Perspectives on Social Media

After completing the course, students will be familiar with the communication cultures of social media, politics, business and organizations surrounding social media, and its technology. Students are able to identify structures, agency, and communication of various social media platforms. Students can identify some of the basic ethical questions related to social media and are able to apply this knowledge to their own media use. Students are able to critically evaluate functions of social media and related phenomena. Students identify basic theoretical concepts relating to the various perspectives on social media.

From a sustainable development perspective, the goal is to understand the role of social media for public participation and democracy, to recognize how social media can either promote or hinder democracy, this includes understanding issues such as the boundaries between online freedom of speech and hate speech for instance, as well as challenges to representation (e.g., unequal representation, disinformation, and other manipulative content).

Materials instructed by the teacher.

The course is run and completed in English.

This is former course VIEK1014 Perspectives on Social Media (Näkökulmia sosiaaliseen mediaan) / VIEK1008 Agency in Social Media