From hieroglyphs to hypertext, we'll examine how different media have shaped human cultures and the diversity of ways in which different cultures have adopted and adapted new media forms. Theoretically, the course will bring the insights of Media Ecology to bare on the core questions of Anthropology. Media Ecology is the exploration of how media "mediate" (or change) our social structures, physical structures, and might even affect how we see and think about the world. As Neil Postman has noted, "the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation." The tools of conversation shape who can say what, how it can be said, and who can receive the message, all of which have vast implications for power relationships, as well as what will and will not be valued in a culture. But the tools of conversation, while shaping the culture, are in turn shaped by the culture, and that is where this course will differ from a standard course in Media Ecology. By bringing the two fields together we can create a fruitful dialogue to explore a global history of media and culture.



Online Participation (Diigo Links, Blog comments, etc.): 100 points
Assignments: 200 points
Exams: 200 points
Presence: 100 points
Participation: 100 points
Final Presentation: 100 points
Final Project: 200 points

The Project: Mediated.


01.18. Introductions - Brainstorm the Project

01.20. Crowdsourcing - Setting up our Workspace

Assignment: Send screenshot of your Netvibes page & your RSS feed for your blog.


01.25. The Big Idea: Mediated Culture

Read: "The Medium is the Massage"

01.27. Practicing the Big Idea: The Mediated Classroom

Read Chapters 2 & 3 of Teaching As a Subversive Activity

Assignment: 24 hour media log. How are you mediated?


02.01. "Unmediated" culture ... PNG example

"Some psychodynamics of orality" by Walter Ong

02.03. An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube (video)

Assignment: Blog your project idea.


02.08. Project Day - Story Workshop

02.10. Empire & Communications (Innis and early Jack Goody)

Assignment: Research the uses/effects of writing & other early technologies in your part of the world. Summarize a book/article on Google Doc.


02.15. Early Mediation Around the World (collab)

"Writing Restructures Consciousness" by Walter Ong

02.17. Time (& the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)

Chapter One of A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths
Time: RadioLab Podcast

Assignment: Write 5 multiple choice questions on Google Doc as suggestions for Exam One.


02.22. Cities

"It's Alive" RadioLab podcast on cities

02.24. Exam One


March 1st: The Printing Press

excerpt from the Printing Press as an Agent of Change by Elizabeth Eisenstein

March 3rd: Writing and Witch Hunts

"Print, Space, and Closure" by Walter Ong
Introduction to The Domestication of the Savage Mind by Jack Goody

Assignment: Summarize 2 articles/books that are core to your project.


March 8th: Watch Connections Videos (Wesch gone)

March 10th: Digital Storytelling Basics (Video Editing Workshop)

Radio by Ira Glass

March 15th: Radio

RadioLab: AV Smackdown
Excerpts from Oh What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me!

March 17th: Project Trailer Due (We will watch them in class)


Spring Break


March 29th: TV: "Amusing Ourselves to Death" - "Whatever"

March 31st: An Inventory of Effects: Economics

excerpt from The World is Flat.
excerpt from The World is Flat?
excerpt from The Wealth of Networks

Assignment: Blog an update to your project, recounting what you have done and what you plan to do (a full research plan)


April 5th: An Inventory of Effects: Society and Politics

excerpts from Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

April 7th: Watch Burma VJ (Wesch gone)

Assignment: Post a solid analytical defense of your main KYHOI on your blog. Make your case.


April 12th: Watch Frontline Digital Nation (Wesch gone)

April 14th: Project Day: Advanced Storytelling Techniques & Script-writing

Assignment: Post a detailed script for your final project on your blog.


April 19th: (Me)diated? Does media change the way we see and think about ourselves? Part One

April 21st: (Me)diated? Part Two

Assignment: Write 5 multiple choice questions for Exam Two


April 26th: The Future

April 28th: Exam Two (100 points)


May 3rd: KYHOI Conference Day One (100 points)

May 5th: KYHOI Conference Day Two (100 points)


May 12th: Final Projects Due (200 points)

writing
Literacy & Orality by Walter Ong
The Domestication of the Savage Mind, by Jack Goody
Olson
Eric Havelock


the alphabet
The Alphabet & The Goddess by Leonard Schlain
The Alphabet Effect


time
A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths
Mumford
Time: RadioLab Podcast


cities
Mumford
Georg Simmel


the printing press
Elizabeth Eisenstein


the telegraph
excerpt from Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman


radio
Oh What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me
something from Lucas Bessire's new volume
War of the Worlds podcast from RadioLab


cars


television
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman


cellphones
SmartMobs by Howard Rheingold
Something by Ken Banks on Cell Phones in Africa


the web
Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins, Introduction
Mediated by Thomas de Zengotita
An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube
The Machine is Us/ing Us
Information R/evolution
Clay Shirky

Topics to be covered include:

• the relationship between writing and empire,
  
• the "alphabet effect",
  
• the invention of "time" across cultures,
  
• the effects of the printing press,
  
• writing and witchcraft worldwide,
  
• the birth of faster-than-human communications (telegraph, radio) and their effects and uses around the world,
  
• the structural power of media
  
• "Whatever" (information overload and apathy)
  
• cellphones, smart phones, and smart mobs,
  
• Revolutionary media (Burma Video Jockeys, Ushahidi, Witness.org)
  
• hacking technology (afrigadget.com)
  
• Facebook etc. in global perspective.
• An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube
• Crowdsourcing, Collaboration, and Collaboratition
• Posthumanism and the Anthropology of the Future
• BioTechnology and being Better than Well
• Burma VJ
• Introduction to Web 2.0
• "Whatever" and Generation Me
• wikileaks and Anonymous
• Television on Trial: Quiz Show

Books at home ...
Carr
Understanding Media
Convergence Culture
Here Comes Everybody
Literacy & Orality
Mediated
No Sense of Place
Empire & Communications

This course will explore how humans have created and used communication technologies, and how those technologies have in turn "used them."

Tuesday lecture: Thursday discussion/project day

Media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival. The word ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people

http://www.afrigadget.com/

the medium is the massage (podcast) part 1 part 2

Week One:
Introductions & Brainstorm the Project (scatterplot exercise)
Crowdsourcing and Setting up our Workspace (blogs, wiki, Google Doc, etc.)

Week Two:
The Big Idea: Mediated Culture (PNG-TV-Web)
Practice Applying the Big Idea: The Mediated Classroom
Read Chapters 2 & 3 of Teaching As a Subversive Activity

Week Three:
Orality