Course Code and Course Title

[CHES3004/CCSS3101/CHES5110] Media China / Selected Themes on Chinese Media

Time and Venue

Wed 2:30pm - 5:15pm
ELB_202

Instructor

Prof. Jacqueline Zhenru Lin

Course Description

This course will introduce students to the digital transformation of China. The phrase “digital transformation” refers to an array of changes in infrastructures, devices, practices and cultures brought by technologies including but not limited to mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and other computers; websites, online games, virtual worlds, social network sites, apps, and blogs; and governments, corporations, nonprofits, activists, users, makers, hackers, players, and friends.

This course is designed to give you ideas, methods, and experience in understanding how these digital technologies in China change people’s lives, career, the future of humanity in the broadest sense. You will explore different facets of digital China: e-commerce innovation, online civil society, virtual arts, platform labour, and geopolitics. A choice of readings will provide opportunities to discuss various methods used to “feel” digital, from ethnographic observation and interviews to digital humanities.

Course Outline

Digital Transformation and the Chinese Experience

Understanding the Digital

Infrastructure Policy and the Creation of the Chinese Digital Landscape

E-commerce, Innovation, and Development

Love, Intimacy, and Family in Digital China

Platforms and Labour

So Hot Right Now: Digital Culture in China

The Digitalization of Power

Public Sphere and Civic Engagement in Digital China

Dreaming of Money in Digital China

Literature, Film, and Art in Digital China

Technonationalism and Globalization