Course syllabus

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Digitalisation and Society 

Course-PM

TEK600 TEK600 Digitalisation and society lp2 HT23 (7.5 hp)

The Course is offered by the department of Technology Management and Economics, and division of Science, Technology and Society

Course Zoom link:
https://chalmers.zoom.us/j/2957594611

People in the course 

  • Catharina Landström: Examiner and teacher of the course, Associate Professor at Science, Technology and Society division, Department of Technology Management and Economics. She will take part in the introductory lecture for the course and also she will present a lecture on digital technologies and environment.
  • Parissa Mokhtabad: Teacher of the course and contact person,  PhD student at Science, Technology and Society division,  Department of Technology Management and Economics,  parissa@chalmers.se . She will focus on materialities and infrastructure of data,  and citizen science
  • Erik Bohlin, Professor  at Science, Technology and Society division, Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology (Vising Professor and  Ivey Chair in Telecommunication Economics, Policy and Regulation, BEPP). He will discuss digital policy and economics. 

  • Anwesha Chakraborty — Research fellow at University of Bologna, Department of Political and Social Sciences . Her lecture focuses on digital divide and cashless societies by presenting her previous case studies. 

  • Alicja Ostrowska - PhD researcher at Science, Technology and Society division, Department of Technology Management and Economics. alicja.ostrowska@chalmers.se She will discuss AI, robots and machine-learning from STS perspective. 
  •  Frauke Rohden - Post-doc at Science, Technology and Society division, Department of Technology Management and Economics. She will give a lecture on digital technologies in health care

Students representatives 
TKELT   shada423@gmail.com      Shada Al-Wakkal
MPDCM   andersson.erik81@gmail.com      Erik Andersson
TKSAM   kalleblue@hotmail.com   Carl Höjdefors
TKSAM   rasmusjonasson00@gmail.com      Rasmus Jonasson

Course purpose

The aim of this course is foster knowledge about digital technologies in various aspects of our lives as  inhabitants of an natural/urban environment, (non)citizens of a government, employers of companies, patients in care centers, and scientists in collaborative networks.  The students will deliberate on the politics of digitalisation, what  digitalisation entails for society and individuals, how it shapes politics and is shaped by politics.

The course  starts with introducing general concepts on digitalisation and it revolves around seven themes: 

1) Digital policy & Economics

2)Invisible Actors in Digitalisation 

3) Materialities of Data and  Infrastructure of Digitalisation

4) Digital inclusion 

5) Digitlaisation & Environment 

6)  AI  and responsibility 

7) Digitalisation in Health Care 

 

Schedule

Here is an overview of the schedule (last changed on 30 October):

Overview Schedule TEK600- 30 October 2023 -2.pdf

And TimeEdit:

TimeEdit

Course literature

0) Introduction to digitalisation 

  • Hendrikse, R., Adriaans, I., Klinge, T. J., & Fernandez, R. (2022). The big techification of everything. Science as culture, 31(1), 59-71.
  • Edwards, P.N., Mayernik, M.S., Batcheller, A.L., Bowker, G.C. and Borgman, C.L., 2011. Science friction: Data, metadata, and collaboration. Social studies of science, 41(5), pp.667-690.
  • Kling, R. (1992) ”Computerization and social transformations”. Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 16 No. 3, Summer 1991 342-367; Sage Publications, Inc. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/875299m3

 

1) Digital policy  & Economics

  • Gupta, D. K. (2001). Analyzing public policy: Concepts, tools, and techniques. (chapter Reason, Rationality, and Public Policy)
  • Øverby, H., & Audestad, J. A. (2021). Introduction to digital economics: Foundations, business models and case studies. Springer Nature.  Chapter 1-8  (available in Chalmers Library)
  • Cave, M. (2017). 40 years on: An account of innovation in the regulation of UK telecommunications, in 3½ chapters. Telecommunications Policy, 41(10), 904-915.
  • Taylor, R. D. (2017). The next stage of US communications policy: The emerging embedded infosphere. Telecommunications Policy, 41(10), 1039-1055.

2)  invisible actors in digitalisation  (in order of importance)

  • Anwar, M. A., & Graham, M. (2020). Digital labour at economic margins: African workers and the global information economy. Review of African Political Economy, 47(163), 95-105.
  • Irani, L. (2019). “Can the Subaltern Innovate?”  in Chasing innovation: Making entrepreneurial citizens in modern India. Princeton University Press.  (pp. 172–204)
  • Tokumitsu, M. (2014). In the name of love. Jacobin Magazine, 12.

    https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/in-the-name-of-love/

  • Delfanti, A. and Frey, B., 2021. Humanly extended automation or the future of work seen through Amazon patents. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 46(3), pp.655-682. (automation and labor)
  • Schou, J., & Pors, A. S. (2019). Digital by default? A qualitative study of exclusion in digitalised welfare. Social policy & administration, 53(3), 464-477

3) Materialities of data and  infrastructure of digitalisation

  • Mackenzie, D. (2023, January 19). A Puff of Carbon Dioxide. London Review of Books, 45(2). https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n02/donald-mackenzie/short-cuts
  • Libertson, F., Velkova, J., & Palm, J. (2021). Data-center infrastructure and energy gentrification: perspectives from Sweden. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 17(1), 152-161.
  • Holt, J., & Vonderau, P. (2015). ‘Where the internet lives’: data centers as cloud infrastructure. Signal traffic: Critical studies of media infrastructures, 71-93.
  • Berkhout, F., & Hertin, J. (2004). De-materialising and re-materialising: digital technologies and the environment. Futures, 36(8), 903-920.
  • Velkova, J., & Plantin, J. C. (2023). Data centers and the infrastructural temporalities of digital media: An introduction. new media & society, 25(2), 273-286.

4) Digitalisation & environment 

  • Mukhtarov, F., Dieperink, C., & Driessen, P. (2018). The influence of information and communication technologies on public participation in urban water governance: A review of place-based research. Environmental Science & Policy, 89, 430-438.
  • Gabrys, Jennifer. "Smart forests and data practices: From the Internet of Trees to planetary governance." Big data & society 7, no. 1 (2020): 2053951720904871. (not confirmed)

5) Digital inclusion

  • World Economic Forum. (2020, June 26). COVID-19: Why we need to move to digital cash payments by government. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/covid19-digital-cash-payments-government/
  • Chandrasekhar, C. P., & Ghosh, J. (2018). The financialization of finance? Demonetization and the dubious push to cashlessness in India. Development and change, 49(2), 420-436.
  • Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs, European Parliament. (2018, March). The underlying causes of the digital gender gap and possible solutions for enhanced digital inclusion of women and girls (Publication No.). https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/604940/IPOL_STU(2018)604940_EN.pdf
  • Masika, R., & Bailur, S. (2015). Negotiating women’s agency through ICTs: A comparative study of Uganda and India. Gender, Technology and Development, 19(1), 43-69.
  • Sam, S., & Jillet, C. (2019). Sense-making of digital money among female peripheral agents: a short ethnographic study of informal workers in North India. Sense-making of digital money among female peripheral agents: a short ethnographic study of informal workers in North India, 60-78.
  • Sam, J. S., Chakraborty, A., & Srinivasan, J. (2021). Cashlessness in India: Vision, policy and practices. Telecommunications Policy, 45(8), 102169.
  • Schou, Jannick, and Anja Svejgaard Pors. "Digital by default? A qualitative study of exclusion in digitalised welfare." Social policy & administration 53, no. 3 (2019): 464-477

6)  AI  and responsibility 

  • Campolo, A., & Crawford, K. (2020). Enchanted determinism: Power without responsibility in artificial intelligence. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, 6, 1-19.: The article investigates power in AI.
  • Faraj, S., Pachidi, S. and Sayegh, K., 2018. Working and organizing in the age of the learning algorithm. Information and Organization, 28(1), pp.62-70. (digitalisation in organisations)

  • Wajcman, J. (2017) ”Automation: is it really different this time?” The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 68: 119-127. https://doi-org.ludwig.lub.lu.se/10.1111/1468-4446.12239

7) Digitalisation in health care 

 

  • Recommended reading 
  1. Kitchin, R. and Lauriault, T., 2018. Data and data infrastructures. Digital Geographies, pp.83-94. (data politics) 
  2. Hogan, M. (2018). Big data ecologies. Ephemera, 18(3), 631.
  3. Ghost work: How to stop Silicon Valley from building a new global underclass. Gray, Mary L., and Siddharth Suri. Eamon Dolan Books, 2019.
  4. Jenny Chan, 2013. “A SuicideSurvivor: The Life of a Chinese Worker,”New Technology, Work and Employment, 28:2.
  5. The Laborers who keep Dick Pics and Beheadings out of your Facebook Feed: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/
  6. The Poet who Died for your Phone:https://time.com/chinapoet/ 

 

  • Supplementary audio/video materials:
  1. The Poorly Paid Workers Powering Automation w/ Phil Jones - Tech Won't Save Us https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/tech-wont-save-us/id1507621076?i=1000550652625
  2. Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World documentary by Werner Herzog   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1tZ8JsZvg
  3. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Adam Curtis (The episodes exist on the internet on several websites but  it is the students' responsibility to find them.)
  4. Criado Perez C (2022) Computer says no – is AI making healthcare worse for women? Visible Women Podcast 3. Available at: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/audio/visible-women-caroline-criado-perez-episode-3/Links to an external site.
  5. Ward A (2023) Neurotechnology (AI + BRAIN TECH) with Dr. Nita Farahany. Ologies Podcast. Available at: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/neurotechnology 

 

Course design

The course  includes lectures, study visits and discussion seminars.  The lecture sessions start with introduction and ends with a summary session. Along the way, there are  topics of digital economics and policy,  digital inclusion and invisible actors, AI & responsibility, digital technologies in health care where digitalisation is investigated both theoretically and empirically in specific fields.  The three study visits are also connected to these topics. The first one (Ericsson) is a private ICT company where students visits its innovation center. The second (SKF)  is a digitalised private factory  using robots  and the third visit is to Gothenburg elderly care where City of Gothenburg is using digital technologies for provision of care.  The aim of the visits are to gain real life experience of digitalisation in specific areas and to assess lectures and other materials with tangible examples. In the two discussion seminars, students will write and discuss about one chosen article together. This activity aims to foster group thinking about digitalisation. 

Requirements from students 

  • The students are required to write and present group projects, write individual reflections on study visits, write individual essay for discussion seminar and participate in sessions. 
  • The participation in study visits and  discussion seminar is obligatory in order to get the points allocated to them. 
  • It is also expected that the students read materials uploaded in Canvas before each of the sessions and be present in the lectures. Missing lectures more than three times affects the grades negatively. 
  • Missing deadlines and submitting assignments late affect the grades negatively.

Communication between students and teachers

  • If you have any question/comments or you would like to plan supervision please contact parissa@chalmers.se
  • If you can not show up in study visits or discussion seminars due to reasonable excuses, you must contact parissa@chalmers.se  so we can plan accordingly. 

 

Learning objectives 

Learning objectives:

- Explain and interpret processes of digitalisation, and also make forecasts of future effects of digitalisation, both short-term and long-term
- Describe and analyze theoretical concepts and explanatory models for the interplay between digitalisation and societal change
- Problematize the societal consequences of digitalisation, then, now and in the future
- Observe the ethical problems that digitalisation may involve
- Write argumentative text

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.

Study plan

Examination form

  • Three Written reflections of study visits 
  • A short essay for discussion seminar 
  • Project outline, project presentation and project report 
  • Take-home exam
  • Make-up assignment from audio-visual materials for students who miss study visit sessions or discussion seminar.

Grading

Each assignment gives students a certain amount of points. Students have to earn a minimum amount of points per assignment in order to pass the course. Minimum and maximum points per assignment are illustrated in Table 1. There are no points associated with the project outline, which, however, needs to be approved by your examiner.

Table 1. Minimum and Maximum amount of points per assignment

ASSIGNMENT

MIN AMOUNT OF POINTS

MAX AMOUNT OF POINTS

Project Outline

Approval

Approval

Project Report

16

40

Take-Home Exam

8

25

Individual Study Visit Reflection 1

4

10

Individual Study Visit Reflection 2

5

10

Individual Study Visit Reflection 3

5

10
Seminar Discussion 1 2 5
Total 40 100

 

The sum of all points earned gives the final grade. The final grade can be FAIL, 3, 4 or 5. The amounts of points which correspond to the various grades are illustrated in Table 2.

 

The sum of all points earned gives the final grade. Please have a look at the table below:

Table 2. Final Grade

SUM OF POINTS

FINAL GRADE

Below 40

FAIL

Between 40-59

3

Between 60-79

4

Between 80-100

5

Notes from Mid-course Evaluation Meeting. Wednesday November 22

  • Attending the meeting were student representatives Carl Höjdefors, Erik Andersson, Shada Al-Wakkal and Rasmus Jonasson. The course convener Parissa Mohktabad Amrei and the examiner Catharina Landström were also present.
  • Overall, the course was understood to be working well.
  • The seminar discussions had been appreciated. Some ideas for how to develop the discussions further for example with student presentations were considered.
  • The study visits have also been positively regarded. To meet people in companies and organisations face-to-face is interesting and more rewarding than to learn about it from a distance.
  • Clarification was made regarding the take-home exam’s status as a mandatory assignment that must be completed for a course grade to be awarded.
  • The final course evaluation meeting will take place early next year. The student representatives will bring further comments and opinions from the entire class to this meeting.

Changes made since the last occasion

last change 12/04/2023

  • Notes from evaluation meeting 


Course summary:

Date Details Due