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Social and Cultural Dynamics in the Digital Era
Courses Master's Degree in Intercultural Relations
Cod: 42019
Department: DCSG
ECTS: 7
Scientific area: Anthropology
Total working hours: 195
Total contact time: 32

Three issues for reflection and analysis: i) contemporary technologies as artefacts and cultural activities (observation and analysis of the construction and appropriation of artefacts and discourses and how they acquire meaning in everyday life); ii) contemporary technologies as creating and modifying agents of culture (different ways of living and thinking about space and time, simulation and ideology); iii) contemporary technologies as producing and reproducing agents of various aspects of social life (forms of knowledge integration and social exclusion and modalities of power and power distribution, construction of otherness and identity, forms of sociability, etc.).

• Acquiring the conceptual foundations necessary for understanding the problems generated by contemporary technological change and its implications on individuals, societies and cultures.
• Developing interpretive competencies and rethinking suitability (field adaptation) of anthropological research methods to new spaces, new contexts, new social and cultural practices.
• Applying complex competences based on previous problem-solving, case studies or design and development projects.

1. Methodology, purpose and scope of the course unit (new fields of anthropology).
2. Culture and technology (theory and technology of culture) - change in modern societies.
3. Sociability network - interactions and social networks (communities of practice).
4. Computers and the social and cultural margins - Computers and counterculture: hackers and players, from the PC to the Internet.
5. Technologically mediated public space: the transmission of culture and knowledge, collective consciousness and learning communities.
6. Digital technologies and socio-digital inclusion. Donation in the Digital Age. Cybervolunteerism.
7. Case studies.

SLEVIN, James (2002) Internet e sociedade, Lisboa: Temas e Debates.
HINE, Christine, (2000) Virtual Ethnography, London: Sage publications.
RIBEIRO, José S. & BAIRON, Sérgio (2007) Antropologia Visual e Hipermedia, Edições Afrontamento.
MILLER, Daniel, SLATER, Don (2000) The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach, New York: Berg.
WARSCHAUER, Mark (2003) Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Blended learning (online with 6 hours of face-to-face sessions).

Evaluation is made on individual basis and it involves the coexistence of two modes: continuous assessment (60%) and final evaluation (40%). Further information is detailed in the Learning Agreement of the course unit.