MC409 Half Unit
Media, Technology and Everyday Life
This information is for the 2013/14 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr Leslie Haddon STC.S104
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Global Media and Communications (LSE and Fudan), MSc in Global Media and Communications (LSE and USC), MSc in Media and Communications, MSc in Media and Communications (Research) and MSc in Media, Communication and Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
Course content
The course aims to explore how information and communication technologies are experienced in everyday life. This includes examining how ICTs are socially shaped, through looking at current theoretical frameworks as well as historical and contemporary examples. The course covers such matters as the domestication of ICTs, their place in social networks and their implications for time and space. Finally, a range of potential social consequences are considered, from the specific implications for parent-child relationships to broader questions about the extent to which these technologies are changing social life.
Teaching
10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the MT.
Formative coursework
All students are expected to complete advance reading, prepare seminar presentations, and submit one essay of 1,500 words.
Indicative reading
Haddon, L. (2004) Information and Communication Technologies in Everyday Life: A Concise Introduction and Research Guide, Berg; Ling, R. (2004) The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone's Impact on Society, Morgan Kaufmann; Wellman, B. & Haythornthwaite, C. (Eds) (2002) The Internet in Everyday Life, Oxford University Press; Bakardjieva, M. (2005) Internet Society: The Internet in Everyday Life, Sage; Katz, J. & Rice, R. (2002) Social Consequences of Internet Use, MIT Press; Berker, T, Hartmann, M., Punie, Y and Ward, K. (Eds) (2005) Domestication of Media and Technologies, Open University Press; Ito, M., Matsuda, M. & Okabe, D. (Eds) (2005) Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, MIT Press; Buckingham D. and R. Willett, Digital Generations (Eds) (2006) Digital Generations: Children, Young People and New Media, Erlbaum; Ito, M. (2010) Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; Van Dijk, J. (2005) The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society, Sage, London; Green, N. and Haddon, L. (2009) Mobile Communications: An Introduction to New Media, Oxford, Berg.
Assessment
Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the MT.
To be submitted in week 2 of Lent Term.
Teachers' comment
Key facts
Department: Media & Communications
Total students 2012/13: 29
Average class size 2012/13: 14
Value: Half Unit
Personal development skills
- Self-management
- Team working
- Communication
We are bombarded with claims about how technologies like the internet are changing everyday life - this course provides the tools to evaluate those arguments.
Students' comments
"I really like the way in which each topic was historicised to gain a better understanding of the process."