course-details-portlet

KULT1101

Digital Cultures

Choose study year
Credits 7.5
Level Foundation courses, level I
Course start Autumn 2025
Duration 1 semester
Language of instruction Norwegian
Location Trondheim
Examination arrangement Home examination

About

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.

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

Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture

Examination

Examination

Examination arrangement: Home examination
Grade: Letter grades

Ordinary examination - Autumn 2025

Home examination
Weighting 100/100 Examination aids Code A Date Release 2025-11-21
Submission 2025-12-05
Time Release 09:00
Submission 14:00
Duration 10 days Exam system Inspera Assessment

Ordinary examination - Spring 2026

Home examination
Weighting 100/100 Examination aids Code A Duration 10 days Exam system Inspera Assessment