Disciplinary Mapping: Digital Cultures
LENGTH: 1000 words (Please note: If your submission is below or above the +/- 10% threshold, e.g. 1100 or 900, your grade will be affected.)
Aims
The purpose of this assignment is to apply your disciplinary knowledge and expertise to an aspect of a chosen case study. This is useful for thinking about the skills you have developed over the course of your degree, and is also important preparation for Assignment 2, the Case Study Project (a group assignment).
Task
The assignment consists of two parts:
Part A) Identify and critically reflect upon your discipline (600 words)
In this section you will identify and critically reflect on the features of your disciplinary knowledge, and the assumptions, research skills and practices associated with your discipline. You will find it useful to draw on readings, lecture materials, workshop experiences and your own research. You might use some of the following questions to prompt your reflection in this section:
• What is the subject matter of your discipline?
• What approach(es) does your discipline adopt to research?
• What kind of theoretical frameworks, paradigms, or specific practices tend to prevail in your discipline?
• Are there specific methodologies and data that your discipline prefers to employ in conducting research?
• Have there been any major recent changes/developments in the way the discipline has unfolded?
• Are you aware of any debates and/or divisions existing within your discipline and/or criticism towards your discipline?
Throughout your assignment, it will be helpful to support your discussion with specific details (e.g. explain a theory, say how a particular practice is used, or provide an example of a specific development or debate).
Part B) Apply your disciplinary knowledge (400 words)
For this part, you will select one of the case studies available in the unit (these are available to view via the Case Studies modules). (Do not forget to name the case study that you select. You may find it helpful to choose the case study your group is considering for the Case Study Project, but you do not have to.)
Consider how your disciplinary perspectives, as discussed in the first part, can help you contribute to addressing one of the driving questions set for this case study (you should identify the specific question you are discussing). You might consider questions like:
• What theory or methodology from your discipline could be helpful to address the question and why?
• Or, what type of data would you employ to address the problem and why would it be helpful?
• What kinds of proposals could your discipline provide to address the problem?
Disciplinary Mapping: Digital Cultures
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Disciplinary Mapping: Digital Cultures
Part A: Digital Cultures Discipline
The field of digital cultures focuses on the interaction between new media technologies and several facets of contemporary society, including culture, politics, business, and everyday living. As the world of technology keeps evolving, digital cultures discipline seeks to explore the link between new media technologies and cultural practices related to knowledge, communication, and information. In essence, the field aims to generate an understanding of the design, regulation, circulation, and consumption of technology. Drawing on other disciplines such as media studies, history, sociology, and cultural studies, the discipline equips one with knowledge about changes that accompany new media technologies.
Research is a major part of the discipline as it helps discover how the interaction between media technologies and society occurs. The field of digital cultures discipline adopts several approaches to research, including content analysis, archival research, depth interviews, and surveys (Lule, 2013). Content analysis encompasses the analysis of different media forms to understand not only the people who consume them but also their creators. This approach to research is inexpensive and easy because researchers only need access to media to be analyzed (Lule, 2013). Archival research is employed by researchers when reviewing older media such as newspapers, television programs, films, and radio programs (Lule, 2013). Depth interviews allow researchers in the field to ask study participants direct questions related to their experiences and perceptions. Through surveys, researchers in the field of digital cultures gain an understanding of media consumption patterns and the relationship between media consumption and lifestyle.
While there are several theoretical frameworks in the field of digital cultures, I think the one that tends to prevail is uses and gratification theory because it gives the consumer an active role. Uses and gratification theory has it that consumers utilize media to meet specific desires or needs (Lule, 2013). This fulfillment of needs results in ultimate gratification (Whiting & Williams, 2013). For example, in the research by Whiting and Williams (2013), the authors employed the uses and gratification theory to understand consumers’ use of social media. The theory is thus integral in the discipline because it facilitates an understanding of how and why people use different forms of media.
Researchers in the field tend to prefer survey methodology to conduct research. In this case, researchers utilize standardized interviews or questionnaires to systematically collect data about participants and their behaviors, preferences, and thoughts (Pelz, n.d.). As informed by Pelz (n.d.), surveys can be employed for explanatory, exploratory, and descriptive research, and they are integral in measuring unobservable data like the preferences of people. Therefore, the data researchers use in the field can be qualitative or quantitive. In the field of digital cultures, surveys are integral in understanding consumer preferences in relation to different forms of media. With the proliferation of internet technologies, surveys can be carried out online to collect opinions and preferences of users of different media.
A major development in the way digital cultures discipline has unfolded in the recent past relates to immersive technology, which refers to the type of technology that blurs the boundary between virtual and physical worlds (Suh & Prophet, 2018). Specific technologies inclu...