inno­v­a­tive compositions—culminating with a “Screen Self Por­trait” (for reflex­ive knowledge)—that explore and cre­ate medi­ated expres­sions of “dig­i­tal iden­tity” and par­tic­i­pa­tory expe­ri­ence (tech­nol­ogy chang­ing both cul­ture and sub­jec­tiv­ity). While this course requires ana­lyt­i­cal skills for writ­ing, it also draws upon (and enhances) stu­dents’ abil­i­ties with nar­ra­tive, images, and expres­sive media in the mode of aes­thetic author­ing, using freely-available soft­ware and Web platforms.

There are three lev­els or top­ics with which we will exam­ine these issues, per­spec­tives and ques­tions to keep in mind dur­ing our study:

1. Tech­nol­ogy, media, and net­work devel­op­ments: impact­ing forms of iden­tity expe­ri­ence, per­for­mance, understanding
2. Shifts toward new and active roles, specif­i­cally in cre­ation of (and dis­course about) par­tic­i­pa­tory culture
3. Lessons of dig­i­tal rhetoric to apply for net­work com­mu­ni­ca­tion about con­tem­po­rary top­ics for pub­lic audiences