LAS265 Digital East Asia

Overview

This module introduces students to how digital technologies are re-shaping the way ‘East Asia’ is imagined and lived. From media that connect major cities in East Asia to the world, to digital Asian cultures outside of the region, we will investigate how East Asia circulates in digital form around the globe. Students will examine social media and online practices, streaming sites, games, and other digital technologies, with a focus on how Chinese-speaking, Japanese-speaking, and Korean-speaking cultures are circulated and produced in the digital era. In doing so, we will examine how new identities, communities and economies form out of the circulation and re-production of digital media. Students will learn about these issues through the application of media research methodologies with an East Asia focus. 

Topics Covered

• Is Facebook everywhere? Why East Asia matters

• Approaches to digital East Asia research

• Online/offline in Transurban Asia 

• East Asian Digital mobilities: memes, sharing and circulation 

• East Asian Digital life beyond ‘media’

• Tracing unfamiliar media-ecologies in Sheffield: fieldtrip 

• Workshop on final case studies

• Emergent communities and cultures in/from Japan

• Emergent communities and cultures in/from China

• Emergent communities and cultures in/from Korea

• Digital futures in/from East Asia

Skills developed

On successful completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Identify and explain disciplinary approaches to the study of East Asian digital media and cultural studies

• Understand the key role East Asia has played in the rise of the digital era

• Demonstrate the importance of East Asian media, economics, and cultural studies to global research

• Apply basic qualitative research skills to develop their own independent research interests

• Create novel conceptual insights about East Asian digital media, and culture through empirical research

Study Hours

The University recommends that you spend 200 hours working on a 20 credit module. This will include:

• Lecture: 22 hours

• Seminar: 22 hours

• Independent study: 156 hours

Assessment

• Media research portfolio 40% (2000 words)

• Essay 60% (1500 words)