Syllabus
Course schedule
(Indicative syllabus: the exact dates of lectures will be given on Moodle: https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=5150, on 17 February 2021)
Week 1 (17 February, Lecture 1): Course introduction, Identities and Digital Cultures in Everyday Life
Week 2 (24 February, Lecture 2): Making Sense of Big Data
Week 3 (3 March, Lecture 3): Digital Health
Week 4 (10 March, Lecture 4): Political Participation Online
Week 5 (17 March, Lecture 5): Digital Divide – Petr Lupač, a guest lecture
Week 6 (24 March, Lecture 6): Religion Online – Alessandro Testa, a guest lecture
Week 7 (31 March, Lecture 7): Digital Currencies – Martin Tremčinský, a guest lecture
Week 8 (7 April, Seminar 1): Discussing final essay first ideas 1
Week 9 (14 April, Lecture 8): Sharing Economy and Digital Labour – Tereza Svobodová, a guest lecture
Week 10 (21 April, Lecture 9): The materiality of digital infrastructure – Julien Wacquez, a guest lecture
Week 11 (28 April, Lecture 10): Digital Media and Religious Communities – Alessandro Testa, a guest lecture
Week 12 (5 May, Seminar 2): Discussing final essay outlines
Week 13 (12 May): Rector’s Day
Annotation
The course will provide an introduction to the sociological understanding of how information and communication technologies shape contemporary societies. The course will focus on the social, cultural, political and economic implications of the diffusion of digital media in late modernity.
The first lectures will provide an overview of the historical development of digital media and will present the main theories of digital media in contemporary societies. A focus will be given to the politics of social media as well as to the politics through social media.
Particular attention will be given to the relationship between digital media social stratification, identity, body, politics, health, labour and the digital economy. Last but not the last, attention is given to the material aspects of digital infrastructures, related to the functioning of digitalized societies and interconnected invisible environmental externalities.