Social Change in the Digital Age 2023-2024
Prof. Matteo Bittanti
B.A. in Corporate Communication and Public Relations
Course description
Social Change in the Digital Age delves into the complex challenges facing contemporary society, emphasizing the pivotal role that narratives play in shaping our collective perception of reality. From sociopolitical unrest and the dissemination of disinformation to ongoing ecological crises, the course dissects the core issues that define our era within the overarching framework of capitalism.
We will analyze diverse contexts and case studies—such as the ethos of modern corporate culture, the complexities of the climate crisis, the technological mechanisms that amplify disinformation, and prevailing political stagnation. Throughout, we will focus keenly on the narratives and conceptual scaffolds that we employ to interpret an increasingly unintelligible and chaotic world.
The course aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the key obstacles inhibiting effective engagement with today's challenges. Students will be invited to project visions of the future, pondering questions such as: Will the unfolding climate crisis dismantle the societal structures we know? What role did fossil fuel companies, think tanks and interest groups play in spreading disinformation about climate change? What political paradigms will dominate in the years to come? Will societal evolution accentuate our better qualities - freedom, equality - or magnify our flaws, such as exploitation, extraction and apathy? Is societal and environmental collapse inevitable?
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students will have gained the following competencies and skills, aligned with both the overarching objectives of the Program and the specific goals of this thematic area:
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Acquire proficiency in multidisciplinary literature: Students will become well-versed in the most current scholarly literature across various disciplines, including but not limited to technology, sociology, political science, environmental studies, and media studies.
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Hone textual analysis skills: Students will learn how to critically dissect and analyze texts by examining divergent perspectives, evaluating competing ideas, and synthesizing new hypotheses from available data.
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Comprehend the interplay of media and technology: Students will gain a nuanced understanding of how technology and media operate as influential agents in the shaping of communication paradigms, cultural norms, societal structures, and political dynamics, informed by a range of theoretical approaches and case studies.
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Cultivate critical perspective on sociocultural factors: Students will be equipped to critically evaluate and discuss the complex roles that technologies assume in shaping perceptions and experiences related to class, sex, and gender.
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Analyze multiple scenarios: Students will be trained to contemplate challenges and opportunities from diverse viewpoints, and to situate these within broader sociocultural frameworks to formulate comprehensive analyses.
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Embrace the possibility of alternative pathways: Students will develop an approach that extends beyond mere problem identification, fostering a receptiveness to alternative solutions even when confronted with seemingly "inevitable" and "inescapable" contingencies.
Through these learning outcomes, students will be better prepared to apply conceptual frameworks and empirical insights to interpret and engage with contemporary events, environments, and contexts.
All course materials, including assigned readings, and assessments will be uniform for all enrolled students. While attendance is not mandatory, it is strongly recommended for optimal learning outcomes. Supplementary resources, such as in-class presentations, video summaries, and additional content, are made accessible through the University's Moodle platform, also referred to as the IULM Community.
Importantly, the entire course—including required readings, presentations, and additional resources—is conducted exclusively in English.
To successfully complete the course, students must partake in a compulsory final exam, which is computer-based and consists of 30 multiple-choice questions. The test duration is 20 minutes.
The exam aims to assess students' grasp of key concepts and themes covered during the semester, making thorough engagement with the prescribed texts essential for success. Additionally, the exam will include material from the instructor’s lectures, case studies, and a variety of supplementary resources such as summaries, diagrams, flowcharts, concept maps, and mandatory videos. To facilitate preparation, sample questions will be made available in advance on the IULM Community platform.
Scoring is straightforward: each correct answer is worth one point, while incorrect or unanswered questions yield zero points. A minimum score of 18 out of 30 is required to pass. A score of 17 out of 30 (or less) corresponds to "fail".
It is important to note that there is no provision for a supplementary oral exam. All students (including Erasmus students) will be assessed uniformly, adhering to the same format and based on identical course material; there are no exceptions.
For those interested in extra-credit points, an optional multimedia project is available. This project entails the creation of a short video essay on a specific topic chosen by the instructor. It carries a point value ranging from zero to three, which will be added to the written exam score, provided the exam score is at least 18 out of 30. Comprehensive guidelines regarding the optional multimedia project, including its requirements, format, duration, and submission deadline, can be found in the "Optional Project" section below.
Students are expected to successfully pass the SCDA exam by the end of the academic year. If they do not meet this requirement, they will have the opportunity to reattempt the same exam until they achieve a passing grade. Students who have not successfully completed the exam can opt to switch to the course materials for the 2024-2025 academic year. This change is permissible, as course materials are updated annually. To make this switch, students should send an email to the professor, explaining their reasons for wanting to prepare for a different program. This request should be submitted at least one week before the scheduled exam. Please note that requests for a different test on the day of the examination will not be accepted. The first available date for the 2024-2025 exam is January 2025.
Bibliography
Required texts
Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
The Big Myth
How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2023
Melissa Aronczyk, Maria I. Espinoza
A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism
Oxford University Press, New York, 2022
Recommended texts (these are not part of the exam)
Arjun Appadurai, Neta Alexander, Failure, Wiley, New York 2019.
Jem Bendell, Breaking Together: A freedom-loving response to collapse, Good Works, Bristol, 2023
James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2022.
James Bridle, New Dark Age. Technology and the End of the Future, Verso, London 2017.
Richard Barbrook, Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village, Pluto Press, London 2015.
Franco “bifo” Berardi, Futurability: The Age of Impotence and the Horizon of Possibility, Verso, London 2017.
Jens Beckert, Imagined Futures: Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2016.
Aaron Bastani, Fully Automated Luxury Communism, Verso, London 2018.
Heather Davis, Plastic Matter, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina 2022.
Mike Davis, Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, Vintage, New York 1999.
Roman Felli, The Great Adaptation. Climate, Capitalism, and Catastrophe, Verso, London 2021.
Peter Frase, Four Futures: Life After Capitalism, Verso, London 2016.
Mark Fisher, Capitalism Realism. Is There No Alternative?, Zero Books, London 2009.
Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, Verso, London 2017.
Geoff Dembicki, The Petroleum Papers Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change, Greystone Books, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2022
Malcolm Harris, Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials, Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
Srecko Horvat, After the Apocalypse, Polity Press, New York 2021.
Matthew Huber, Climate Change as Class War. Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, Verso, London, 2022.
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, Simon & Schuster, New York 2015.
Wes Jackson, Robert Jensen, An Inconvenient Apocalypse. Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, University of Notre Dame Press, Bend, Indiana 2022
Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class, Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis 2020.
Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital. The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Verso, London 2016.
Andreas Malm, The Progress of This Storm. Nature and Society in a Warming World, Verso, London 2020.
Andreas Malm, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Verso, London 2021.
Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State. Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, Penguin, London, 2012.
Toby Miller, Greenwashing Culture, Routledge, London 2017.
Toby Miller, Greenwashing Sport, Routledge, London 2017.
Naomi Oreskes, Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt. How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Bloomsbury, 2011.
Thomas Piketty, Capital and Ideology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2020.
Pablo Servigne, Raphaël Stevens, How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times, Polity, Cambridge 2020.
Pablo Servigne, Raphaël Stevens, Gauthier Chapelle, Another End of the World is Possible: Living the Collapse (and Not Merely Surviving It), Polity, Cambridge 2021.
Heather Rogers, Green Gone Wrong. Dispatches from the Front Lines of Eco-Capitalism, Verson, London 2013.
Daniel Sherrell, Warmth. Coming of Age at the End of the World, Penguin, London 2021.
Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, Polity, New York 2016.
McKenzie Wark, Capitalism is Dead. Is This Something Worse?, Verso, London 2019.
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Public Affairs, New York 2019.
Office hours
Fall-Winter 2023 semester
Prof. Matteo Bittanti [email protected]
Email policy
Please address your inquiries to [email protected] only
Please only use your @studenti.iulm.it address and always state your student ID number in every communication.
I respond to course related correspondence during office hours only: 09.00 -18.00, Monday to Friday.
Be aware that I do not access my work email inbox outside working hours, during the weekend, and scheduled holidays.
Greenwashing
Students are invited to create a digital video that delves into the critical themes explored over the course of the semester. This year, the central theme is 'Greenwashing,' which pertains to the manipulation of public perception through the dissemination of deceptive environmental claims.
This special assignment is designed to challenge your understanding and analytical skills, promoting deeper engagement with the complex issues we've discussed in class.
Assignment scope and goal:
Your task is to craft a short video that interrogates the following questions:
- In a context where greenwashing serves as a prevalent strategy in contemporary corporate communications, can you produce a promotional video for a product or service that, despite its adverse impact on the environment, consumers, or the workforce, is represented as "sustainable," "eco-friendly," and "ethical"?
- Can you convincingly portray your product or service as beneficial for the environment even (especially) if it is not?
Technical Specifications:
- Maximum Duration: 300 seconds (5 minutes)
- Accepted Formats: MP4 only; HD (1920 x 1080) or 4k (3840 × 2160)
- File Size Limit: 4 GB
- Submission Modes: File-sharing platforms like WeTransfer, Google Drive, etc.
- Deadline: December 23, 2023, 23:59 (Early submissions are not just welcome but encouraged).
Submission Requirements:
Your project must include a supplementary written document encompassing:
- Project Title
- Student's Full Name, ID Number, and Date
- Course Title and Instructor's Name
- Project Description (Up to 500 words)
- List of Sources/References (not included in the 500-word count)
The text should be formatted in Times New Roman, 12-point font, with 1.5 line spacing, standard margins, and saved in PDF format.
Evaluation Criteria:
Projects will be assessed based on the following factors:
video
- Concept: Does the video comprehensively engage with the nuances of greenwashing, disinformation, corporate communication, and climate change?
- Structure: Is the narrative cohesively organized to effectively communicate a key message?
- Presentation: Is the video well edited and designed? Is it visually compelling?
- Originality: Does the submission offer a fresh perspective, rather than rehashing existing content?
- Creativity: Does the project display inventive thinking in its portrayal of a greenwashing campaign?
- Impact: Does the video leave a lasting impression on the viewer?
text
- Formatting compliance: Does the document adhere to the prescribed formatting guidelines, including font style, size, line spacing, and margin dimensions?
- Linguistic accuracy: Is the document free from spelling errors, typographical mistakes, and grammatical inconsistencies?
- Conceptual understanding: Does the document exhibit a comprehensive grasp of the assignment's objectives, goals, and underlying themes? Does it successfully fulfill the intent of the assignment? How well?
- Coherence and organization: Is the document logically structured, with a clear introduction, body, and conclusion that contribute to a seamless flow of ideas? Does each section meaningfully build upon the previous one to provide a coherent argument or narrative?
Grading:
Scores for this optional assignment will range from 0-3 points and will be added to the written test score only if it is 18 or above.
Extra-credit points do not expire.
Additional Notes:
- Multiple/alternative version will not be accepted. No exceptions.
- Late submissions will not be accepted. No exceptions.
- The teacher does provide feedback on work-in-progress projects up until three days before the deadline.
- Final scores will be communicated via email on January 10, 2024.
Access to final projects
All submitted projects will be made accessible on the Moodle platform for class review only. They will not be shared publicly. All projects will be erased in June 2024.
Resources (see course page on IULM Community page for more)
Corporate Climate Change Responsibility Report 2023
The Climate Change Performance Index 2023
Greenwashing (Ruby Craner-Buckley)
Important dates
Submission deadline: December 23 2023 (no later than 23.59)
Evaluation: January 10 2024 via email
Introduction to
Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
The Big Myth
How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2023
