HS0101 Digital Literacy, Culture & Society

This course will explore the interrelationships among digital media, culture, and society. It takes both an analytical and an issue-based approach to basic questions about what digital media and technologies are, how and why they work as they do, and their significance within contemporary culture and society. In the first half of the course, you will learn about digital media and technologies as part of contemporary society and culture, including social-science theories and concepts to help frame your learning. Here, the course covers a range of digital media and technologies in relation to social institutions, users, culture and meaning. In the second half of the course, you will apply what you have learned through engagement with a series of contemporary digital-media issues. Here, topical issues include big data and AI, fake news, memes, social-media influence, and playbour. Through engagement with these various topics, you will develop critical and creative media literacy skills that are highly relevant to subsequent studies in the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as future work and leisure practices in knowledge-based digital economies.