Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation

Students of the module might be interested in attending the seminar on "Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation" by Karen Mossberger (Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago).

The seminar will take place in room 5.6a of Bosworth House on Wednesday 6 May 2009 from 12.30 to 1.45pm. As in previous years, a buffet lunch is provided and all staff and postgraduate students are welcome to attend.

To book a place on this seminar, please contact Suzanne Walker sswalker@dmu.ac.uk or telephone Ext 7780.


Have a look at a book authored by Mossberger and collegues: http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Citizenship-Internet-Society-Participation/dp/0262633531


Book description:

"This analysis of how the ability to participate in society online affects political and economic opportunity and finds that technology use matters in wages and income and civic participation and voting.Just as education has promoted democracy and economic growth, the Internet has the potential to benefit society as a whole. Digital citizenship, or the ability to participate in society online, promotes social inclusion. But statistics show that significant segments of the population are still excluded from digital citizenship.The authors of this book define digital citizens as those who are online daily. By focusing on frequent use, they reconceptualize debates about the digital divide to include both the means and the skills to participate online. They offer new evidence (drawn from recent national opinion surveys and Current Population Surveys) that technology use matters for wages and income, and for civic engagement and voting."Digital Citizenship" examines three aspects of participation in society online: economic opportunity, democratic participation, and inclusion in prevailing forms of communication. The authors find that Internet use at work increases wages, with less-educated and minority workers receiving the greatest benefit, and that Internet use is significantly related to political participation, especially among the young. The authors examine in detail the gaps in technological access among minorities and the poor and predict that this digital inequality is not likely to disappear in the near future. Public policy, they argue, must address educational and technological disparities if we are to achieve full participation and citizenship in the twenty-first century."

Lecture 7 "Critical Thinking": Kieren Boddy

Feminist Theory Websites

1) The Feminist Theory Website, the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
at Virginia Tech University, http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/enin.html

This website was created and maintained by a Dr. Kristin Switala, a Professor at the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia Tech, USA. It was the first website to appear in the google search of the term "Feminist Theory". It is a trustworthy website, in my opinion, because it was created by an academic at an accredited University and has reputable contributions by other academics.

Unlike some websites that opt to inform the user everything, in the authors words, what the subject is all about, Dr. Swatala only uses the briefest of paragraphs relating to the Feminist Theory and the different fields in Feminism as a cue for the 5425 bibliographical entries, 0593 links to Internet sites, and 0684 paragraphs giving information. It is quite different from what I am used to, but easy to follow, if you know how to use a bibliography to find academic texts and text books.

This though makes a lot of work for the reader who may just want a 'quick quote' for a simple understanding of the theory, but it is an extremely good website for finding references in the field. Unfortunately, it seems that the website rarely updates as it was in 1999 the website was last copyrighted. 

2)Feminism and Women Studies, http://feminism.eserver.org/

The Feminism and Women Studies webpage is an online resource for researchers into the subject and is ran by people associated with the Carnegie Mellon University Womens Centre. The website is a greater resource than one that is just about feminist theory, which in my opinion makes it a better website in that it gives more background information about the subject than just the theory as I feel that to have an understanding of a subject, you must know some detail about the circumstances in which the theory applies to. 

As the website was created by members of the Carnegie Mellon University, ones who knew about the subject (they where Masters Students who operated the site for four years) and it cites information and courses from other universties with similar courses, such as one from the university in 1). All this tells me that it is a worthy resource for the subject, even though compared to the whole, there is a small amount to do with feminist theory. 

It is easy to navigate the website as it has been represented in a hierarchical fasion of overarching concepts within the subject which then forks off depending on how many articles and theories are available within those concepts. That said, the few articles about feminist theory where quite old, compared to the rest of the content within the site. 

3) http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/

Would the use of a male dominated search engine resource affect the validity in my findings into the subject???

Lecture 4 - Reader Response

Due to severe weather conditions the lecture today is cancelled:




Please review the lecture presentation that has been uploaded to Blackboard (in both the course documents and learning materials sections) and complete the Wordle activity.






For your own "reading" assignment, choose ONE of the following:

http://www.telescopictext.com/ by Joe Davis

¨Inanimate Alice, Episode 2: Italy, by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, www.inanimatealice.com

¨Carving in Possibilities, by Deena Larsen, http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/larsen__carving_in_possibilities.html

¨ii — in the white darkness: about [the fragility of] memory, by Reiner Strasser and M.D. Coverley, http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/strasser_coverley__ii_in_the_white_darkness/index.html#top

***Reading for next week:***
“Différance” by Jacques Derrida
http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/diff.html

student presentation: The Introduction to Structural Analysis of Narrative

by Amanda Moffat and Mandy Sellers

Lecture 1: Introduction to Digital Cultures

Welcome to the first session of the Digital Cultures module on the IOCT Masters. I hope everyone enjoyed a good break and are ready for 2009.


Following our discussion in class, I'd like you to adress the following issues in regards to analogue/digital devices/objects here in the comments.

Remember to include:

• a list of features
• an overview of what the device is and how it works
• why it is important
• why people use or don't use it

Assignment for next week:

Read "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) (this was handed out in class).



Please write a reflective blog post on your reading. I have added you all as an author to this module blog so please sign in and choose to "create" a new post. Be sure to include your name and "Lecture 1" in the title of the blog post.

Some things to consider:

• role of representation of identity
• trickery of language
• authenticity
• dissemination
• production
• readership
• authorship

try to contextualise this alongside what we discussed today about digital culture.

If you like Borges do check out some of his fiction including the very well know "Garden of Forking Paths" included in this collection.

Welcome to the 2009 Digital Cultures Module

Ok, it's not quite 2009 yet but I know you are all eager to get started over the Christmas break.

So, here is a project for you.

I would like you to craft an annotated bibliography of at least 10 texts that we should read as part of our Digital Cultures curriculum, feel free to add more than ten sources. In your annotation please include the following information:

• Main focus or purpose of the work
• Intended audience for the work
• Special features of the work that were unique or helpful
• Background and credibility of the author

Obviously you haven't yet read the work so you won't be able to include the author's or your own conclusions. You can however include why you think we ought to use your chosen resource. Perhaps it presents an unusual point of view or provokes dissidence, but do include a reason.

Since we're talking about digital cultures, try to include ONLY online resources. There is an amazing array of excellent academic research available online - either in journals through the DMU library subscriptions or via open access journals, blogs, newspapers and other websites. Even on Amazon some text is available (see last year's reading list in the right hand column of this blog). You don't have to include an entire book but you can refer to chapters or individual blog posts.

One possible resource might include Lev Manovich's latest which he "published" during his talk at our Future of Creative Technologies conference on 20th November 2008.

Some print books that we will be referring to throughout the module include:

• George Landow, Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in a Global Era
• Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text
• Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
• Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects
• Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One
• Rosi Braidotti, Cyberfeminism with a Difference and Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory

Also very important is that each of you have a twitter and facebook and delicious account, if you don't already. I'm JessL on all of the above. Please start a blog as we'll be using that in our lecture sessions too along with flickr.

Please tag all the suggested course reading materials with "digitalcultures09" and please send them me too: http://delicious.com/jessl.

Things to keep in mind when you're choosing texts:

• they should align with our topics of feminism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, cyberculture, creative technologies, critical literacy, digital literacy
• be sure to look at the suggested reading on the blog from last year's course
  
• use any reference style (MLA, Harvard, etc...) but remain consistent

If you know of any web 2.0-type tools/applications that you would like to use (think of tools to facilitate podcasting, videos and other communication) include them in your annotated bibliography (but they don't form part of your ten items to read).


Let me know if you have any questions, concerns or thoughts by adding a comment here or e-mailing me.