Digital Technologies and the Self - ARTS2095
Faculty: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
School: School of the Arts and Media
Course Outline: School of the Arts and Media
Campus: Sydney
Career: Undergraduate
Units of Credit: 6
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
Enrolment Requirements:
Prerequisite: 30 units of credit at Level 1
Equivalent: ARTS2090
CSS Contribution Charge: 1 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
Available for General Education: Yes (more info)
View course information for previous years.
Description
Subject Area: Media, Culture and Technology
This course explores the ways that digital media and technologies shape our collective and individual understandings of ‘the self’. It draws both theoretical and popular accounts of the relationship between technologies, individuals and cultures. You will examine the continuities and discontinuities between ‘old’ and ‘new’ self-making practices such as journaling/ blogging; and self-portraiture/ selfies, to consider the ways that media and technology both shape, and are shaped by socio-cultural understandings of identity formation. You will explore the ways that technologies and media platforms constrain some ‘selves’ and enable others. We will also consider the ways that self-making practices intersect with data-gathering practices, design processes, business models, and public policy. Topics include: life-hacking and the quantified self movement, microcelebrity and branding, mediated intimacies in dating and hook-up app cultures, and biometrics and surveillance.