Social Media Research

                                Autumn 2017 Wednesday 11:30 AM AVC


Lecturer: Tae-Sik Kim

Office Hour: Tue 1:00 – 2:00 PM & Wed 1:30 – 3:00 PM

Contact Information: beinkid@mail.muni.cz Office. 5. 45


Ø Course Objectives

This course examines the sociocultural impacts of social media, the most advanced form of human
communicative technology. Grounded in the understanding of the relationship between technology and
society, this course looks closely at technological features of social media as well as the
cultural consequences of mediated interactions among people. The course then turns to particular
issues in relation to the uses of social media. By reading a variety of research articles assigned
in the course and participating in class discussions, students learn to develop their own research
projects focusing on social media and its sociocultural impacts.

§  Comprehend the relationship between technology and society.

§  Understand various social impacts of social media.

§  Review and analyze a variety of research articles on social media.

§  Find important themes and methods of social media research

§  Lead insightful discussions.

§  Develop a research project by applying sociocultural experiences.


Ø Syllabus

Week 1. Course introduction

Week 2. Technology and culture

Week 3. What is Social Media? (First Response Paper Due: Midnight Tue 3. 10)

Week 4. Social media and Politics

Week 5. Social Media Journalism

Week 6. No Class (Essay: Case - News and Social Media Due: Midnight Sun 29. 10)

Week 7. Social Media and Social Changes   (Second Response Paper Due: Midnight Tue 31. 10)


Week 8. Research Week

Week 9.  Social media and Intercultural Communication (Midterm Report Due: Midnight Tue 14. 11)

Week 10. Social Media for the Old and the Young

Week 11. Social Media and Visual Communication

Week 12. “Critical” Social Media Studies (Third Response Paper Due: Midnight Tue 5. 12)

Week 13. Class Conference.


Ø Literatures

Reading Articles: See, below.


Ø Teaching Methods

The format of the course is a combination of brief lectures and controlled discussions of various
assigned readings.

All students are expected to read all articles assigned and to develop appropriate discussion
questions. Each student is a discussion leader for an assigned week.

Students submit a research paper (topic of student’s choice in consultation with instructor;
minimum 20 pages including references, figures, and tables).


Ø Assessment Methods

·        Attendance: 3 unexcused absences during a semester shall be denied academic credit

v  Response Papers (100 x 3 = 300)

ü  Essay on related topics with 2 discussion questions.

ü  Submit only 4 response papers

ü Due dates are indicated above

ü No Late Paper Accepted

·        One Discussion Leader (100)

·        Essay (100)

·        Midterm Report (100): Research Plan and Outline

·        Research Paper (400): Due- Midnight, Monday 8. January. 2018 (Late Paper – Subtract 5% for
each day after the due date)


Total: 1000

A: 900-1000

B: 800-899

C: 700-799

D: 600-699

E: 500-599

F:       -499


Ø Study Materials

All materials, with the exception of book chapters available in the library and articles available
online, will be provided in PDF format.

Week 3. Technology and culture

·        McLuhan, M. “Understanding Media” Introduction, Chapter 1, and 2

·        Mumford, L. “Technics and Civilization” Introduction and Chapter 1

·        Castells, M. (2000). Toward a sociology of the network society. Contemporary Sociology, 29
(5), 693-699.


Week 4. What is Social Media

·        Donath, J. “Sociable Media”

·        boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and
scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1),

·        Burkell, Fortier, Yeung, Wong, Simpson (2014): Facebook: public space, or private space?,
Information, Communication & Society


Week 5. Social media & Politics

·        Bulut, E. (2016). Social media and the nation state: of revolution and
collaboration. Media, Culture & Society, 38(4), 606-618.

·        Wattal, S., Schuff, D., Mandviwalla, M., & Williams, C. B. (2010). Web 2.0 and politics:
the 2008 US presidential election and an e-politics research agenda.Mis Quarterly, 34(4), 669-688.

·        Housholder, E. E., & LaMarre, H. L. (2014). Facebook politics: Toward a process model for
achieving political source credibility through social media.Journal of Information Technology &
Politics, 11(4), 368-382.


Week 5. Social Media Journalism

·        TBA.


Week 7. Social Media and Social Changes  (Choose 3 articles to read)

·        Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and
political change. Foreign Affairs.

·        Lim, M. (2012). Clicks, cabs, and coffee houses: Social media and oppositional movements
in Egypt, 2004–2011. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 231-248.

·        DeLuca, K. M., Lawson, S., & Sun, Y. (2012). Occupy Wall Street on the public screens of
social media: The many framings of the birth of a protest movement. Communication, Culture &
Critique, 5(4), 483-509.

·        Poell, T. (2014). Social media and the transformation of activist communication: exploring
the social media ecology of the 2010 Toronto G20 protests. Information, Communication &
Society, 17(6), 716-731.



Week 9.  Social Media and Intercultural Communication

·        Pfister, D. S., & Soliz, J. (2011). (Re)Conceptualizing Intercultural Communication in a
Networked Society. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 4, 246–251

·        Kim, Tae-Sik (2016). Transnational communication practices by unaccompanied Korean young
students in the United States, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 25(2). 148-167.

·        Fogg, B. J. & Izawa, D. (2008). Online Persuasion in Facebook and Mixi: A Cross-Cultural
Comparison, Persuasive, 35-46.


Week  10. Social Media for the Old and the Young (Choose 3 articles to read)

·        Subrahmanyam, K. & Greenfield, P. (2008). Online communication and adolescent
relationships. The Future of Children, 18 (1), 119-146

·        boyd, danah. (2007)  “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked
Publics in Teenage Social Life.”  MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth,
Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

·        Gibson, L., Moncur, W., Forbes, P., Arnott, J., Martin, C., & Bhachu, A. S. (2010,
September). Designing social networking sites for older adults. In Proceedings of the 24th BCS
Interaction Specialist Group Conference (pp. 186-194). British Computer Society.

·        Harley, D., & Fitzpatrick, G. (2012). Appropriation of social networking by older people:
two case studies.

Week 11. Social Media and Visual Communication

·        Borges-Rey, E. (2015). News Images on Instagram: The paradox of authenticity in hyperreal
photo reportage. Digital Journalism, 3(4), 571-593

·        Kim, T-S. (2015) Defining the Occupy Movement: Visual Analysis of Facebook Profile Images
Posted by Local Occupy Movement Group, Visual Communication Quarterly, 22(3), 174-186

·        Murray, D. C. (2015). Notes to self: the visual culture of selfies in the age of social
media. Consumption Markets & Culture, 18(6), 490-516.

Week 12. “Critical” Social Media Studies

·        Fuchs, C. (2014). Social media: A critical introduction. Sage. Chapter 5, 7, 8, 11