Paper short abstract:

I want to share how addressing material, situated aspects of technology use in specific relation to labor, land and other resources, studying processes, and incorporating ethics and accountability in discussions and assignments can engage students as moral and critical thinkers and makers.

Paper long abstract:

Media & communication programs often rely on deterministic and linear models of technology when framing courses. Two courses I teach:“The Information Society” and “Emerging Media and Communication” are often presented to students as ways to learn about fundamental social changes that “new” technology creates. This approach ignores how technologies function in practice, in relation to communities, power, and social change (or its absence). It also risks framing technology and justice being mutually exclusive, since so much technology has not produced justice. My most productive tactic has been addressing the material, situated questions in specific relations of labor, land and other resources, and studying processes: “Information Society” begins with coltan miners and Foxconn workers, Emerging Media has shifted from focused on “the digital” to focusing on “moments when media technologies’ use emerge in a specific place, time and community” (so, Hmong immigrants’ telephone conferencing, Suffragists’ tea cozies, Ugandan mobile phone banking). Thus questions of race, colonialism, gender and class are intrinsic. I also have made significant changes especially in research and creative assignments –students discuss ethics of the technologies we use in educational contexts. I also require an ethical reflection in their writing practice: to consider how their collection and representation of information models an ethical practice in relation to the communities or individuals they are learning from. This approach also helps non-elite students see themselves as knowledge makers by building on their own lived experience and values.