The four terms in alphabetical order.

Your task is to write a 2,000-word theory glossary that provides a definition of FOUR key theoretical concepts from Weeks 1, 2 and 3 of the course. You must choose your four concepts from the list below.

Taken as a whole, your glossary must:
• List the four terms in alphabetical order.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the first three weeks of the course.

At a minimum, each individual entry must:
• Clearly define the concept in your own words.
• Demonstrate your understanding of the concept by analysing an example of your own (i.e. not from the lectures or readings).
• Identify the limitations of the concept.
• Have its own short list of references in Harvard or similar format (i.e. four short reference lists in total).

Beyond these basic directions, you are free to engage with the concepts however you would like. There is no requirement that each glossary entry be 500 words, but you must deal substantively with all four and entries less than 400 words are unlikely to do so.

You do not need to do any additional academic research beyond the course materials, although you are welcome to do so if this helps you better understand the concepts. Remember that the course materials include the Course Library on Moodle, so make sure that you look for sources there that can assist you there.

List of Key Concepts:

actor-network theory
affect
affordances
circuits of culture
digital labour
digital technology
discourse
filter bubble
filters
identity
performance
platforms
self-representation
selfhood

Hints and Tips:

1. Don’t choose all your concepts from one week. You should try to demonstrate that you have developed a strong understanding of the various topics we have looked at in the first three weeks of the course.
2. Be concise and precise.
3. Quote selectively from key texts to support your account of the concept. “Selectively” means choosing a few words or a phrase. Avoid quoting whole sentences.
4. Research your examples. You don’t need to do academic research, but you do need to know what you’re talking about!
5. Think of each entry as a stand-alone text that someone could look up to understand the concept.
6. Use Harvard or a similar in-text referencing system.

Feedback and Marking

1. During tutorials, there will be an opportunity for verbal feedback on work-in-progress.
2. You will receive a final mark, written comments and feedback via an assessment rubric on your final submission.

Assessment Criteria
• Writing and presentation: clarity and coherence of expression, grammar, punctuation, sentence construction, layout.
• Conceptual understanding: demonstrated an understanding of the concept, evidenced by direct engagement with key texts and application of the concept to an example.
• Structure and coherence: development of an articulate and coherent entry for each concept.
• Effective reading and research: productive engagement with key theoretical to support your definitions and analysis.
• Referencing: adherence to proper referencing conventions, using Harvard in-text or similar.

Week 1: Our purpose this week is to situate ourselves and the course in relation to digital technologies. We’ll spend time setting out a few key concepts, dive into a handful of examples and get acquainted with some of the debates about selfhood, society, culture, politics and technology that will feature throughout the course. We’ll use the selfie to guide our way into a host of questions about how we represent ourselves online, how we relate to one another, and the economies our digital labour contributes to. We will also outline the course overall, including a brief look at assessments.
Key concepts: digital technology, self-representation, selfhood, filters, images
Week 2: Platforms – Facebook, Google, YouTube, Amazon and many more – have become the most powerful entities in the digital world precisely because they are where we spend our time and what directs our attention and interest. Yet much of what they do remains difficult to see thanks to secret architectures, opaque user agreements and slick business models. If we are to understand how our selves are performed, represented and monetized, then we need to take a more critical look at platforms and their politics, power and processes. This week, we’ll use an approach called Actor-Network Theory to develop a critical perspective on platforms that analyses both their social and their technical dimensions.
Key concepts: platforms, affordances, Actor-Network Theory, filter bubble, assemblage
Week 3: Our digital selves are not produced in isolation. Far from it. Not only do we continually interact with others both online and off, our selves are also intimately bound up with cultural and economic processes. This week, we take up one of the most influential ideas for understanding culture, technology and self – the circuits of culture model, developed by Paul Du Gay, Stuart Hall and others in the 1980s. Our version will be updated for the contemporary moment, with an emphasis on the pivotal role of the smartphone in determining how our identities – and the interdependent processes of consumption, distribution, signification and regulation in which we are all entangled.
Key concepts: circuits of culture, discourse, affect, digital labor

Sample Solution