Block 1

Week 1 (11 September): 

Introduction

Resources

• The slides for the first lecture can be found here.
• Watch knowledge clips about WordPress (apologies for the audio quality):
  • Installing (useful if you are interested in getting your own WordPress-powered websites, but not necessary for your course activity)
  • Posts (watch this before making your first post)
  • Themes
• More info on the Gutenberg WordPress Editor (wordpress.com, 2018)
• The History of WordPress (WPBeginner.com, 2023)
• Creative Commons Images for non-Copyright materials for your blogs. You can also try Google Image Search with Usage Rights, Wikimedia Commons, or Archive.org.
• Video on copyright by Youtuber Tom Scott

Read

NB here and below, “read” means before the next class. In addition, unless hyperlinked, the texts can be found on Brightspace.

Here and below, “Fun” means it is an optional thing to do.

• Science Blogging: The Essential Guide
  • Chapter 1 (Wilcox, 2016)
  • Chapter 11 (Lillie, 2016)
• Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message” (p. 8-30 of ‘Understanding Media‘).

Create

• Write your first blog post. Make sure to add your group category to your post!

Other things to do

• Sign up for the course blog using this link.
  • Use your Leiden e-mail!If you are uncomfortable using your own name, you are allowed to use a pseudonym.
• Familiarize yourself with the WordPress CMS Gutenberg editor
  • Make sure you know how to create posts
  • Learn about the Roles plugin (i.e. understand how you can control the visibility of your content)
• On Brightspace: Choose your preference for a podcasting or video-based workshop and portfolio item.
• Fun: Scroll around on Wired, the Verge, listen to Hard Fork, sign up to Platfomer or check out another tech-focused news publication.

Week 2 (18 September): 

A Hyperfast History of the Digital

Resources

• Lecture slides can be found here.

Read

• Digital Media and Society, Chapter 1 (Lindgren 2017)

Create

• Write your second blog.

Things to do

• Get to know about the basic workings of the web through Part 1 of the Working with the Web tutorial.
• Try changing some WordPress settings in this sandbox enviroment.
  • On our course website you don’t have administrator privileges, but if you want this playground to look like our site, you can download Blogstream here. This is the WordPress Theme for this course website.
  • Once you downloaded this theme you can upload the zip file containing the theme to the playground by clicking My WordPress Website -> Dashboard -> Appearance -> Themes -> Add New -> Upload. Don’t forget to press Activate.
• Fun:
  • The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage comic.
  • Explore the Colossus Code Breaker in 3D.

Week 3 (25 September): 

The World Brain(drain)

Resources

• Lecture slides can be found here.

Read

• The Brain Organization of the Modern World, in H.G. Wells’ World Brain (1938).
• The Anatomy of a Search Engine (Brin and Page, 1998). 

Create

• Write your third blog.

Other things to do

• Set featured images on any posts you have made so far.
• Include at least one image, of which you have use rights, in your upcoming wordpress post. Not sure how? Check this.
• Fun:
  • Watch Google and the World Brain documentary on Archive.org
  • Browse some old websites at Archive.org, check out the first World Wide Web browser, or visit this authentic 90’s flower website.
  • Search Books3 to see what books our hungry AI companies are hovering up.

Week 4 (2 October):

The Valley where Gold turned into Silicon (and back again)

Resources

• Lecture slides can be found here.

Read

• Silicon Valley Explained in Adam Fisher’s Valley of Genius. Can be found here (under Read Excerpt).
• Sillicon Valley by Christine Finn in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

Create

• Write your fourth blog.

Things to do

• Familiarize yourself with HTML and WordPress Code Editor, through Part 2 of the Working with the Web tutorial. Try editing part of your post using WordPress’ html code editor.
• Fun:
  • Learn how to make a podcast via the knowledge clips.
  • Listen to some episodes of the Valley of Genius podcast.
  • Inform yourself of the working conditions of the Chinese workers that built the Transcontinental Express.
  • Read Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution or watch the documentary based on it.
  • Check out the Hacker Quarterly or the MIT Gallery of Hacks
  • Read about or watch the origin of “Information wants to be free”
  • Happy Leids Ontzet! Stay safe, healthy and have fun!

Week 5 (9 October):

The Ego Online

• Lecture slides can be found here.

Read

• The I in Internet in Jia Tolentino’s (2019) Trick Mirror.
• ‘The Presentation of Self in the Online World’: Goffman and the study of online identities. Bullingham and Vasconcelos, 2013

Create

• Write your fifth blog.

Things to do

• Fun:
  • Find out about the cool little magic of anchor links! Very useful if you want to or need to reference something in your post (e.g. a bibliographic entry) as a footnote.
  • Learn a bit about making videos with the knowledge clips.
  • Fun: We Live in Public (link to Full Documentary)

Week 6 (16 October):

Algorithmic Culture and Society

• Lecture slides can be found here.
• Original Instagram Research Decks, with annotations by Facebook, can be found here and here.
• NB: Take care ♥ these items contain a discussion of and data on how Instagram affects mental health, including suicide and self-harm. Leiden University’s support for mental health and other well-being can be found here. Suicide prevention helpline: 113, or find help here online.

Read

• Algorithmic Culture Striphas, 2015.
• Pick and read one (or more) of the chapters on these Social Media Platforms
  • Pearce and Artemesia’s Communities of Play
  • Miller’s Tales from Facebook
  • Burges and Green’s YouTube
  • Gruzd et al.’s Imagining Twitter as an Imagined Community
  • Schellewald’s: Communicative Forms on TikTok
  • Taylor’s Watch me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming

Create

• Write your sixth blog.

Things to do

• While your blogs are not the same as an academic paper, referencing is still very important. In fact, if a piece of information is not linked to (referenced), it does not exist on the web, so:
  • Make sure you use URLs to link to content online.
  • If you have included references that are not online but are listed at the bottom of your post, you can use the magic of anchor links to put in a link.
  • If you made videos or podcasts, you can still use references, e.g. by putting a list of links in the descriptions of the video.
  • Go back and check this is for all your content so far!
• Fun: Spend a day with an online community you love.

Week 7 (23 October) 

Digital Playgrounds

Resources

• Lecture slides can be found here, after class.

Read

• Hunicke et al.’s MDA-Framework
• Ian Bogost’s (2016) Play Anything, Foreword and Chapter 1 (Playgrounds Everywhere).
• Bogost’s The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird. (Atlantic, February 3, 2014).

Play

NB Here and in Block 2, “Play” means spending at least half an hour with the referenced game. Yes, you have to play games!

• Flappy Bird (most true to the original when played on a smartphone)

Create

• If you have kept up with the schedule, you should have written all your six blogs already. This is a good time to go and review them as well as start working on your podcast and video essay.
• If you were not able to keep up with the schedule: no worry, this is where you can catch up.

No Class (30 October):

• The ‘My Take-aways from the Course’-test is online on Brightspace from the 30^th October to the 6^th of November. Don’t forget to complete it, as it is part of your final grade for this course. You will not get a separate grade or feedback for this ‘Take Aways’ test.
• This is a good time to work on your podcast or video essay. It is also a good moment to finish up any remaining blogs or get back and improve your previous blogs with your growing understanding of how blogging and WordPress works.
• Fun: Spend a day offline!