Instructor: David Rheams
Office: N/A
Office hours: By Appointment
Email: [email protected]
Class Website: www.drheams.com (Current Corses)
Lecture : Online (W 6-9p)
Location: Blackboard Collaborate
Department: Arts Technology and Emerging Communication at UT- Dallas
This course asks the question: "What should Facebook have known to prevent the Cambridge Analytical scandal?" and other pressing questions in new media communications.
Ethics in New Media, Technology, and Communications is a course for those who plan to work in software companies, media companies, or game companies responsible for shaping how others interact with each other digitally. I am a digital media practitioner with 14 years of experience in software and advertising technology firms. The class will draw on both theory and personal experience to define and develop a praxis of digital media ethics.
It's a unique time to be teaching and taking this course, as the online delivery suggests, we are all living online even more than we were in January. Developing ways to make online life ethical seems a worthy pursuit, and I'm excited that we'll be working through these topics together.
First, we will develop our working definition of ethics and then develop constructs to work through these issues. The lenses this class will use (and you'll hear this in conversations and lectures) are to consider the following in any ethical issue:
We'll cover the foundations of ethics as well (starting in Week 2) to ensure we have a solid footing to approach the semester on. In addition to the provided materials I'm going to be posting conversations I've had with industry experts, legal professionals, philosophers, and software developers. These conversations are meant to guide us and provide some aspect of how these decisions get made on a daily basis. Rarely are people presented with ethical issues that start "can we steal user information to make a profit." Usually, ethical dilemmas are far more hidden, and begin with benign intentions. Learning to recognize issues is the first step in solving them, so that is where our own focus will begin.
The course will follow a relatively rigid schedule, but lectures will not be delivered "live." Rather, I will upload lectures and material every Wednesday by 6:00p.m.
Students are expected to listen to the lectures and other materials and then contribute to a discussion on MS Teams over the course of a week. You do not have to be at your computer every Wednesday.
<aside> 🚧 I will be online for "office hours" Wednesdays at 6:00p. So if you have questions or need help with anything, it is easiest to reach me then.
I will also be asking students to schedule 15 minutes meetings with me once we begin working on the research paper.
</aside>
For every class period there is a "case study" that prompts you to think about a certain topic and determine a best behavior. These are meant to be discussions so please contribute. At minimum, post your response (100 words or so) and reply to someone else's post. The class only works if we all participate together and work through these ideas.
<aside> 🤔 This isn't a class where I present information and your job is to memorize it for future use. Rather, the goal of the class to uncover ideas and present them in a new light so that we can recognize how ethical issues might affect other people and communities.
</aside>
The course is designed to be as 'lightweight' in terms of technology as possible. Most of the content can be read or listened to on an average smartphone. However, you will need a PC or decent tablet for writing and interacting with MS Teams. All graded materials will be submitted via eLearning.
<aside> 📅 Please block out your calendar for July 22 for our writing workshop. It will be held during our normal class times.
</aside>
If you haven't already, please make sure to download and install MS Teams: