Cyberculture and Cybercommunities Class Time/Wed 14:10-16:00 Venue/R207 COMM Taught by Sumei Wang 2012 Fall

Lecturer Sumei Wang Email: sw@nccu.edu.tw Office: R. 402, College of Communication Building Office hours: by appointments

Information entertainment convergence media technology novelty New or Old? Information entertainment convergence media technology novelty Public or private? The Internet Virtual? Real? time space globalization convenience capitalism Communities Space Collective actions relationships identities Cultural differences Local or global?

Key questions What do we do on the Internet? Why do we love to access the Internet? What does it mean to us to access the Internet? Has the Internet made huge impacts to human societies? Why? Has the Internet, as the ‘new media’, brought us a brand new system of orders and logics? Why? How do we describe the social relations that are shaped by the Internet? 

Objectives Students who successfully complete this course should be able to: Demonstrate a critical understanding about the inter-relations among cyberspace, cyberculture and cybercommunities. 2. Articulate everyday experience involving the Internet with relevant cultural theories.

What’s being critical? According to Oxford English Dictionary ‘Involving or exercising careful judgment or observation’ Critical Theory – ‘a dialectical critique of society associated with the Frankfurt School’

‘Critical thinking’ includes but is not limited to the following … To de-naturalize the society: Not everything is ‘natural’ , ex. Gender, class, poverty issues To think reflexively, in particular, about the power relations behind a phenomenon. Ex. Who has power? Who reaps the benefit(s)? Who gets hurt? Can you see oppression/resistance/and others? To figure out possible alternatives

Has Facebook changed anything?

The Internet and everyday life ‘The best way to kill a college student is to unplug her network cable.’ from Taiwan’s news media

The Internet and social movements

What about Megaupload?

Do you google?

Game culture and the real world

Student works Team presentations (Oct. 17, Nov. 28, Dec. 13) Reading summaries (verbal comments in class) Media ethnography (multi-methods) Final exam

Team presentations To briefly summarize the content of assigned readings and your reflections after reading them To think about the context of the articles Any examples or phenomena (in your society)? A list of questions that worth further discussions

Ethnographic diary A record of continual observation of your interactions with the Internet technologies in Taiwan (e.g. laptops, ipads, smart phones, wifi, 3G connections) Multiple methods: Written text, illustrations, photos, films Ethnographic diaries review on Nov. 7

Off-campus visit We will arrange off-campus visit to Google, Yahoo, or the Next TV in Taipei Further details to be announced in class

policies All assigned readings will be scanned and uploaded to our course website All course works must be uploaded to the website All works must be original and NO PLAGIARISM