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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO SCARBOROUGH DEPARTMENT OF ARTS, CULTURE & MEDIA

MDSC61H3 ALTERNATIVE MEDIA Winter, 2019

Monday, 1 – 3PM BV355

COURSE DESCRIPTION This course examines the history, organization and social role of a range of independent, progressive, and oppositional media practices. It emphasizes the ways alternative media practices, including the digital, are the product of and contribute to political movements and perspectives that challenge the status quo of mainstream consumerist ideologies.

The course takes a broad view of the idea of alternative media. Specifically, it begins with the question "alternative to what?" Alternative, by definition, means something along the lines of "different than the mainstream" or "different from that which predominates". This course will approach this notion of alternative along four separate, but nonetheless interconnected, lines:

• alternative content and perspectives • alternative organizational & structural models • alternative practices • alternative technological configurations

ASSIGNMENTS (see weekly class schedule for due dates) *** Detailed assignment sheets will be provided on Blackboard 1) Slow media assignment 15% (of final grade) 3 page (or equivalent) exploration of a slow media practice of your choice

2) Reading analysis 15% 2-2.5 page summary and analysis of selected week's readings

3) Research essay 35% 5% 1 page proposal plus annotated bibliography with 3 sources 30% 7-8 page final paper

4) Final exam 35%

ASSIGNMENT FORMATS, DUE DATES AND LATENESS PENALTIES All assignments are due AT THE BEGINNING of class. All assignments are expected to be legible (e.g. in dark ink, on white paper, NOT printed out with empty toner cartridges, etc.), properly identified and correctly stapled. All formal assignments must make consistent use of an accepted citation format (preferably APA style). For information about how to do this, please see http://ctl.utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/citations

There will be a penalty deduction of 2.5% per day (including weekends) for late assignments. To avoid extra late penalties, email a copy of the late assignment to me when completed, and bring a paper copy next class. We will NOT be responsible for printing out copies of assignments for students, stapling them, if your email file is corrupt or for your failure to attach the file. Failure to submit a paper copy after having submitted an email copy of any assignment will constitute failure to submit the assignment.

Deadline extensions will be granted only for a compelling reason and with authorized documentation. Such reasons include illness (documented with a Doctor's note) or family emergency. Extensions will NOT be granted for reasons such as computer crashes or breakdowns, inability to print the file on time, or other such technical problems. ALWAYS MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR FILES AS YOU WORK!

CLASSROOM CONDUCT AND COMPORTMENT Students are expected to assist in maintaining a classroom environment that is conducive to learning. In order to assure that all students have an opportunity to gain from time spent in class, and unless otherwise approved by the instructor, silence your mobile phones and put them away at the beginning of every class and use your notebook computers for classroom purposes only. Inappropriate behavior, making offensive remarks, or engaging in any other form of distraction in the classroom shall result in, at the minimum, a request to leave.

STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACADEMIC INTEGRITY It is the student’s responsibility to be aware of policies, procedures and deadlines that are in effect during their attendance at the University of Toronto. It is also the student’s responsibility to attend classes regularly, to keep their work up to date, and to complete assignments as required. Academic Integrity is essential to the pursuit of learning and scholarship, and breaches in the form of plagiarism and cheating are taken very seriously. All violations of the standards of integrity found in the university’s Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters will be reported. Please familiarize yourself with aspects of academic integrity and methods of proper citation:

How not to plagiarize: http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize

How to use and cite sources: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/using-and-citing-sources-0

Information regarding academic integrity: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/aacc/academic-integrity

CONTACTING PROFESSOR KAYE I encourage you to contact me regarding issues involving the course, including questions about material covered and or your own progress. This is best done during my weekly office hours or, if those are not convenient, at another scheduled time. Email is not an option for questions where a proper answer requires a discussion. If you do send one, I will try to respond within 72 hours however this is not always possible. I am absolutely not available or accessible on weekends. When communicating with me via email you must use your U of T email account and address, use the course number (i.e. MDSC61) in the subject line, and clearly identify yourself in the main body of the message. Please address your message "Dear Dr. Kaye." Please note it is my policy to not discuss grades over email.

WEEKLY CLASS SCHEDULE

Week 1, Jan. 7 What do we mean by "Alternative"? This week introduces the idea of alternative media by addressing the basic and fundamental question of what we mean by alternative. Put another way, the key question is "Alternative to what?"

Hamilton, James (2000) "Alternative Media: Conceptual Difficulties, Critical Possibilities". Journal of Communication Inquiry. 24(4), pp.357-378.

Sandoval, Marisol and Christian Fuchs (2010) "Towards a critical theory of alternative media". Telematics and Informatics. 27(2), pp.141–150.

Week 2, Jan. 14 Slow Media as Alternative Practice What do we mean by "slow media"? Has the rush to embrace all things digital led us to ignore a whole host of slower, analog alternatives? How do these alternatives differ from their faster, digital counterparts? What can they teach us about our own media practices?

Rauch, J. (2011) "The Origin of Slow Media: Early Diffusion of a Cultural Innovation through Popular and Press Discourse, 2002-2010." Transformations: Journal of Media & Culture. iss. #20. http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/12/Rauch_Trans20.pdf

http://en.slow-media.net/manifesto

http://slow-media.org/2009/12/students-slow-media-experiments-the-weirdest-three-hours- i-ever-spent.html

http://slow-media.org/2010/05/slow-media-experiment-ii.html

Week 3, Jan. 21 From Dada to Dilla: Appropriation as Alternative Practice What do we mean by cultural practices of appropriation? How are they to be considered as alternative? What are problems are posed by the reappropriation of such practices back into the cultural mainstream?

Schaefer, Janek (2001) "Audio Oh!: Appropriation, Accident and Alteration". Leonardo Music Journal. 11. pp. 71-76.

Zimmermann, Patricia R. (2006) "JUST SAY NO: Negativland's No Business". Cultural Studies. 20 (2/3), March/May. pp.316-322.

videos: RIP: A Remix Manifesto http://films.onf.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/ Negativland – Gimme The Mermaid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTrHwH2gEY8

Week 4, Jan. 28 Noise, Glitch and Error as Alternative Digital Culture ASSIGNMENT DUE: Research Paper Proposal And Annotated Bibliography If traditional cultural production is predicated on the idea of a complete, finished and "perfect" final product, what happens when we start consciously basing our work on mistakes? Could errors, glitches, skips and noise become the basis for alternative cultural production in the digital age?

Menkman, Rosa (2010) Glitch Studies Manifesto. http://rosa- menkman.blogspot.com/2010/02/glitch-studies-manifesto.html

Kelly, Caleb (2009) Cracked Media: The Sound of Malfunction. chap. 1, "Recording and Noise: Approaches to Cracked Media". Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Week 5, Feb. 4 Open Source Culture and the Idea of the Digital Commons What is "free software"? How does it differ from "open source" software? How do both of these models of software production and distribution present an alternative to the predominant mode of commercial, proprietary software production?

Ghosh, Rishab A., Rüdiger Glott, Bernhard Krieger and Gregorio Robles (2005) "Free software developers: Who, how and why". in The Economics of the Digital Society. L. Soete and B. ter Weel (eds.). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Stallman, Richard (2010) Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman 2nd ed. chap. 1, "The Free Software Definition" and chap. 2, "The GNU Project". book available at http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/

Vaidhyanathan, Siva (2012) "Open Source as Culture/Culture as Open Source". in The Social Media Reader. M. Mandiberg (ed.). New York: New York University Press. pp.24- 31. Electronic copies of this book are available at http://archive.org/details/TheSocialMediaReader

Week 6, Feb. 11 Social Networks, The Interface and Alternatives ASSIGNMENT DUE: Reading Analysis How do digital technologies and services mediate online social interaction? Does this mediation create expectations about how such interaction should occur? What might alternatives to mainstream social networking platform look like, and how might they mediate interaction in a way that empowers, rather than exploits, its users?

Langlois, Ganaele (2013) "Social Media, or Towards a Political Economy of Social Life". pp.50-60.

AND

Sevignani, Sebastian (2013) "Facebook vs. Diaspora: A Critical Study". pp.323-327.

Both are found in G. Lovink and M. Rasch (eds.) Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. *** A free PDF copy of the Unlike Us Reader is available at http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%238UnlikeUs.pdf

Rokeby, David (1998) "The Construction of Experience: Interface as Content" http://www.davidrokeby.com/experience.html

Week 7, Feb. 25 Indymedia What is Indymedia, and where did it emerge? What are the relationships between Indymedia practices and practitioners and anti-capitalist and anti-globalization social movements? How does the content, form and social organization of Indymedia differ from the mainstream media?

Ballvé, Teo (2004) "Another Media Is Possible". NACLA Report on the Americas. 37(4), Jan/Feb.

Giraud, Eva (2014) "Has radical participatory online media really ‘failed’? Indymedia and its legacies". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 20(4), 419–437.

Kidd, Dorothy (2003) "The Independent Media Center: A new model". Media Development. 50(4).

Pickard, Victor W. (2006) "Assessing the Radical Democracy of Indymedia: Discursive, Technical, and Institutional Constructions". Critical Studies in Media Communication. 23(1), March. pp.19-38.

Week 8, Mar. 4 Zines, Blogs and Subcultures What are "zines"? How are they implicated in processes of identity formation? How are they related to other media forms such as music and visual art? How do they help weave subcultures together across time and space? Are blogs the zines of the 21st Century?

Atton, Chris (2002) chap. 2, "What Use is a Zine? Identity-building and Social Signification in Zine Culture". Alternative Media. London: Sage. pp.54-79.

Jetto, Beatrice (2010) "Music Blogs, Music Scenes, Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs"

Week 9, Mar. 11 Independent Music and Alternative Distribution Does where we buy (or how we acquire) our music have anything to do with the actual types of music that we listen to? How have alternative and non-commercial musical forms survived and thrived outside the mainstream? In a period of flux such as today, where mainstream channels of distribution are being challenged by emerging online forms, is there the possibility for new musical forms and genres flourish?

McLeod, Kembrew (2005) "MP3s Are Killing Home Taping: The Rise of Internet Distribution and Its Challenge to the Major Label Music Monopoly". Popular Music and Society. 28(4), October. pp. 521–531.

Harrison, Anthony Kwame (2006) "‘Cheaper than a CD, plus we really mean it’: Bay Area underground hip hop tapes as subcultural artefacts". Popular Music. 25(2). pp. 283–301.

Jones, Simon (1995) "Rocking the House: Sound System Cultures and the Politics of Space". Journal of Popular Music Studies. 7(1), March. pp.1-24.

Week 10, Mar. 18 Alternative Radio Radio is a powerful medium, one with a long history of alternative forms and uses. This week will explore and compare a number of these, including pirate radio, community radio and low-power microradio.

Boyd, Douglas A. (1986) "Pirate Radio in Britain: A Programming Alternative". Journal of Communication. 36(2), Spring.

Dunbar-Hester, Christina (2008) "Geeks, Meta-Geeks, and Gender Trouble: Activism, Identity, and Low-power FM Radio". Social Studies of Science. 38(2), April. pp. 201–232

Price-Davies, Eryl and Jo Tacchi (2001) Community Radio In A Global Context: A Comparative Analysis. London: AMARC. "Introduction", chap. 7 "Comparative Analysis" and chap. 8 "Recommendations". http://www.amarc.org/documents/articles/Community_Radio_Global.pdf

Week 11, Mar. 25 Ethnic Media as Alternative Media ASSIGNMENT DUE: Slow Media Project ASSIGNMENT DUE: Final Research Paper What place do ethnic media have in our overall media landscape? If media in a democratic society are supposed to be representative, why do we need ethnic media? What sort of alternatives do ethnic media provide?

Ojo, Tokunbo (2006) "Ethnic print media in the multicultural nation of Canada: A case study of the black newspaper in Montreal". Journalism. 7(3), pp. 343–361.

Deuze, Mark (2006) "Ethnic media, community media and participatory culture". Journalism. 7(3), pp. 262-280.

Week 12, Apr. 1 Self-Produced Media as Alternative Media? In an era where media production technologies and distribution systems are more accessible than ever, we now have the ability to circumvent mainstream media oligopolies on our own. But is this enough for us to consider such self-production practices as alternative media?

Croteau, David (2006) "The Growth of Self-Produced Media Content and the Challenge to Media Studies". Critical Studies in Media Communication. 23(4), October. pp. 340-344.

van Dijck, José (2006) "Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content". Media, Culture & Society. 31(1), pp. 41-58.