Instructors: Bhallamudi, I. (PI) ; Williams, J. (PI)
The rapid platformization of daily life has transformed the way we live, work, relax, and engage with each other, and has created new forms of inequalities around the world. Platform life has also led to intense anxieties about how we should live ethically, create community, and enact our political values in the face of increasing state and corporate power. In this course, we will apply interdisciplinary theories to explore these questions and examine the social, financial, environmental, technological, and philosophical impacts of digital platforms. Each of these “big questions” will be combined with a session on participatory platform cultures: how audiences gather on social media platforms, how communities resist and subvert platform power, and how creative forms of platform manipulation can yield innovative, even activist results. We encourage students to reflect on their own engagements with online fandom, community and popular culture, increasingly merging with forms of political and social identity and affiliation.