Hi Jill, I love this:
Maybe this would also be a good time to bring discussions of pre-internet media and technology and their role in the years before WW2, or even earlier dangerous times, and to compare this to social media etc today?
I'd recommend J. Michael Sproul's article, "Propaganda Studies in American Social Science: The Rise and Fall of the Critical Paradigm," which gives a great overview of the changing nature of mediated political speech in the pre-WWII era, as well as how critical and academic treatments of it evolved over time. He also has a book more recently that touches on these things. I'd also mention Richard John's books, "Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse" and "Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications" for great examinations of the intersection of media infrastructures and technologies on the one hand and civic life on the other. Lastly, I'll plug an upcoming ICA pre-conference that I've been co-organizing with Ramon Lobato and Amanda Lotz that hopes to explore some of these issues. There's still time to submit if you're interested: http://distributionmatters.wordpress.com Cheers, Josh On 2016-11-10 05:57, Jill Walker Rettberg wrote:
Dear all,
After the US elections I am sure many of us, whereever we live, are thinking about how to plan next semester’s teaching so that it helps equip the next generation to deal with an increasingly frightening world.
Within internet research, some obvious topics we can discuss are things like polarisation of polticial views, filter bubbles, algorithmic news filtering and the increasing spread of fake news. More generally, we can design activities that foster critical thinking, empathy, understanding of people who are not like oneself, and relate this to technology/internet/media.
Maybe this would also be a good time to bring discussions of pre-internet media and technology and their role in the years before WW2, or even earlier dangerous times, and to compare this to social media etc today?
I don’t yet have very clear ideas about this, but I would love to share ideas with other internet researchers who teach and who want to do the best we can in our teaching to counteract the racism, sexism, hatred, distrust of government and of others, and general division that is not only affecting the USA but obviously Europe and other parts of the world as well.
I know many of us already teach these things, but maybe not in as focused a way as I think we may need to do in future? Or maybe the resources I’m longing for already exist?
If you have ideas, please share them! If this is something several of us are interested in, we could set up a syllabus/Google doc / Facebook group or something. I’m thinking case studies with readings and lesson plans would be a really useful resource and might be a way we could do some good in all this.
Jill
Jill Walker Rettberg Professor of Digital Culture Dept of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies University of Bergen Postboks 7800 5020 Bergen
+ 47 55588431
Blog - http://jilltxt.net Twitter - http://twitter.com/jilltxt My book "Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves" is out on Palgrave as an open access publication - buy it in print or download it for free! http://jilltxt.net/books
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-- Josh Braun, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies Journalism Department University of Massachusetts Amherst @josh_braun Skype: wideaperture http://wideaperture.net/ new book: http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300197501/program-brought-you "Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain. An inheritance of wonder and nothing more." William Least Heat-Moon