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ENGL5360 Seminar in Screen Studies
Convergence and Control

OSU STW Fall 2007

Professor Stacy Takacs

Course Description
In the 1990s media theorists speculated that digitalization would lead to a form of technological convergence that would make old media distinctions obsolete and enable a new utopia of interactive exchange. While this has not quite come to pass, there have been some significant changes in the forms and functions of our media systems. This class will examine some of these trends and what they mean for an interpretation of late capitalist culture. How exactly has such "convergence" altered media production, distribution, and reception? And what does this mean for society? Does convergence really portend greater social freedom and consumer empowerment, or does it represent a new, more efficient mode of social control? What theories might help us come to grips with this emerging media environment and its relationship to social regulation? The course takes a materialist approach to cultural study, which means we will be interested in how cultural productions relate to specific historical contexts, actors and their relations.

Texts | Course Policies | Schedule

Texts

  • Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture
  • Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital
  • Mark Andrejevic, Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched
  • Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs
  • Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol 1 (Optional)
  • A selection of individual essays that will be posted in the READINGS folder of the Desire2Learn (D2L) site for this class (https://oc.okstate.edu)

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Course Policies

Participation: Students are expected to attend every class and participate actively in class discussions. You will also be assigned to lead class discussion at least once during the semester. You will be asked to identify an example of convergence (in any of its various meanings) and use that example to explain, extend or complicate terms, processes, and practices discussed in class. Use your examples as "objects to think with"; that is, starting points for class discussion, questioning, and debate. Participation will account for 10% of your grade.

Course Blog: You will be responsible for writing a brief (200-400 words) response to the week's readings AT LEAST 8 TIMES during the 15 week semester. Postings will be due THE DAY BEFORE we are scheduled to discuss the subject texts (i.e. every Tuesday), and you may submit no more than one posting a week. You will post your "blog" entry in the DISCUSSION section of D2L. The postings should begin by asking a question the week's readings raised in your mind. Then, offer your thoughts on the answer. For example, when we talk about the development of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), you could ask "How does CGI cause us to rethink assumptions about the "ontology" of the film image (its "essence," if you will)?" then venture an answer to your own question. You may also read and respond to a peer's questions as long as you add new knowledge. Each response will be worth 50 points, and together they will comprise 40% of your grade.

Ten Page Essay: YOU WILL WRITE AN ANALYTICAL ESSAY OF CONFERENCE PRESENTATION LENGTH (8-10 PAGES) THAT WILL BE DUE DURING FALL BREAK (10/10). Your essay should identify and analyze one example of the larger phenomenon of "convergence culture" we have been talking about. This may be an example that illustrates how media forms or aesthetics are converging and to what effect, or it could be a more general example of how media convergence seeps over into and reshapes our social experience ("facebook" as an example of social networking and how this differs from prior ideas about communal relations, for example). YOU SHOULD PRESENT ME WITH A 1-2 PAGE ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPER BY 9/19. This essay will be worth 25% of your grade.

Final Essay: You have two options here:

  1. You can expand your first essay into a longer essay of article length (20-25 pages).
  2. You can write a completely new 8-10 page essay on a topic of your choice related to class readings, discussions, and concepts.

YOU SHOULD PRESENT ME WITH A 1-2 PAGE ABSTRACT (OPTION 2) OR PROPOSAL FOR REVISION (OPTION 1) BY 11/7. The full paper will be due Monday of Finals Week (12/10). This essay will be worth 25% of your grade

Academic Honesty: Needless to say, all work you turn in for this class must be your own work. Plagiarism of any sort, incidental or intentional, will resort in failure for the course. See OSU's Academic Integrity Policy for more information.Grade Breakdown

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Schedule of Readings

  • Readings starred with an Asterisk (*) can be found in the "Readings" folder of D2L
  • Remember to complete all readings and post your blog entries at least one day BEFORE class.
8/22 Introduction: What do we mean by convergence?
Technological Basis of Convergence
8/29 Negroponte, Being Digital
Economic Basis of Convergence
9/5 *Armand Mattelart, "Globalization: Networks of the Postnational Economy"
*Edward Hermann & Robert McChesney, “The Global Media in the Late 1990s”
*Michael Curtin, "Media Capitals: Cultural Geographies of Global TV"
*Serra Tinic, "Going Global: International Coproductions and the Disappearing Domestic Audience in Canada"
Theorizing Media Convergence
9/12 *Marshall McLuhan, from Understanding Media
*Bill Nichols, "The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems"
*Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin, "Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation"
*Lev Monovich, "What is New Media?"
Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, "Introduction"
Remediation & Film
9/19

*Barbara Klinger, from Beyond the Multiplex
*Lev Manovich, "Compositing"
*Angela Ndalianis "Special Effects, Morphing Magic & 1990s Cinema of Attractions"
Jenkins, CC, Chapter 3

Abstract for Essay 1 Due

Remediation & TV
9/26 *Gary Copeland, "Logo-Mania"
*John Caldwell, "Convergence Television: Aggregating Form and Repurposing Content in the Culture of Conglomeration"
*William Boddy, "Interactive Television and Advertising Form"
*Lisa Parks, "Flexible Micro-Casting: Gender, Generation & TV-Internet Convergence"
Social Networking
10/3 *Manuel Castells, "Exploratory Theory of the Network Society"
Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs, Chapters 2 & 5
Jenkins, CC, Chapters 1 & 6
10/10

Class Cancelled—Fall Break

Essay 1 Due (Submit during Office Hours, 1:30-3:30 pm, MH311E)
Convergence of Culture (Mass, Popular)
10/17 Jenkins, CC, Chapters 2 & 4 + Conclusion
Convergence as Liberation: Liberation as Control?
10/24 *Foucault, "Two Lectures"
--- "Right of Death and Power Over Life" in History of Sexuality, Vol 1
*Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, "Micropolitics and Segmentarity"
*Deleuze, "Postscript on the Society of Control"
Mark Andrejevic, Reality TV, Chapters 1-2
10/31 Mark Andrejevic, Reality TV, Chapters 3-5
11/7

Andrejevic, Reality TV, Chapters 6-8

Optional Readings on Theory: *Slavoj Zizek, "How the Non-Duped Err"; *Todd Gitlin, "Bits Bytes and Savvy Talk"

Abstract for Essay 2 Due
Convergence & the Reconfiguration of Time-Space
11/14 *David Harvey, "Time-Space Compression and the Postmodern Condition"
*Arjun Appadurai, "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy"
*MacKenzie Wark, "The Weird Global Media Event & the Tactical Intellectual [V. 3.0]"
*David Morley, "At Home with Television"
*Fiona Allon, "An Ontology of Everyday Control"
11/21 Thanksgiving—Class Canceled
Mobile Ecology
11/28 *Gerard, Goggin, "The Third Screen: Mobile Internet and Television" & "Art of Location"
*Geoff Cooper, "The Mutable Mobile: Social Theory in the Wireless World"
Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs, Chapter 7
*Shaun Moores, "The Doubling of Place: Electronic Media, Time-Space Arrangements & Social Relationships"
Immersive Environments: Internet / Video Games
12/5 *Tara McPherson, "Reload: Liveness, Mobility, and the Web"
*Lev Manovich, "Navigable Space"
*Bolter and Grusin, "Computer Games"
*Roger Stahl, "Have You Played the War on Terror?"
12/10 Final Essay Due—Note: This is a Monday!

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