Overview

Technology and Culture explores the relationships between technological developments and cultural change, with a particular focus on digital media. This unit of study interrogates the changing theorisations of technology in society by tracing the influence of key texts in media studies, philosophy of technology, sociology, cultural studies and science and technology studies. Through close readings of advanced texts, students explore the significance of technology in social power, identity, gender, social shaping, class, space, assemblages, actor-networks, experience, thought, time, and materiality. We mobilise and evaluate these theories in relation to emerging technologies today.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Media and Communications
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	(6 credit points at 2000 level in ARIN and (12 credit points at 1000 level in ARIN or 1000 level in MECO)) or (12 credit points at 2000 level in DECO) or (6 credit points at 1000 level and 6 credit points at 2000 level in SIEN or INFS)
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	ARIN2600
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Chris Chesher, chris.chesher@sydney.edu.au
Lecturer(s)	Chris Chesher, chris.chesher@sydney.edu.au

Assessment

The census date for this unit availability is 31 March 2025

Details
Criteria

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Participation	Tutorial participation n/a	10%	Ongoing	n/a
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Provocations and report Assessment consists of running and recording the in-class 'provocations' and writing a report	20%	Ongoing	750 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Influence analysis Analyse the influence on/of your course reading of choice.	30%	Week 07 Due date: 11 Apr 2025 at 23:59 Closing date: 09 May 2025	1750 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Essay Critical academic essay on your topic of interest applying key frameworks	40%	Week 11 Due date: 16 May 2025 at 23:59 Closing date: 13 Jun 2025	2000 words
Outcomes assessed:
= hurdle task ? = AI allowed ?

Assessment summary

Detailed information for each assessment can be found on Canvas.

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy 2014 (Schedule 1).

As a general guide, a High distinction indicates work of an exceptional standard, a Distinction a very high standard, a credit a good standard, and a pass an acceptable standard.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100	Outstanding work
Distinction	75 - 84	Very good: shows critical insight
Credit	65 - 74	Good: shows effort and application
Pass	50 - 64	Acceptable
Fail	0 - 49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see guide to grades.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

Except for supervised exams or in-semester tests, you may use generative AI and automated writing tools in assessments unless expressly prohibited by your unit coordinator.

For exams and in-semester tests, the use of AI and automated writing tools is not allowed unless expressly permitted in the assessment instructions.

The icons in the assessment table above indicate whether AI is allowed – whether full AI, or only some AI (the latter is referred to as “AI restricted”). If no icon is shown, AI use is not permitted at all for the task. Refer to Canvas for full instructions on assessment tasks for this unit.

Your final submission must be your own, original work. You must acknowledge any use of automated writing tools or generative AI, and any material generated that you include in your final submission must be properly referenced. You may be required to submit generative AI inputs and outputs that you used during your assessment process, or drafts of your original work. Inappropriate use of generative AI is considered a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy and penalties may apply.

The Current Students website provides information on artificial intelligence in assessments. For help on how to correctly acknowledge the use of AI, please refer to the  AI in Education Canvas site.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Support for students

The Support for Students Policy 2023 reflects the University’s commitment to supporting students in their academic journey and making the University safe for students. It is important that you read and understand this policy so that you are familiar with the range of support services available to you and understand how to engage with them.

The University uses email as its primary source of communication with students who need support under the Support for Students Policy 2023. Make sure you check your University email regularly and respond to any communications received from the University.

Learning resources and detailed information about weekly assessment and learning activities can be accessed via Canvas. It is essential that you visit your unit of study Canvas site to ensure you are up to date with all of your tasks.

If you are having difficulties completing your studies, or are feeling unsure about your progress, we are here to help. You can access the support services offered by the University at any time:

Support and Services (including health and wellbeing services, financial support and learning support)
Course planning and administration
Meet with an Academic Adviser

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Introduction to technology and culture	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 02	New media publics and control	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 02	Gitelman and Deleuze	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 03	Media ecology	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 03	Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 04	Cyborgs and the posthuman	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 04	Haraway and Wajcman	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 05	Social construction of technology	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 05	Pinch & Bijker and Winner	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 06	Capitalism	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 06	Wark and Zuboff	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 07	Space	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 07	Kitchin & Dodge and Bratton	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 08	Actor-network theory	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 08	Latour and Law	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 09	Machines and assemblages	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 09	Guattari and Nail	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 10	Phenomenology	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 10	Martin Heidegger and Don Ihde	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 11	Archives and memory	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 11	Derrida and Williamson Shaffer & Clinton	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 12	Time	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 12	Adam and Bauman	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 13	Materiality	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 13	Parrika and Casemajor	Tutorial (1 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance: According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold.
Lecture recording: Most lectures (in recording-equipped venues) will be recorded and may be made available to students on the LMS. However, you should not rely on lecture recording to substitute your classroom learning experience.
Preparation: Students should commit to spend approximately three hours’ preparation time (reading, studying, homework, essays, etc.) for every hour of scheduled instruction.
Submit all assessment tasks: You must submit all assessment tasks to pass this unit of study.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Readings ARIN3610 2025

WEEK 2: HOW TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE RELATE?

Gitelman, L. (2008) ‘New Media Publics’. In: Always already new: Media, history, and the data of culture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, pp. 25–57.

Deleuze, G. (1992). ‘Postscript on the societies of control’. October, 59, 3–7.

WEEK 3: MEDIUM THEORY

McLuhan, Marshall (1964). ‘The Medium is the Message’. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge & Kegal Paul, pp. 7-21.

Williams, Raymond (2004) [1974] ‘Effects of the technology and its uses’ Television: Technology and cultural form. Routledge Classics, pp. 121–138.

WEEK 4: CYBORGS AND THE POSTHUMAN

Haraway, Donna (1991). ‘A cyborg manifesto’. Haraway, Donna J (1991) Simians, cyborgs and women. Reinvention of nature, New York: Routledge, pp 149-181.

Wajcman, Judy (2013) ‘The cyborg solution: Embracing science and technology’. In TechnoFeminism Hoboken: Wiley.

WEEK 5: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TECHNOLOGY

Pinch, Trevor & Wiebe Bijker (1987). ‘The social construction of facts and artifacts: or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other’ in Bijker, Wiebe, Hughes, Thomas and Pinch, Trevor The social construction of technological systems, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 17-50.

Winner, Langdon. (1993). ‘Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology’ in Science Technology & Human Values, 18,no 3 (Summer 1993): pp. 362-378.

WEEK 6: CAPITALISM

Wark, McKenzie (2004). ‘Class’ in A hacker manifesto, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Pars 24-47.

Zuboff, Shoshana (2019) 'Surveillance capitalism and the challenge of collective action' in New Labor Forum 28(1), 10-29.

WEEK 7: SPACE

Kitchin, Rob and Dodge, Martin (2011). ‘Introducing Code/Space,’ in Code/Space: Software and everyday life, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 3-31.

Bratton, Benjamin (2016) ‘City layer’ in The stack: On software and sovereignty. Cambridge, The MIT Press, 77 - 108

WEEK 8: ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY

Latour, Bruno (1991). ‘Technology is society made durable’ in Law, John (1991) A Sociology of monsters. Essays on power, technology and domination, London: Routledge, pp 103–131(excerpt).

Law, J. (2009). ‘Actor network theory and material semiotics’. Turner, B.S. (Ed.) (2009). The new Blackwell companion to social theory. West Sussex: Blackwell. pp.142–158.

WEEK 9: MACHINES AND ASSEMBLAGES

Guattari, Felix (1995). ‘Machinic heterogenesis’. In Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm Sydney: Power, 33-57.

Nail, Thomas (2017). What is an assemblage? SubStance #142, Vol. 46, No. 1. Board of Regents: University of Wisconsin.

WEEK 10: PHENOMENOLOGY

Heidegger, Martin (1977). The question concerning technology in The question concerning technology and other essays. New York: Harper & Row, pp 3–35.

Ihde, Don (2010) Heidegger’s technologies one size fits all. In Heidegger's technologies: postphenomenological perspectives, New York, Fordham University Press, 114 – 127.

WEEK 11: THOUGHT AND ARCHIVE

Shaffer, D. W., & Clinton, K. A. (2006). Toolforthoughts: Reexamining Thinking in the Digital Age. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 13(4), 283–300. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327884mca1304_2

Derrida, Jacques (1996). Archive fever: a Freudian impression trans. Eric Prenowitz Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 7-23.

WEEK 12: TIME

Adam, B. (1992). Modern times: The technology connection and its implications for social theory. Time & Society, 1(2), 175-191.

Bauman, Z. (2000). Time and Space Reunited. Time & Society, 9(2–3), 171–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X00009002002

WEEK 13: MATERIALITY

Parikka, Jussi (2015). ‘Materiality: grounds of media and culture,’ in A Geology of Media, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1-28.

Casemajor, N. (2015). Digital materialisms: frameworks for digital media studies. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 10(1), 4–17. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.209

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. Understand the complex interrelationship between technology and culture
LO2. Develop independent learning and critical thinking through readings, discussion and written assignments
LO3. Demonstrate oral and written communication skills by facilitating and participating in ‘provocations’
LO4. Research and inquiry skills, involving the ability to present evidence and argument in support of your own particular perspective
LO5. Become aware of the importance of influence and the conventions of citation, and a capacity to trace influences in this assignment
LO6. Apply theoretical approaches to the study of technology and culture to recent case studies
LO7. Use communication and information technologies effectively.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

Thanks for previous students for productive feedback. We have chosen six new readings this year. We have revised the provocations assignment to use the time in the tutorials better.

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Readings ARIN3610 2025

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect

Current students

ARIN3610: Technology and Culture

Semester 1, 2025 [Normal day] - Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Readings ARIN3610 2025

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect