Full Semester Outline

Week 1: Orientation (Jan 9)

A general introduction to the course and its expectations, and an introduction to the idea of the publication of the self in everyday life and where this course has its roots.  We will also talk generally about accessible websites. There are no tutorial sessions in the first week. You will sketch out a mood/vision board that will help get a more concise idea of the online self you want to build.
You will start exploring your online behaviour and personas through the “Visitors and Residents” mapping process.
Start here.

Required Readings:
Hamblin, James. 2016. “How to Talk to Strangers.”
Mod, Craig. 2017. “How I Got My Attention Back.”
Gaines, Homer. 2022. Four Principles of Accessibility
Accessible Publishing Learning Network. 2022. Website Accessibility

Recommended Readings:
Economist, The. 2021. “The Comfort of Strangers.”

For next week: 
Go to ReclaimHosting.com and set up your own domain and blog (WordPress). For detailed instructions on how to work through this process, please see the Hosting Setup page.

• Submit your URL. Enter it here in Google Sheets.
• As you go through the reading “How to Talk to Strangers”, consider how you interact with strangers online and in real life. Find a stranger this week and engage them in a conversation. NOTE: If an in-person encounter is not possible, please let Suzanne and Christina know as soon as you can. Hamblin states: Once we consider a person known, our behaviour toward them changes entirely. When do you consider a person known? How does your behaviour change? IRL? Face to face? Please submit a considered opinion on what constitutes a stranger, or any other aspect of this idea that interests you.
• Continue to work on your “vision board” for your online self or personal cyberinfrastructure (!) What do you imagine it will look like? Think about this broadly, in terms of themes, platforms, aesthetics, “feel,” etc.
• Begin to familiarize yourself with WordPress terms such as “categories”, “posts”, “pages”, “tags” etc. A useful article is at https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Semantics
• Process Post: Reflect and comment on your stranger encounter. How did it differ from your online interactions? You will have to create one process post a week. Additionally, you will have to create a blog (or other) post each week.

Week 2 Personal Cyberinfrastructures (Jan 16)

Due: Your domain name and URL must be added to the Google Sheet by the start of class.

What is a personal cyberinfrastructure, and why should you care? What is your current cyberinfrastructure, how do you use it, and how does it use you? What do we take for granted in how the Internet works? What can we imagine differently? We will work on vision boards.

Required Readings:
Gardner Campbell. 2009. “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure” EDUCAUSE Review 44 (5).

Recommended Readings:
Audrey Watters. 2015. “The Web We Need to Give to Students”
Erin Glass. 2015. “Why We Need Social Paper”

Tutorial: Web hosting and blog/platform development. We will discuss tagging and its importance. Citations, links, URLs, DOIs.

For next week:
Create your “About” section. Here is an example from the Cult of Pedagogy.  This should be concise and clear. Consider this an invitation to your “house”. Is it interesting (compelling) enough for them to accept the invitation?
By now, you will have completed your vision board. How did you work through the process? Did you use Venn diagrams? Were you able to narrow down your focus? Please post about the process?
You should also install the Google Analytics plugin in your WordPress site; we’ll be working with it in the weeks to come.

•  Process Post Prompt*: Write a blog post about the installation and setup work you did this week: your decisions, your rationales; make sure you link out to at least a couple of other resources. How does what you’ve created so far relate to the vision board you made last week? Sort your Process Post under either a Category or Tag for ‘posiel’ so you can collect them later.
• Mini Assignment #1: Create a meme that reflects you or your blog. Post it; tag it @sfupublishing, @learnpublishing #posiel; tweet it, #posiel.
  

  Week 3: The Online Self (Jan 23)

  Due:  Mini Assignment #1

  Who are you? How would we know? What is your “voice”? Do you recognize it? Would others recognize it? What does the “publication of self” mean?

  When we put things out into the world, when we write in public, who is it for? Are you a different “self” in different contexts, environments, platforms?

  Required Readings:
  Suler, John. 2004. “The Online Disinhibition Effect” Available from: ResearchGate.net
  Reder, Deanna. 2010. Awina Maga Kiya (Who is it that you really are)?: Cree and Métis Autobiographical Writing

  Recommended Readings:
  Hollenbaugh, Erin E. December 24, 2020. “Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities”
  Why We Post: Social media through the eyes of the world. University College London. 2016.

  Tutorial: Publishing online – basic tools and models. We will look at writing for an online audience and begin to consider which social media platforms you will be working with.

  For next week:
  You have now read, and we have discussed in class, John Suler’s The Online Disinhibition Effect.  Consider your own online behaviours and whether any of Suler’s six types of behaviour represents your own. You don’t need to go into great detail, this is more of a reflective exercise in which you have an opportunity to look not just at the behaviour of others, but your own online life as well.

  • If you have not yet done so, complete the reading “How I Got My Attention Back” by Craig Mod. Look closely at his conclusions about being offline and online. Do any of his experiences resonate with you? Could you be offline for a month (if your situation in life allowed it without harming you)? Include your thoughts in this week’s process post.
  • Process Post Prompt*: Map out your website, visualizing which components should be placed where. Where will your PUB101 content live? This can be a diagram, a map, an infographic. Instagram it. Initiate at least one online social media platform and begin to look at which others work best for your online presence.
  • Mini Assignment #2: Pick a Marvel, DC, or a personal cultural hero to embody in a “guest post” for your blog.

  Week 4: Publics/Digital Publics (Jan 30)

  Due: Mini Assignment #2 

  What is a public? Where do we get our ideas about what publics can or should be? How do you find, engage and grow your public?

  Required Readings:
  Warner, Michael. 2002. “Publics and Counterpublics.” in Quarterly Journal of Speech. 88.4. (If you want to read more of Warner’s work please click here.)
  Leetaru, Kalev. (September 29, 2017). In a Digital World, Are We Losing Sight of Our Undigitized Past?

  Recommended Readings:
  Fattal, Alexander. 2018. “Counterpublic” escholarship.org.
  Boyd, Danah. 2014 “Searching for a public of their own.” It’s Complicated. pp 213-227

  Process Post Prompt*: What audience have you been imagining thus far? How has that imagined audience informed your design and editorial decisions?

  For next week: 
  Peer Review #1 (due  Feb 6):

  With an assigned peer from your tutorial, write (appreciatively, constructively) a review of what they have developed on their site thus far, with a focus on the development of a clearly articulated online self. The review should assess any content and design decisions made thus far, and should engage clearly with course readings on developing an online self. Your review should be 400+ words and posted to your Process Blog, with clear links to your peer’s site. This is worth 3% of your overall grade.

  Week 5: Editing & Genres + Accessible Websites (Feb 6)

  Due: Peer Review #1 

  What does an editor do? How is that different from a writer? The editorial role developed enormously through the twentieth century, but has become less clear in the age of massively multiplayer online publishing. The functions, virtues, and value of the editor have not gone away, however. An introduction to genres and forms, with a focus on how an understanding of genre will help you to better understand your audience.

  Required Reading:
  Basu, Tanya. September 5, 2020. “Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet” MIT Technology Review.
  Hill, Gord. 2021. “The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book” – find a print or electronic copy through SFU library. Select and read 2-3 sections and be ready to discuss.

  Recommended Reading:
  Doctorow, Corey. May 9, 2021. “The Memex Method: When your commonplace book is a public database”

  Tutorial: Editing for audience. You know who your audience is; how will that inform your editorial process?

  For next week: 
  Mini Assignment #3: Create a story out of media only: a sequence of images, an audio production, a video production. No text.

  Week 6: Designing Yourself (Feb 13)

  Guest Speaker: Mauvé Page, designer

  Due: Mini Assignment #3

  What shapes your experience of a text? The words themselves are only a part. The context, format, provenance, and design are also key. How has the publisher shaped how you encounter it, both as a first impression and as a deeper engagement? We discuss design theory, publication design, and interaction design as well as some basic development methods.

  Required Readings:
  Kissane, Erin. 2013. “Contents May Have Shifted” in Contents Magazine 4. Available from: http://contentsmagazine.com/articles/contents-may-have-shifted/

  Recommended Readings:
  Gertz, Travis. 2015. “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.”
  Victor Kaptelinin. “Affordances.” The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, Chapter 44. Interaction Design Foundation.  Note: This reading a bit long – but has a lot of good design thinking, so read as much as you feel a need to.

  Tutorial: Design basics
  Discussion of practical design strategies, critiques of existing work, role of motifs and common elements.

  For next week: 
  You probably have some websites that you frequently visit. Have you ever looked closely at the design elements? Now that you have completed the design readings and heard Mauve Pagé’s best practices, please pick a website of your choosing and describe what works or doesn’t work. Please post a screencap and the link.

  Implement some of the design decisions you make during tutorial; prepare for next week’s peer review. Revisit your About copy, Profile copy, Descriptions, etc.

  Winter Break Feb 19-23

  Week 7: Social Media: Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking (Feb 27)

  The rise of digital media has arguably meant a democratization to allow more voices to be heard. It has also created opportunities for abuse and digital assassination. In the past year we have witnessed a sharp rise in “false news”, echo chambers, and the number of people who now get their “news” from social media platforms such as Facebook. This week we look more closely at the ramifications. We will also look at digital literacy and how we can better critique what we read and foster credible information flow online.

  Required Readings:
  Bridle, James.  November, 2017. “Something is Wrong on the Internet”
  Caulfield, Mike. December 19, 2016. Yes, Digital Literacy. But which one?
  Peiyue, Wu. 2022. “She Spent a Decade Writing Fake Russian History. Wikipedia Just Noticed.
  Harwell, Drew and Menn, Joseph. February 2, 2023. “Harvard is shutting down project that studied social media misinformation.” The Washington Post.
  Gottfried, Jeffrey and Liedke, Jacob. November 4, 2022. “US adults under 30 now trust information from social media almost as much as from national news outlets.” The World Economic Forum.

  Recommended Readings:
  Foer, Frank. May, 2018. “The Era of Fake Video Begins.” The Atlantic.
  Gilbert, David. March 3, 2021. “Here’s How Worried You Should Be About Those Tom Cruise Deepfakes”
  Kenyon, Georgina. January 9, 2016 “The Man who Studies the Spread of Ignorance”
  Marwick, Alice and Lewis, Rebecca. 2017. “Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online“. Datasociety.net.
  Mosendz, Polly. April, 2017. “The Seven Types of People Who Tweet at Trump.”
  Volpe, Allie. 2019. “How Parents of Child Influencers Package Their Kids’ Lives for Instagram”. The Atlantic.

  Tutorial: Building your site, customizing its look, functionality, and content. Expanding to other platforms, channels. Install Google Adsense.

  For next week:
  Peer Review #2 (due Mar 5th)

  With an assigned peer from the course's other tutorial, write (appreciatively, constructively) a review of their website’s design. Link well, use resources from your readings please. The review should assess theme and customizations, typography, layout, social media integration, site structure, usability, and any other design decisions you notice. Your review should be 400+ words and posted to your Process Blog, with clear links to your peer’s site.

  Week 8: Copyright, AI, and Publishing (Mar 5)

  Due: Peer Review #2 (Design)

  What is text? A thing you read, right? What is an author? Is text what an author writes? Dig into these questions, and it gets complicated. Furthermore, who owns it? Who owns the press, the means of production? How has the digital shifted our understanding of intellectual property in favour of openness? How does Copyright play out in a culture of sharing, remixing, and repurposing? What is a publisher? How has digital media changed these structures?

  Required Readings:
  Antonelli, William. 2022. How to use DALL·E mini, the viral AI tool that can turn any prompt into a series of pictures.
  2021. DALL·E: Creating Images from Text
  OpenAI. 2022. ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue.
  Younging, Gregory. 2018. “The Elements of Indigenous Style” pp 1-7
  Younging, Gregory. 2015. “Traditional Knowledge Exists; Intellectual Property is Invented or Created” Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository, 2015

  Recommended Readings:
  Bois, Jon. 2017 “What Football Will Look Like in the Future.”
  Henein, Peter. 2015. “You Say ‘Tomaydo'”, I say no copyright infringement: Recipe book not an original compilation” www.casselsbrock.com
  Madrigal, Alexis. 2018. “What Sorry to Bother You Gets Right About Memes. They are powerful but politically meaningless.” The Atlantic.
  Thompson, Dillon. 2022. “Is the Internet Changing How We Talk About Slang Words?“

  Tutorial: Discussion of copyright, Creative Commons, and the culture of sharing online. How have you used others’ works in your site?

  For Next Week: 
  Mini Assignment #4: Remix something.
  Short Essay: March 12. Please see the Assignments page for complete details.

  Week 9: Marketing, Monetization (Mar 12)

  Guest speaker: Trevor Battye,  Trevor Battye Advertising Sales

  Due: Mini Assignment #4
  Due: Short Essay

  The Internet can be seen as a mass of overlapping audiences or niches; that’s different from the older “mass media” model of the broadcast paradigm. Online communication seems to be more collaborative and participatory than print media ever was. Is there a difference between audiences and markets? What about the difference between whom you think your audience is and who your audience actually is? We will discuss advertising to your audience, monetization of your content, and your own participation in tracked and monetized platforms.

  Required Readings:
  Pod Academy. 2016. “Digital breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us.” http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/

  Recommended Readings:
  Tom Bleymaier. 2013.  On Advertising – Maria Popvova
  Suzanne Norman. 2015 “Trying not to drop breadcrumbs in Amazon’s store.”

  Tutorial:  Discussion and exploration of monetization and the sustainability of your publications.

  For Next Week: 
  Data helps inform and educate. But at what cost? What is your personal feeling about data trails? Do you try to minimize your footprint or have you thrown in the towel?

  Process Post Prompt*: Analytics (Google, Facebook, Twitter etc.) is a very valuable tool for building your audience. For content creators, knowing how your reader behaves on your website can help enormously with developing the best content, posting at the right time, and developing the appropriate engagement strategies. On the flip side, for the reader or user, it can be tiresome and even worrisome knowing you are providing data trails every where you go online.

  Week 10 Analytics, SEO and Audience Growth (Mar 19)

  What use is the data Google Analytics collects? How can we use it to grow our audiences? We will look at data from real websites, marketing strategies based on data results, and the uses and limits of social data. Search Engine Optimization is important to building awareness. What are some tactics to ensure your ranking continues to grow?  Finally, we look at some global-scale numbers and trends, via Data-ai”s State of Mobile

  Required Readings:
  data.ai. 2022. State of Mobile 2022
  Hollingsworth, Sam. April 13, 2018. “12 Reasons Why You Business Absolutely Needs SEO.” https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close

  Recommended Readings:
  Brightplanet.com. March 27, 2014. “Clearing up Confusion – Deep Web vs Dark Web” http://www.brightplanet.com/2014/03/clearing-confusion-deep-web-vs-dark-web/.

  For Next Week:
  Mini Assignment #5: Create an infographic that summarizes your online self.
  Peer review #3: (Audiences and Channels Due Mar 26th)

  With an assigned peer, write (appreciatively, constructively) a review of their website’s marketability to their intended audience group. Link well, use resources from your readings please. The review should thoroughly assess both content and design from the perspective of a reader/user. Your review should be 400+ words and posted to your Process Blog, with clear links to your peer’s site.

  Week 11 Multiple Channels, Multiple Media (Mar 26)

  Due: Peer Review #3
  Due: Mini Assignment #5

  How do people read online? How do different channels reinforce each other? A key strategy for reaching audiences today is to “be in all places.” But is this effective? We will discuss the relationship between your website “home base” and the participatory media within your social assets.

  Required Readings:
  Bryce J Renninger. 2014. “‘Where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind’ : Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment.” new media & society

  Recommended Readings:
  Kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com. 2013. “Pokemon as transmedia storytelling”

  Tutorial: Google Analytics. Diving deeper into using GA. Students will be asked to highlight their findings. Who did you think your audience is? Who is it actually? Discussion of strategies for cross-media development and linking.  Looking at responsiveness on common devices and browsers.

  Process Post Prompt: Make a plan for incorporating more transmedia integration into your online publication. What channels will you focus on? Why?

  Week 12: Moderating your Commentariat  and Navigating the Social Waters (Apr 2)

  We’ve all heard the joke “never read the comments,” but where did the commonplace understanding of comments sections as terrible come from? And if they’re terrible, why do so many sites have comments sections anyway? We’ll discuss online abuse and harassment, the relationship between comment guidelines and online community formation, and strategies for moderating your own comments sections.

  This course has been about the publication of self; but what about our private, domestic, inner selves? Where do they exist in a pervasively networked world? Are these facets of human experience threatened? And how exactly does that play out along the lines of gender, class, race? Does privacy even matter anymore? Anonymity?

  Required Readings:
  Konnikova, Maria. 2013. “The Psychology of Online Comments”
  Becky Gardiner, Mahana Mansfield, Ian Anderson, Josh Holder, Daan Louter and Monica Ulmanu. 2016. “The dark side of Guardian comments”
  Ronson, Jon. 2015. “When Online Shaming Spirals Out of Control.”
  Thorn, Jesse. 2012. “Make Your Thing.” http://transom.org/2012/jesse-thorn-make-your-thing/

  Recommended Readings:
  Atwood, Margaret. 2022. “Margaret Atwood: Your Feelings Are No Excuse”
  Hirsch, Aubrey. 2022. “That’s How It Works When You’re a Woman on the Internet”
  Stein, Joel. 2016. “How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet”

  Tutorial: looking at other websites and their community guidelines; considering how to incorporate community guidelines into your own site

  Process Post Prompt*: Develop community guidelines for your site. Why are those the right guidelines for you? How will you implement them?

  Week 13: Presentations + Potluck (Apr 9)

  Due: All course assignments due by 11:55 pm.We have time for 10 people to showcase their sites. Please sign up here.

  *  Process Post Prompts are just suggestions in case you find yourself with creator’s block.