CCTP748: Media Theory and Digital Culture
Professor Martin Irvine
Communication, Culture & Technology Program
Georgetown University

This course will introduce the central ideas in media and communication theory, semiotics and approaches to meaning systems, and the study of the post-digital media environment. The guiding question of the course: How do we develop a media and communication theory that’s adequate to account for all the forms of media and cross-mediation that we experience today?

Central topics for study will include the continuum of human symbolic systems, the implications of the expanding pan-digital platform for all media, the analog-digital continuum, the question of “big data” and the collective memory of computational networks, and the ongoing renewal of media content through new technologies of digitization.

Students will be expected to create the seminar in real time through readings, discussion, and proposal of cases and examples for study. Grading and weekly seminar assignments will be based on student presentations, short applied theory essays in our weekly discussions on this site, and a final Web-based research project involving the application of a theoretical model to a contemporary or historical case.

See Weekly Writing Instructions  |  Main Web syllabus page

For Guests and Site Visitors

This is the site devoted to the seminar Media Theory and Digital Culture (Spring 2013) in the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program at Georgetown University.

The site is open for guest viewing and reading. Comments and questions can be sent to Professor Martin Irvine (irvinem@georgetown.edu).

The main Web syllabus page is here, and Martin Irvine’s Georgetown home page is here.