103-210/310 Cybersociety: Information Technology, Society and Self

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Objectives:

Students who complete this subject should:

• critically analyse and evaluate controversial issues relating to information systems in a social context, and argue credible positions in relation to these controversies;

• identify and draw upon the major theoretical and methodological discourses through which the relationship between information systems and society might be understood;

• understand concepts and terms used in an analysis of information system design and function and understand concepts and terms used in an analysis of society and culture;

• critically evaluate utopian and dystopian visions of advanced information systems in a social context.

Content:

Students will engage in a study of information systems in a social and cultural context, and will examine critical issues which lie at the intersection of the social and the technical. The subject brings together knowledge-interests in social science and social theory on the one hand, and computer science and information systems on the other.

Assessment:

Prescribed Texts:

• Poster, M, The Second Media, Polity Press, Cambridge 1995.
• Kling, R (ed), Computerisation and Controversy, (2nd ed.) Academic Press, San Diego 1996.
• Negreponte, N, Being Digital, Hodder and Stoughton, Rydalmere NSW 1995.
• Gibson, W, Neuroromancer, Grafton Books, Glasgow1986.