Southern Federal University
Media Technologies in the Contemporary City
Prepared by Ph.D. Zakovorotnaya Margarita
Lecturer: Zakovorotnaya Margarita, Ph.D.
Full-Time Professor
Department of Theory of Culture, Ethics and Aesthetics
Institute of Philosophy and Socio-Political Studies
Southern Federal University
Rostov-on-Don, Russia
e-mail:
Type: compulsory
Level of students: MA
Credits: 2
Southern Federal University
Role of the course in the overall degree curriculum
This course explores the history of media and its role in the urban development, it explores the associated technologies. It uncovers why we think of ours as "the information age." The course focuses on the evolution of production, recording, and storage of information in the different media from the earliest writing systems to the world of Internet, Web 2.0, serious games and blogs.
The aim of the course is to answer when and how and why, and we will keep returning to the question of technological determinism: how do technological developments affect society and vice versa?
The course “Media Technologies in the Contemporary City” is developed for Master students specialized in Cultural Studies. The course is strongly recommended for Master Programme in the Institute of Philosophy and Socio-Political Studies. It is the list of professional compulsory disciplines.
The necessity to take this course is explained by the following. The media plays an increasingly significant role in the contemporary culture. They shape our social, cultural, economic and political interests.
Aim and tasks of the course
The main aim of the course is to analyse the changes of media and cultural landscape of the city in the second half of the XXth century – beginning of the XXI century.
This course aims: to expose students to several theories of media in social and cultural development in the XX – XXI century, to conceptualise the contemporary social and cultural experience of media changes, to present their proper answers the following questions:
· How is the media and cultural landscape changing?
· What role do media, culture and communication play in the construction of our identity?
· What role do media play in the construction of personal, group and national identity?
· How the media works?
· What effects media can have to audiences?
· How individuals make sense of what they see or hear in the media?
· How do communications change our life in the age of multimedia?
This course also aims to explore the answers to the challenging questions and to equip the students the competences to use different media technologies in urban context of the globalised world.
Learning Objectives
I. To observe different types of media as modes of communication.
II. To conceptualize the knowledge and the history of media emphasizing social, cognitive and cultural impacts of technological change in the contemporary cities in Europe, Russia, the Northern America and Asia.
III. To construct their personal vision of the role of media and media systems in the development of the contemporary cities.
Specific Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course the students might be able to:
1. Employ discussions, collaborative problem solving.
2. Develop critical thinking and learning, prepare the synthesis of current trends in literature connected with Multimedia, Virtual reality, IT.
3. Develop writing activities.
4. Develop activities using Blogs, Webcasts, PaperLi, PowerPoint, Prezi, Quizzes (sent by Survey Monkey).
Structure of the Course
The course consists of the three modules: observe, conceptualize, construct.
Teaching methods used
The students will benefit from a variety of teaching methods: from interactive lectures to group work, seminars, and personal research project.
One of the key features of “Media Technologies in Contemporary Cities” course is the active participation of students in the process of learning and communicating. The students will be introduced to the latest debates and developments in this field of study.
Career prospects
Students who successfully complete the degree will be equipped to seek a career in media and cultural organisations. In general, employers value graduates who can synthesize information, communicate orally and in writing with clarity and empathy, work as a part of team.
Relevant employment sectors include education, growing rapidly in Russia media-based industries, the civil service, international organisations, marketing, advertising, public relations, publishing, tourism.
Course content
Module 1 – ObserveIntroduction lecture.
Week 1. Lecture “In Age of Information”
In the beginning the students will be introduced to the aims as well as to the content and concerns of the course. This lecture will touch the following themes: What is the history of the “Information age” and the “Information society” understanding? What is the difference between the “Information society” and Postindustrial society? What are the basic tendencies in economics, political sphere, international relations in the Information society? What is it the Knowledge Society? What is it “knowledge factor”?
Reading List:
Must to know sources
Toffler, A. Powershift. Bantam Press. N. Y. 1990. P. 3-25 (the text will be proposed by professor to the students)
Participation in the first Quiz “Your Media Habits”The Quiz “Your Media Habits” will be sent by Professor
Week 2. Seminar “What is it information? What is Communication?”
This seminar will touch the following themes: What is the notion of information? What is the relation to Communication? What is the relation to Control? What is the relation to the system development? What is the relation to programming, social programming?
Reading List:
Required Reading
Beniger, J. R. The Control Revolution. Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge. Harvard Un. Press, 1991. P. 31-61.
Week 3. Lecture “Media Revolutions”
Critical inquiry into fundamental theoretical issues and debates in the study of media. How media create, organize, store and transmit communication. Analysis of human responses to changes in media technologies and systems. Brief History of media theory. Marshall McLuhan as the main representative of Toronto School of Communication.
The basic features of McLuhan media theory. Technologies of communication. The literate revolution: the classical and Middle Ages. The Print revolution: the Enlightenment and the Modern Age. The Digital revolution: the Information Age. The main features of each period. The evolution of language, oral tradition and writing: comparative research, meaning making and interpretation, writing as communication technology, memory systems. Orality, Visuality and Numeracy.
The meaning of media, the medium is the message, the extensions and environments of media.
Reading List:
Required reading
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964. P. 3-56.
Optional reading
McLuhan, E. and Zingrone F., Essential McLuhan. New-York, Basic Books, 1995.
McLuhan M., and Fiore Q. The Medium is the Massage. An Inventory Effects. New York, Random House. 1967.
Module 2. ConceptualizeWeek 4. Lecture. “Gutenberg Galaxy”
The basic features of McLuhan media theory. The Literate revolution.
What is the role of a book as a form of media in our life? How do media change our thinking, speaking? The Print revolution. Printing, reconfiguration of the Intellectual landscape.
Individualization and Industrialization. European National Identity formation.
Reading List:
Required reading
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964. P. 81-89, 157-164. .
Optional reading
Eisenstein, E. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Cambridge: Cambridge Un. Press, 1979.
Week 5. Lecture. “All alone by telephone”
The basic features of McLuhan media theory. The repetition, representation. Communication of culture and knowledge. Telegraph, telephone as main media in the XIX-XXth centuries.
Reading List:
Required reading
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964. P. 246-258, P. 265-275.
Optional reading
Castells, Manuel et al. 2007. Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective
Week 6. Seminar
Film Notre Dame de Paris. Discussion.
Discussion of the film in the Blog under the animation of professor.
Week 7. Lecture. “Electronic Media”
Electronic Media. Hot and cool media. Overwhelming, high-definition hot media (cinema, radio), involving, low definition cool media (television, telephone). The mood of electronic time, electronic media as a new environment, changing senses, mentality, ratios, changing perceptions of time, space.
Reading List:
Required reading
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964. P. 284-338.
Optional reading
Spiegel, Lynn. Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago, London, Un. Chicago Press. 1992.
Week 8. Lecture. “Global Village”
The Global Village. The simultaneous and participatory aspects of public communication within village life on a global scale, contemporary electronic media: Internet, mobile communication, participatory democracy in the electronic environment. Ethical, political implications of the new Human tribe, global collaborative project: Wikipedia. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Global village?
Reading List:
Required reading
McLuhan M., and Fiore , Q with Agel, J. War and Peace in the Global Village. New York. McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968.
Optional reading
McLuhan M. Culture is our Business. New York: McGraw Hill, 1970.
Week 9.
Lecture. “Virtuality”
The Digital revolution. The visualization of information. Virtual Self. Virtualization: its notion and laws, Culture of Real Virtuality (M. Castells). New forms of creativity in the Information Age.
Reading List:
Required reading
Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society. Vol. 1. Oxford, Blackwell. 1998.
Week 10. Seminar.
The Matrix film watching.
Discussion of the film in the Blog under the animation of professor.
Module 3. ConstructWeek 11. Lecture “Constructing Media Identities in the Contemporary Cities”
Construction of identities through media images, information technologies.
Communicating Personal, National or Collective identities, examples of interpersonal communication. Individuality and Identity problems: subjects to cultural and social pressures to determine ourselves. How Culture of Real virtuality places itself within individuals?
Reading List:
Required reading
Giddens, A. Modernity and Self. Identity, Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press,1991.
Optional reading
Baumeister, R. Identity, cultural change and Struggle for Self. N.Y. Oxford Un. Press,1986.
Week 12. Lecture “Constructing Feminine Media Identities in the Contemporary Cities”
Construction of feminine identities through media images, information technologies.
Media and women. The main stages of feminine identity development in the second half of the XXth century.
Reading List:
Required reading
McRobbie, A. Post-feminism and popular culture: Bridget Jones and the new gender regime. In Media and Culture Theory. Ed. By Curran J., Morley D. Routledge, London, P. 59-71.
Optional Reading
Giddens, A. Modernity and Self. Identity, Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.
Week 13. Seminar.
The Gentlemen Prefer Blondes film watching.
Discussion of the film in the Blog under the animation of professor.
Week 14. Lecture. “Constructing New Education?”
Construction of knowledge in education: is it possible in the Age of Information?
New ways of education construction based on IT. The “C” generation or what happens after 1982? The importance of a new media in education, new ways of learning, the role of books and literacy, the role of Internet, electronic education resources. Information and knowledge.
Reading List:
Required reading
Oblinger, D. Growing up with Google. What it means to education. // Emerging technologies for learning. BECTA, volume 3. 2008. P. 11-30.
Optional reading
Collins, A. Halverson, R. Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schools. N.Y.: Teachers College Press. 2009.
Week 15. Lecture. “Constructing National Identities?”
Constructing National Identities in the Information Age. Basic factors of National Identity Construction in the Information Age. National Model of Identity Construction: American, European (French, German), Japanese models. The contemporary variants: Canadian, Scandinavian, Taiwan models. The main features of Russian model, the peculiarities, the perspectives of development.
Reading List:
Required reading
Castells, M. The Power of Identity. Vol. 2. Oxford, Blackwell. 1998.
Optional reading
Giddens, A. Modernity and Self. Identity, Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press,1991.
Week 16
Participation in the final Quiz “Your new Media Habits”Weeks 17-18
Final presentations in PowerPoint or PaperLi (by choice).
The themes for presentations should be chosen from the list of themes discussed during the course.
1. History of Mass Media development.
2. What is it information? What is communication?
3. The contemporary concepts of media development.
4. The basic features of media development. The screen generation.
5. The Global Village: M. McLuhan theory.
6. The laws of media: M. McLuhan theory. The principles of interaction of Space, Time, information, Communication.
7. The problem of Time in the contemporary culture: D. Harvey. Time in the Multimedia age.
8. The basic Information revolutions. Their influence on culture and thinking. Logos and Media. Culture and Communication.
9. Culture of Real Virtuality. Timeless Time, logics of spontaneity. New electronic styles if living.
10. Internet as a new media.
11. The basic models of Information and Media development.
12. The Humans in the information flows: social, cultural, psychological aspects.
The reading list to the course
1. Beniger, J. R. The Control Revolution. Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge. Harvard Un. Press, 1991.
2. Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society. Vol. 1. Oxford, Blackwell. 1998.
3. McLuhan, M. Understanding Media: The Extensions of the Man. N. Y. 1962.
4. Toffler, A. Powershift. Bantam Press. N. Y. 1990.
Supplemented reading
5. Baumeister, R. Identity, cultural change and Struggle for Self. N.Y. Oxford Un. Press, 1986.
6. Castells, M. The Power of Identity. Vol. 2. Oxford, Blackwell. 1998.
7. Castells, Manuel et al. 2007. Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective.
8. Castells, Manuel. 2004. The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.
9. Clapes, A. Softwars. The legal Battles for Control of the Global Software Industry. Quorum Books. 1993.
10. Harvey, D. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford. Blackwell, 1990.
11. McQuail Denis. Mass Communication Theory. Sage Publications. London., 1994.
12. Media and Cultural Theory. Ed. By James Curran and David Morley. Routledge. London. 2006.