IT, Globalisation and Culture (Autumn 2024)

Abstract

In this course, students will learn to analyse and reflect upon the role of IT and culture in global collaborations.

Description

SInce the 1980’s scholars have been arguing about the degree to which our world is becoming more globalised. At the heart of these discussions is the role that technologies, and in particular information technologies, play in globalising processes. With increasingly accelerated technological development people, goods, data, and ideas are now moving and working across more traditional territorial boundaries like never before. But with such an intensification of these processes come social, cultural, and political frictions. This course will provide students with a set of methodological and conceptual tools through which to engage with such frictions. With a particular focus on how global collaborations work in practice, students will learn to critically and reflexively approach the challenges and opportunities that emerge in collaborative settings. By engaging with a diversity of learning activities, including lectures, exercises, case work, and ethnographic writing, students will develop methodological procedures, analytical frameworks and critical reflection skills around IT-associated global collaborations.

Formal prerequisites

.There are no formal prerequisites for this course.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Describe the various theoretical perspectives on IT, globalisation and culture presented in the course.
• Situate and contextualise the socio-political, cultural, technological, and ecological issues at stake in globalization processes.
• Study a case of digitalisation or IT-mediated collaboration in a global context.
• Examine and analyse your case through some of the conceptual tools discussed during the course.
• Critically reflect upon the role of IT and culture in global collaborations.
• Survey scholarly knowledge on the course topics to produce a literature review.
• Propose and structure a research design according to academic standards.

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
C: Submission of written work, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
C11: Submission of written work