Full Semester Outline

Week 1: Orientation (Sep 15)

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:
Mod, Craig. 2017. “How I Got My Attention Back.”
Hamblin, James. 2016. “How to Talk to Strangers.”
Charlebois, Brieanna and Shen, Nono. September 21, 2025. The big meaning behind micro-relationships, and why we should talk to strangers more

Website Accessibility Readings:
Gaines, Homer. 2022. Four Principles of Accessibility
Accessible Publishing Learning Network. 2022. Website Accessibility

For next week: 

  • Begin developing your path to publication. We have created a development plan you can follow if you choose. Remember this is your domain and your online presence. Next week you will register your URL during tutorial, (if you have not done so already) and have it ready to use for week three.
  • 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 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/development plan 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 (Sep 22)

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).

Additional 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 work on getting your sites registered and start selecting a theme. We will also discuss tagging and its importance. Citations, links, URLs, DOIs.

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. Once it is registered, add your URL in this Google Sheet

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? 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

By now, you should be pretty clear on your development plan. How did you work through the process? Were you able to narrow down your focus? Please post about the process you went through.
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 Idea: 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 your online self.

Week 3 The Online Self (Sep 29)

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

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

Tutorial: Continue set up of URL and website – Troubleshoot common issues. Begin looking 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 Idea*: 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 (Oct 6)

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:
Leetaru, Kalev. (September 29, 2017). In a Digital World, Are We Losing Sight of Our Undigitized Past?
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.)
White, Molly. “POSSE: Reclaiming Social Media in a Fragmented World.” Citation Needed, September 27, 2024. https://www.citationneeded.news/posse/.

Additional 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 Idea*: 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  Oct 13):

With an assigned peer from your tutorial, write (appreciatively and constructively) a review of what they have developed on their site thus far, focusing 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 (Oct 13)

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:

Additional Reading:

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 (Oct 20)

Guest Speaker: , designer (TBC)

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/

Additional Readings:
Gertz, Travis. 2015. “Design Machines. How to survive in the digital Apocalypse.”
Kissane, Erin. June 1, 2023.“Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow -.” Erin Kissane’s Small Internet Website,  https://erinkissane.com/tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow.
Victor Kaptelinin. “Affordances.” The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, Chapter 44. Interaction Design Foundation.  Note: This reading is 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.

Process Post Idea* 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 Charlie Zha’s best practices, you may want to pick a website and describe what works or doesn’t work. Post a screencap and the link.

For next week: 
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.

Week 7: Social Media: Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking (Oct 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 few years, 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 X (Twitter). 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. Below is a study you can participate in to assess your susceptibility to misinformation:
Maertens, Rakoen. 2023. Misinformation Susceptibility Test

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.

Additional 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 and channels. Install Google AdSense.

For next week:
Peer Review #2 (due Nov 3rd)

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 and AI (Nov 3)

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 digital technology 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:
Schor, Zach. 2024. Anderson v. Stability AI: The Landmark Case Unpacking the COpyright Risks of AI Image Generators. www.jipel.law.nyu.edu
2021. DALL·E: Creating Images from Text
Henein, Peter. 2015. “You Say ‘Tomaydo'”, I say no copyright infringement: Recipe book not an original compilation” www.casselsbrock.com
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” Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository, 2015

Additional Readings:
Bois, Jon. 2017 “What Football Will Look Like in the Future.”
Madrigal, Alexis. 2018. “What Sorry to Bother You Gets Right About Memes. They are powerful but politically meaningless.” The Atlantic.
Snow, Jackie. January 6, 2024. AI takes over CES 2025 — one smart gadget at a time. Qz.com.
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: Nov 17th. Please see the Assignments page for complete details.

Week 9: Marketing, Monetization (Nov 10)

Guest speaker: Trevor Battye,  Trevor Battye Advertising Sales

Due: Mini Assignment #4

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:

Additional Readings:

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 (Nov 17)

Due: Short Essay

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:

Additional Readings:

For Next Week:
Mini Assignment #5: Create an infographic that summarizes your online self.
Peer review #3: (Audiences and Channels Due Mar 25th)

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: Moderating your Commentariat  and Navigating the Social Waters (Nov 24)

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:

Additional Readings:

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 12: Presentations + Potluck (Dec 1)

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.

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