Course - Digital Cultures - KULT1101
Digital Cultures
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About the course
Course content
This course is about internet culture and how our lives are mediated through platforms, algorithms and artificial intelligens (AI). Through selected case studier, the course investigates online practises, communities and cultures. Examples of such cases are TikTok-memes, role play with chatbotts, influencers use of AI and multimodal fan cultures (the cases will vary from semester to semester, the mentioned topics are only illustrations). The goal is to strenghten your critical perspective on the present by increasing the understanding and knowledge for how digital infrastructure shape trends, self-understandings, politics and community.
At another level, the course sheds light on different internett visions; from internett as a democratizing force to internett as a waste of time, in order to show how technologies are shaped both technologically and culturally. By doing this, the course highlights technology (platforms, algorithms and AI) but also users and the medias narratives and interpretations of them.
The goal is to develop tools for understanding our mediated present, and critically evaluate which role digital technology has in the development of new expressions, identities and relations. The course has a special interest in internet phenomena that are rejected as trivial or meaningless. In addition, we study such phenomena from a users perspective and how users develop new and unexpected forms of interaction and creativity.
The approach to digital cultures is sociotechnical and combine perspectives from Science and technology studies (STS) with internet studies in order to show how technology and society shape each other.
Learning outcome
Students who complete this course have knowledge of:
- different narratives and visions related to the internet
- selected controversies and criticisms directed at Internet phenomena such as memes, influencers, fan culture & fan fiction, hashtag activism and anonymity.
Students who complete this course have skills in:
- analyzing historical and contemporary digitization processes
- contemporary digital cultures in a sociotechnical perspective
- critically evaluating the role of technological and societal changes related to digital technology in new Internet practices
- doing an independent analysis of digital cultures and articulate findings in the academic genre
Learning methods and activities
The course is organized as a net-based study based on video-lectures, literature and short assignments. In addition there will be a few digital seminars during the semester.
Obligatory activities: short tasks in DIGIT/teaching platform + one written assignment
Compulsory assignments
- Written assignment
- Tasks i DIGIT
Further on evaluation
The assessment form is a home exam, which requires passing 1 written exercise and the completion of short tasks after each teaching block in DIGIT/learning platform. Both in written exercise and at home exam, the student will do a smaller data collection in the form of an interview or observation.
Due to significant changes in the course from 2025, allready passed mandatory assignments from earlier semesters will not automatically be valid. This has to be agreed upon with the one responsible for the course. Mandatory assignments are only valid in the semester the course is taken and in the following semester. Postponed exam is the following semester and is a home exam.
Recommended previous knowledge
None
Required previous knowledge
None
Course materials
Will be given at the start of the course.
Subject areas
- Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture
- Science and Technology Studies
- Social Studies
- Social Science
Contact information
Course coordinator
Department with academic responsibility
Examination
Examination
Ordinary examination - Autumn 2025
Home examination
Submission 2025-12-05 Time Release 09:00
Submission 14:00 Duration 10 days Exam system Inspera Assessment