Communication, Digital Media and Everyday Life

PART 1: MEDIA AND SOCIETY1. Introduction2. What Is the Media, and Is Digital Media ‘New’?IntroductionWhat exactly is ‘media’, and what does it mean to us?What is digital or ‘new’ media?What is ‘new’ in new media?New media issues3. Subtext and Mass MediaIntroductionIdeology and the media: Is what we see and hear on TV real?The public (service) broadcasting modelThe commercial modelFrom broadcast to multicast: Now anyone anywhere can have a say4. Media Power and InfluenceIntroduction: A fractured window on realityDon’t panic: media, violence and viceDimensions of media powerConclusion5. Making Meaning through Narrative: Conventions, Intertextuality and Transmedia StorytellingIntroductionThe stories of our lives: ‘All the world’s a stage’The meaning of noiseIntertextuality and meaning-making: Connected through textsTransmedia storytelling: Making narratives across platforms6. Non-verbal CommunicationIntroductionObject communication: We all want to belong to a groupNon-verbal communication: Eye contact, posture and soundGestures and ‘emblems’: How do we use emblems to communicate?Emoticons r gr8t :-DConclusion: How hard is it to make a realistic humanoid robot?7. Gender and CommunicationIntroductionMeta-messages: ‘You’re not wearing that, are you?’Bestsellers about gender: Are men and women really from different planets?New media and gender: What happens in the virtual world?Conclusion8. Designing Desire: Advertising, Consumption and IdentityIntroduction: ‘I shop, therefore I am’Advertising: A short introductionAdvertising and the meaning of ‘stuff’Commodities, culture and advertisementsConclusion: Advertising and its relationship to consumption9. SemioticsIntroduction: The ‘study of signs’A short history of semioticsThe components of ‘the sign’Beyond the surface: Denotation, connotation and mythReality and the sign: Content versus perspectiveConclusion: Semiotics for life10. Online DatingIntroductionDating 101Finding love: How hard can it be?Online datingOnline motivationsSome student stories (and a little bit of theory)11. PostmodernismIntroductionThe modern–postmodern shift (or plummet)A logical approach to postmodernism: The question of originsYou have to ‘get’ modernism firstPostmodernism definedHyperreal expectationsBaudrillard’s simulacraJameson’s pastiche and Lévi-Strauss’s bricolageA conclusion (of sorts)PART 2: CONTENT AND CULTURE12. Reading Film: Techniques, Identification and IdeologyIntroduction: Simply a story or something beneath the surface?The construction of meaning in film: Defining ideologyFraming our emotions and affecting our ideas: ‘But I love them; they can’t die!’A ‘visual grammar’: Film and the tools of meaning-makingGendered power relations in The Castle: ‘A man’s house is his castle’13. Organisational and Professional CommunicationIntroductionWhat exactly is organisational communication?Digital or mediated communication: The modern world of organisational communicationA brief history of organisations and communicationModels help us understand the complexity of communicationUniforms: What do they ‘say’?Conclusion14. Values, Ideals and Power in the Brave New Digital WorldIntroductionInternet innovation and cyber-libertarian values to swift marketisationThe true cost of free: Behavioural marketing, social networking and privacySocial networks: Size does matterSo what do we need in internet policy?PART 3: COMMUNICATION15. Constructed RealityIntroduction: ‘Let’s go phishing!’Data mining—phishing’s semi-respectable cousinSecurity, naivety and life onlineThe increasing irrelevance of the online/offline distinctionTo play or not to play: Looking for love onlineTypes of play: Paidia and ludus (or tales of the sandpit)Facebook, online forums and (declining?) literacyDenotation and connotationThe techno-legal time-gap16. Navigating Social Media: Identity, Privacy and Performativity in the Digital AgeIntroductionOnline communities: What is social media and what is it for?‘Identity’ in everyday life: Profiling our selvesGaining or losing control: ‘Get out of my face, stay out of my space!’Adopting social media in the public sphere: Poke a politicianPerforming online: The impact of celebrity culture17. Games, Culture and TechnologyIntroduction: Mapping the terrainStudying gamer cultureEmerging trends in games and games researchSocial gaming and the gamification of everything18. Technology, Piracy, Creativity and OwnershipIntroductionGenealogy: A simple metaphorMechanical invention: The printing press, books and the PCSoftware development: From analogue to digitalSocial change: Adoption, adaptation and then dependenceThe motivation to piratePlagiarism: Ease, speed and pressureConclusion19. SurveillanceIntroductionThe panopticon(How) Do we live in a surveillance society?‘Big Brother’ gives way to lots of ‘Little Brothers’?Prisons, CCTV, data mining, cashless canteens and now FacebookHas surveillance been normalised?20. Reality TV and Constructed RealityIntroductionReality television: Learning to discourseWhat do you meme?(Cultural) HegemonyStuart Hall and encoding/decoding: do not go quietlyRevisiting the prison: Foucault, the panopticon and Big Brother21. Conclusion: Do We Communicate ‘Less’ or ‘More’ in the Digital Age?