From Gutenberg Galaxy to Zuckerberg Metaverse 1600-SZD-ID-GGMZ
An interdisciplinary seminar focussing on critical theories of knowledge evolution and on the explosive growth of the communication technologies. The content of the seminar is based on a comparative analysis of the main theoretical currents and the most relevant methodological schools emerging in social communications research and in the explanations of transformed participation in public life. We shall try to understand the latest analyses of the media evolution, which turned multimediated virtual environment into an expanding metaverse, which influences social growth, evolution and development. We shall try to understand the social framework of the subliminal influencing, persuasion, and manipulation. We shall try to learn how to neutralize troll farms, uncover propaganda and defuse marketing agencies. We will test ways to make the best use of political sciences, sciences of management, media studies and the sociology of the Internet.
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge | The graduate knows and understands:
- the main emergent conceptualizations and explanations of the processes of the production and dissemination of knowledge in contemporary societies.
- the most relevant changes in the cultural climate from the point of the institutionalization and individualization of the social grids of memory, social frames of mobilization and persuasion and cultural determinants of the virtual simulations of possible futures.
-the main developments in the following disciplines of the social sciences; sciences of management and quality, political sciences, sociology, social psychology, cultural anthropology, and social media and communication studies
Skills | The graduate is able to:
– make use of knowledge from the abovementioned fields of science, in order to creatively identify the institutional, political, cultural and psychological aspects of mediated communications,
- formulate and innovatively solve complex problems of managing organizational and public decision-making under the continuous pressure of social and mass media, and the invisible hands of media manipulations,
- perform tasks of a research nature, and in particular to: define the latest evolutionary developments in dark persuasion, detect the troll farms, trace the viral and robotized AI-aided, or ChatGPT-composed persuasion as the object of scientific research
- draw pragmatic conclusions about the virtualization, individualization and gamification processes inside the mainstream social communications and the evolution of the public understanding of parliaments, universities, hospitals and courts of law
- participating in scientific discourse in the field of the social sciences.
Social competences | The graduate is ready to;
- critically evaluate relevant achievements within the mass media and social media research- perform an unbiased comparative analysis of the marketing campaigns, Kulturkampf strategies or the methods of the influencers in social media.
Assessment criteria
Description of requirements related to participation in classes, including the permitted number of explained absences: Being present and participating in discussions is required, comprehension of texts and problms is expected. One virtual and one real absence with valid alibi will be accepted.
Principles for passing the classes and the subject (including resit session): all participants are expected to produce 3 mini-essays, 1 simple podcast and 1 longer final essay. Re-sit sessiuon will include the additional reading and an additional essay
Methods for the verification of learning outcomes: testing the skills in arguing and defending one’s argument in a live discussion and in a prepared message (essay, podcast), ability to hold ground in a public debate.
Evaluation criteria: textual understanding, rhetoric skills, tested familiarity with obligatory readings
Bibliography
Dimsdale, Joel E., 2021, Dark Persuasion. A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media, New Haven, CT & London, Yale University Press
Taplin, Jonathan, 2023, The End of Reality, New York, Public Affairs
Tufekçi, Zeynep, 2018, Twitter and Tear Gas: Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, New Haven, CT & London, 2018
Magala, Sławomir, 2024, Clouds and Crowds, Newcastle upon Thyne, Cambridge Scholars (in preparation)
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: