This course is designed to examine the effects of communication media on psychological and social processes. In keeping with McLuhan's notion that "the medium is the message", the study of media will invite considerations about how people and institutions are affected by the specific technical, economic and social features of media, especially those that involve mind and language.   

The particular format in which the course will be conducted is in part influenced by McLuhan’s celebrated Monday Night Seminars (1968-1979), at which presentations by guest lecturers were commented on by McLuhan and by the class. In our case, presentations will be given by guest and "in-house" lecturers, including students and auditors themselves.

How can we utilize media theories to understand human processes, mind and societies? McLuhan's thinking and approaches to media and the evolution of knowledge will be used to examine relationships among material artefacts and ideas. Technopsychology will be used to explore how the mind relates to the perception of the world we have created, and how mental and social processes serve as adaptations to media ecologies.

Participants will practice an interdisciplinary approach to research as a group and individually. Through a combination of seminars, guest lectures and participant-led sessions the course will explore applications of the thinking tools to things, situations and issues to gain new awareness and insight. By the end of the course, participants will be able to use the thinking tools to consider views of issues different than typically presented by the conventional mass media, business and government.

• Note that Mind, Media and Society I is not a pre-requisite for this course.

Recommended Reading:

Joel de Rosnay: The Macroscope (available on line); Don Tapscott, Wikinomics; Yochai Benkler The Wealth of Networks; Pierre Levy: Cyberculture; Daniel Kaplan, Digital Civilisations (available in English on line) Lawrence Lessig, Code 2.0 (available in English on line ) ,   Mark Rifkin: The European Dream; Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society; Dana Boyd, The bias of hyperlinks (available on line).

You can also consult annotated bibliographies from MMS 1 offered in the Fall semester of 2008:

Project: Digital Natives http://mpctforum2.pbwiki.com

Projects: Art In Motion and Tactile Cinema http://mpctforum3.pbwiki.com

Project: Semantization of the Internet http://mpctforum4.pbwiki.com

The instructor will provide essential readings and viewings for discussion. Depending on student areas of interest, these may include selected papers and, occasionally, Youtube videolinks by scholars/authors like Marc Prensky, Michael Wesch, Douglas Rushkoff, Felix Stalder, Manuel Castells, Zygmunt Bauman, Gerard Edelman, Clay Shirky, Erkki Huhtamo, Lev Manovich, Mark Federman, Twyla Gibson, Sherry Turkle, Arjun Appadurai, Peter Sloterdijk, Henry Jenkins, Joshua Meyrowitz, and others.

Assignments and Evaluation

Research Files

Students are invited to choose a term-long theme or topic that is likely to serve their own course of study, and to create a wiki file in the website of the class http://mpctforum6.pbwiki.com to expand on the material provided during the course with respect to their own work. The wiki should be visited regularly by the other students, so that when they can do so pertinently, they can on occasion contribute - in comments or directly to the file (wiki page), as the case may be.

Marking scheme

Each student will present on a chosen (group project) theme (20%). Each student will do one major paper (30%) on that theme. Each will contribute wiki content (40%): 1) "research file" to provide a commented and thematically tagged bibliography, including pertinent URLs that will be accessible to all, 2) presentaion file (PowertPoint as PDF), 3) comments on colleagues' work, uploads of files related to group projects. 10% is reserved for general appreciation about class participation, progress, particular excellence, etc.

Grade weighting subject to change in view of student research priorities.