Understanding Digital Societies

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SOCI 2018AED

Course Guide
Understanding Digital Societies

SOCI 2018AED

Course Guide

Understanding Digital Societies

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Course Coordinator:

Dr Chan Wai Leung, BSSc (Hons), MPhil (CUHK); EdD (Bristol)

Course Developer:

Adopted from The Open University (UK)

Advisory prerequisite(s)

SOSC 1022AED or SOSC 1022ACD

Aims

The overall aims of this course are to help students to understand the societal, political and environmental impacts of digital technology. This course will unpack digital societies in relation to three broad technological themes: individuals and society; power and inequality; and people and things. These themes broadly correspond to the sociological ideas and real-life examples presented to students across four modules.

Contents

  • The digital sociological imagination
  • The presentation of self in digital spaces
  • Planning the cities of the future
  • Migration, diaspora and transnationalism in the digital age
  • Transnational digital networks: Families and religion
  • Semi-autonomous digital objects: Between humans and machines
  • Freedom, fetishes and cyborgs
  • Health and digital technologies: the case of walking and cycling
  • Material digital technologies
  • Disinformation, “fake news” and conspiracies
  • Cybersecurity, digital failure and social harm
  • Too much, too young? Social media, moral panics and young people's mental health
  • Algorithms

Learning support

The students will be supported throughout the course by regular learning support in the form of tutorials and day schools.

Assessment

There will be five required assignments for assessment purposes.

Online requirement

Students are required to submit assignments via the Online Learning Environment (OLE).