Theories of Media and Technology

• Ways in which theoreticians and practitioners approach media and technology
• A vocabulary that facilitates discussion of media concepts, theories, and projects from a critical perspective
• Critical applications of media theory and context to past, present, and future work
• Media-theoretical frameworks to objects, texts, and technologies

Syllabus

Week 1: Seminal Theory

• The origins of media theory, and how these thinkers have influenced contemporary thought
• A brief look at ‘new’ modes of thought that expand on these earlier ones

Week 2: Cybernetics

• The thinking behind cybernetics, and the technological and social implications of this method of thinking

Week 3: Computation

• The origins of computational thinking, how it relates to cybernetic systems, and what implications it has for media production and consumption

Week 4: Interaction/Interface

• How interaction and interfaces has led to new understanding of how people consume, create, and use media

Week 5: Networks

• How interaction and interfaces has led to new understanding of how people consume, create, and use media

Week 6: Control

• The ways in which computational systems can be used as agents of control, implied and explicit

Week 7: Affect Theory

• How theorists understand the self embodied in the machine

Week 8: Actor – Network Theory

• How ANT is not so much a theory as it is a method for understanding the world around us and the relationship between human and non-human objects

Week 9: Cyborg Life

• The boundaries of our bodies in relation to the world of technology we have designed around us, what is permeable, what is fixed?

Week 10: Media Archaeology

• How it’s possible to think about aspects of media through physical artifacts like infrastructure, software, and machines themselves

Week 11: Queer & Feminist Theory

• How thinking about media has been transformed by, and in turn changed, queer and feminist theory

Week 12: Games

• How games provide a rich area for different kinds of media study such as platforms studies, software studies, and media archeology

Week 13: Sound & Image

• How theory has transformed our understanding of ‘traditional’ forms of media like video, sound, and still images

Week 14: Media Now

• Emerging theories surrounding media studies like Object Oriented Ontology and Post-digitalism