Interdisciplinary Topics Course (202-0-70)

Topic

Digital Media Ethics

Instructors

Heather Jaber

Meeting Info

Northwestern Qatar Room 3-203: Mon, Wed 10:00AM - 11:15AM (AST)

Overview of class

Should holograms of Umm Kulthum or Michael Jackson be giving concerts? Do robot waiters and jockeys have rights? How are digital scandals around the body rooted in histories of nation-building? What are ethics in the world of the digital and how are they shaped? This course emphasizes transnational scholarship to consider the ways that we learn to live with digital media, exploring the way that systems of culture and power shape our moral dilemmas online. We will investigate several questions, such as: How do we consider charges against public decency, family values, and morality, which shape online controversies in the Global South and the MENA region? What is the place of scandal or the sacred in the realm of the digital? What forms of invisible labor shape our relationship to social media? What are the mechanics of surveillance and how do they relate to persisting global power asymmetries? What is the role of technology corporations in shaping our digital media landscape, considering an increasing reliance on digital media to help us navigate the world and even tell us about our own bodies? This course explores locally situated questions of ethics, considering their tension with ideas of the universal. It also examines the role of states, technology platforms, and corporations in shaping these landscapes of acceptability. Students will learn how to engage in media critique about issues related to digital media, apply case studies to course concepts, and situate ethical issues within their sociohistorical and political contexts.

Registration Requirements

Prerequisites: None

Open to First-year students and sophomores

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: NUQ: Seats are reserved for Sophomore and Freshmen only.