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

2. Lecturer
Sumei Wang
Office: R. 402, College of Communication Building
Office hours: by appointments

3. 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?

4. 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? 

5. 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.

6. 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’

7. ‘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

8. Has Facebook changed anything?

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

10. The Internet and social movements

11. What about Megaupload?

12. Do you google?

13. Game culture and the real world

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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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