Links

• Course Calendar
• Moodle

Course Description

Digital Culture is an examination of the rhetoric and ethics of internet technology and culture. Introduces theories of digital culture and its effects on both online and actual identities and communities, especially in relation to ethnicity, gender, class, physical ability, and sexual orientation. Includes individual and collaborative analysis and construction of web projects.

Identical to COM 330 and LBS 511. Satisfies the university's general education requirement for a writing-intensive course in general education or the major, not both. Satisfies the university general education requirement in U.S. diversity. Prerequisite: completion of the university writing foundation requirement (RHT 150 & RHT 160).

Course Goals

Students in WRT 330 will:

• Become familiar with how the concepts of intellectual property, privacy, and community are being revised in a digital age.
• Study and apply theories of digital culture and its effects on online communities, especially in relation to ethnicity, gender, class, physical ability, and sexual orientation.
  
• Take a critical approach to understanding how and why computer technologies may affect education, democracy, identity, and culture.
• Develop strategies for analyzing digital documents, communities, and places.
• Use their knowledge about our evolving digital cultures to develop a variety of analytical and creative projects for the web, including visual arguments, digital stories, websites, videos, blogs, and wikis.
• Gain some experience working with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Audacity, Moviemaker, and other digital tools.

Required Texts

Readings will be provided.

Course Policies

• Absences. Since WRT 330  is a collaborative, discussion-based course, I expect everyone to attend every class session. However, I understand that "life" happens, and I permit you to be absent from up to two class sessions without penalty. For each absence beyond two your final grade will be lowered by 0.3, and six or more absences is grounds for automatic failure. If you fail to sign the attendance sheet on a given day, if you miss roll call without notifying me, or if you fail to participate in a required online activity, it will count as an absence. If you have been absent from a class, please do not ask me what you missed; consult the online course calendar or your classmates instead.
• Technology. Technology excuses are generally not viable in this class. You are responsible for practicing sound data management, thoroughly testing your work before and after submission, and taking all other reasonable precautions for putting up with technology.
• Communication. You are responsible for keeping up with your oakland.edu email account and regularly checking the class Moodle site for updates to the News forum.
• Collaboration. When working collaboratively, your group is responsible for sharing the most current versions of your work. You may want to get in the habit of distributing your group's most current drafts at the end of every in-class work day using email, Oakshare, or Google Docs.
• Late work. I reserve the right not to accept late work. When I do accept late work, I reserve the right to return it at my leisure.
• Email queries. I am always happy to answer your questions by email, but I reserve the right not respond to questions whose answers are readily available from the course webpage, on the Moodle site, in assignment descriptions, etc.
• Plagiarism. All work in this class must meet the standards of Oakland University's Academic Conduct Regulations.
• This syllabus. I reserve the right to revise this syllabus throughout the semester.

Assignments

There will be four major assignments in this class, listed below, which are due on the dates listed in the course calendar. You must complete all of these assignments to receive a passing grade. The assignments are as follows:

1. Digital Autobiography
2. Emerging Media Project
3. Rhetorical Analysis Project
4. Digital Ethnography

Grading

I will give grades (0.0, 1.0–4.0) for all graded assignments in this class. The final grade is determined as follows:

ADA Notice

Students with disabilities who may require reasonable accommodations should contact Oakland University’s Disability Support Services office for assistance:

• Phone: (248) 370-3266
• TTY: (248) 370-3268
• Fax: (248) 370-4989
• Email: doss@oakland.edu.