Admission requirements
While there are no official entry requirements for students wishing to take this module, students are generally expected to have taken courses examining Chinese politics and society, such as the BA2 module “Contemporary China B,” “Governing China” or “China's Digital Geographies”. Since the primary sources that this course deals with include many in Chinese, students are expected to possess good Chinese language skills.
In this module we will make use of a variety of methods – particularly media analysis, visual analysis and discourse analysis – to examine case studies as well as academic and non-academic resources in a way that enables us to understand contemporary digital society from a variety of angles.
Students that wish to write their BA Thesis in this course will have to receive permission from the programme. Applying for supervision can be done through this form.
Description
This course examines keywords and concepts related to digital society and digital relations in contemporary China. Each idea is explored through a number of case studies that highlight the importance of digitality in understanding contemporary Chinese society. Through the case studies students begin to understand how digital technologies, information, and media are influencing Chinese society, while considering what we learn about ‘digital society’ and ‘digitality’ by looking at China. The key word approach used means that students will also be able to bring their own case studies to the seminar to examine alongside those provided by the course leader. Themes under study include e-Commerce, internet celebrity, internet infrastructure, surveillance, and activism.
This module prepares students for large project work by working through case studies and using a variety of methods – particularly media analysis, visual analysis and discourse analysis. Both academic and non-academic resources are analysed in this module in order to explore digital society from a variety of angles.
Course objectives
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
Demonstrate an advanced understanding of the complex issues and processes related to digital society;
Identify how issues related to digital society are linked to broader themes across society, such as labour, commerce, contentious politics and material culture;
Apply complex conceptual tools to analyse processes related to digital society, including through media analysis, textual analysis, and visual analysis;
Develop reflective and a societal awareness to discuss China societally, including in relation to policy and industry;
Develop skills around presentation, project work, and group work.
Timetable
The timetables are avalable through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
In order to pass this course, the following will be required of participants:
Group assignment course work 1 (20%)
Group assignment course work 2 (20%)
Research paper (60%)
Late submissions will be subject to grade deduction
Regular, punctual attendance, thorough preparation of reading material, and continuous participation in plenary discussions are also expected.
Note that this seminar is also a thesis course: students who wish to write their thesis in this module will still need to complete the course work, but their final grade will be the thesis grade; see the section on the Studiegids for more information about graduate theses.
Weighing
See above.
Resit
There will be no resit for the course work, but individual submissions can compensate each other.
For the term paper, only a previous submission for the first attempt qualifies students for the resit, and only if that submission scored a failing grade. First attempts that received a passing mark (5.5 or higher) cannot be improved through further revision.
Grading of the resit will incorporate part of the grade for the first attempt. The grade for each component after a resit will be calculated as follows:
25% of the first attempt, plus
75% of the second attempt.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
There is no mandatory textbook for this course. All required readings will be announced on Brightspace and will be available through the Asian Studies library.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website
Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange
For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office Herta Mohr
Remarks
Note that this seminar is also a thesis course: students who wish to write their thesis in this module will still need to complete the course work, but their final grade will be the thesis grade; see the relevant section on the prospectus for more information about graduate theses.