OutsideTheText

Classes for Fall 08 (University of Texas at Dallas)

• Digital Rhetoric and Contemporary Politics-ATEC 4372:Mass media plays a crucial role in politics and, more specifically, in how we elect our presidents. In the latest election cycles, citizen-generated media has played an increasingly important role. Digital networked communication has undeniably shifted not only the form but the content of political messages. Against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential election cycles, we will analyze the role that New Media has on contemporary politics. However, we will not only analyze this contemporary political rhetoric but produce it as well, seeking to insert the class in the larger national political discussion. Students will be required to produce various media formats (text, video, audio) which engage with contemporary politics.
• Networked Knowledge-ATEC 6V81:In the introduction to Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold argues that in the future people will be divided between “those who know how to use new media to band together [and] those who don’t” (xix). In this class we will examine how the technological change from the analog to the digital effects the ability to produce and disseminate knowledge and how networked media are changing not only the form of knowledge but its content as well. Once powerful institutions seem to be losing relevance by the day (consider how quickly Wikipedia has trumped Britannica). At the same time we should not too quickly view these new networked digital spaces as utopian democracies, for there are still substantial rhetorical and cultural forces at work. Central to our examination will be how technology, rhetoric, and ethics shape our use of networked communication.