Learning outcomes
This course has been designed to enable you to:
- Understand the true economic nature & ultimate political effect of social media
- Have gained a sense of the full political, cultural and historical context of social media's effect on society
- Have gained a sense of perspective on the significance of social media as an evolution in human communication technology, relative to its comparables throughout history
Course sessions:
1. The 21st Century & The Nature of Social Media
Lecture 1a provides an overview of our current moment, as liberal democracy faces increasingly political polarity, a polarity that is being exacerbated by social media.
Lecture 1b argues that the divisive role of social media is hardly surprising once one gains an insight on its surprising origins, and startling business model.
2. Social Media's Challenge to Liberalism & Modernity
Lecture 2a outlines the emphatic challenge social media poses to several decades of liberalism, which has been the basis of the international order since the middle of the 20th century.
Lecture 2b then explores the challenge social media poses to several centuries of modernity, emphasising the symmetrical but counterveiling relationship its invention has with that of the printing press.
3. Social Media's Challenge to the Nature of Complex Society
Lecture 3a outlines the challenge social media poses to several millennia of temporality. Does it mark the 'end of history’?
Lecture 3b then considers the true comparables for social media, in terms of previous evolutions in our communications technology. They are not what we think.
4. Social Media as a Vector for Ideological Contagion
Lecture 4a examines the relationship between neoliberalism and social media, and sheds light on some hidden and counter-intuitive consequences of this infernal pairing.
Lecture 4b explores the consequences of seeing social media as a vector for ideological contagion. If we seek a cure, we first need to know the nature of the disease.
5. The Future of a Digitally Mediated Society
Lecture 5a considers how we may inoculate our minds against the ideological bewitchments that have been intensified through social media. The solutions don't lie where we typically think.
Lecture 5b concludes this course by considering our current moment as a liminal stage in human history. But what is liminality, and what tends to happen? How will the story of social media end?
Certificate of Participation
At the end of your Winter Festival course(s) a Certificate of Participation will be sent to you electronically.
Non-credit bearing
Courses on our Virtual Winter Festival of Learning are non-credit bearing.