04 May, 2010
Rethink Literacy in New Media
Posted by: Gina Alianiello In: Arts & Humanities|Media Studies
Course / Program Name: New Media Studies
Hosted by / Sponsored by: MIT OpenCourseWare
Course of Study: Arts and Humanities
Course Link: Take this course
Course Description: The theme of this intensive undergraduate/graduate course is literacy and new media. The “myth of literacy” is examined in the many complex contexts of media—from ancient Greek oral and written media to modern interactive technical media. Through theoretical readings and numerous media applications, students question assumptions about language, texts and contradictory definitions of literacy within social systems.
The course directly engages students in a long list of modalities and concepts—including online social networking, fan communities, video gaming, blogging, appropriation and remixing, multitasking, digital photography, animation and podcasting, transmedia navigation, performance, distributed cognition and collective intelligence.
The 25-lecture course includes notes and a comprehensive reading list, including many direct links to resources. Readings include Plato, Goody and Watt, Scribner and Cole, Graff, Brandt, Heath, Lemke, Gee, Alvermann, Jenkins, Hobbs, Pratt, Leander, Dyson, Levy, Kress, and Lankshear and Knobel.
