Outline

Overview

The internet plays an increasingly important role in all aspects of social, cultural and economic life. This unit of study explores cultures and governance of the online world and investigates how politics manifest not only in public debates and policy, but also in the struggle to develop new information architectures and digital ecosystems.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Media and Communications
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	None
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	None
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Terry Flew, terry.flew@sydney.edu.au
Demonstrator(s)	Laura Robins, laura.robins@sydney.edu.au
Lecturer(s)	Chika Anyanwu, chika.anyanwu@sydney.edu.au
Lecturer(s)	Terry Flew, terry.flew@sydney.edu.au
Tutor(s)	Mohammad Makki, mohammad.makki@sydney.edu.au
	Harriet Flitcroft, harriet.flitcroft@sydney.edu.au
	Venessa Paech, venessa.paech@sydney.edu.au
	Jen Grinham, jennifer.grinham@sydney.edu.au

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Assignment	Class Presentation Upload a presentation and pose questions to facilitate class discussion	20%	Ongoing Closing date: 17 Jun 2022	1,000 words (slides)
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Blog post (journalism piece) Critical in-depth analysis based on an issue of current concern	35%	Ongoing Due date: 08 Apr 2022 at 07:01 Closing date: 17 Jun 2022	2,000 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Essay Write a critical research piece on an assigned theme related to the course	45%	STUVAC Due date: 03 Jun 2022 at 23:59 Closing date: 24 Jun 2022	3,000 words
Outcomes assessed:

Assessment summary

Tutorial exercise: Develop and provide a presentation in the seminar, based on the lecture topic for the week you have selected, and required and additional reading.
Blog post: Your public-facing analytical blog post will be based on the topic you have selected for your class presentation and will provide critical analysis and insight into the topic.
Essay: Write a critical essay on a theme related to the course.

Detailed information for each assessment can be found on Canvas.

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy 2014 (Schedule 1).

As a general guide, a High distinction indicates work of an exceptional standard, a Distinction a very high standard, a credit a good standard, and a pass an acceptable standard.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100
Distinction	75 - 84
Credit	65 - 74
Pass	50 - 64
Fail	0 - 49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see guide to grades.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

This unit has an exception to the standard University policy or supplementary information has been provided by the unit coordinator. This information is displayed below:

Work not submitted on or before the due date is subject to a penalty of 5% per calendar day late. If work is submitted more than 10 days after the due date, or is submitted after the return date, the mark will be 0.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

You may only use generative AI and automated writing tools in assessment tasks if you are permitted to by your unit coordinator. If you do use these tools, you must acknowledge this in your work, either in a footnote or an acknowledgement section. The assessment instructions or unit outline will give guidance of the types of tools that are permitted and how the tools should be used.

Your final submitted work must be your own, original work. You must acknowledge any use of generative AI tools that have been used in the assessment, and any material that forms part of your submission must be appropriately referenced. For guidance on how to acknowledge the use of AI, please refer to the AI in Education Canvas site.

The unapproved use of these tools or unacknowledged use will be considered a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy and penalties may apply.

Studiosity is permitted unless otherwise indicated by the unit coordinator. The use of this service must be acknowledged in your submission as detailed on the Learning Hub’s Canvas page.

Outside assessment tasks, generative AI tools may be used to support your learning. The AI in Education Canvas site contains a number of productive ways that students are using AI to improve their learning.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Introduction: The Rise and Fall of the Libertarian Internet	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 02	Platforms and Platformisation	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 03	Issues of Concern: Privacy, Security and Digital Rights	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 04	Issues of Concern: Datafication and Algorithmic Governance	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 05	Issues of Concern: Hate Speech and Online Harms	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 06	Internet Governance and Nation-State Regulation	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 07	Global Internet Governance	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 08	Current Debates: Misinformation and Fake News	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 09	Current Debates: Information Monopolies and Competition Policy	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 10	Current Debates: Impact on Media and Creative Industries	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 11	Data Colonialism and Data Sovereignty	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 12	Platform Power, Nation States and the Global System	Seminar (2 hr)
Week 13	Review and Future Directions	Seminar (2 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance: According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold.
Seminar recording: The seminars are held synchronously via Zoom. A weekly primer to assist with student preparation for seminars will be recorded and made available to students on the LMS. Please note you should not rely on lecture recording to substitute your seminar learning experience.
Preparation: Students should commit to spend approximately three hours’ preparation time (reading, studying, homework, essays, etc.) for every hour of scheduled instruction.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Unit Textbook

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity,

Required Readings

Week 1 The Rise and Fall of the Libertarian Internet

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, Ch. 1.
Karpf, Dave (2018) ’25 Years of WIRED Predictions: Why the Future Never Arrives’, WIRED, 9 October. https://www.wired.com/story/wired25-david-karpf-issues-tech-predictions/.
Solum, Lawrence (2009) ‘Models of Internet Governance’, in L. Bygrave & M. Bing (eds.), Internet Governance: Infrastructure and Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 48-91.

Week 2 Platforms and Platformisation

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, Ch. 2.
Van Dijck, J., Poell, T. & de Waal, M. (2018) The Platform Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 5-32 (‘The Platform Society as a Contested Concept’).
Gillespie, Tarleton (2017) ‘Governance by and through Platforms’, in J. Burgess, A. Marwick & T. Poell (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Media, London: SAGE, pp. 254-278.

Week 3 Issues of Concern: Privacy, Security and Digital Rights

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 72-79.
Suzor, Nicolas P. 2019. ‘Who Makes the Rules?’. In Lawless: the secret rules that govern our lives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 10-24.
Flew, Terry (2019) ‘Platforms on Trial’, Intermedia 46(2), pp. 18-23.

Week 4 Issues of Concern: Datafication and Algorithmic Governance

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 79-86.
Andrejevic, Mark (2019), ‘Automated Culture’, in Automated Media. London: Routledge, pp. 25-43.
Pasquale, Frank (2015). ‘The Need to Know’, in The Black Box Society: the secret algorithms that control money and information. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp.1-18.

Week 5 Issues of Concern: Hate Speech and Online Harms

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 91-96.
Matatoros-Fernandez, A. (2017). Platformed racism: the mediation and circulation of an Australian race-based controversy on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, Information, Communication & Society 20(6), pp. 930-946.

Week 6 Internet Governance and Nation-State Regulation

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, Ch. 5 (Chapter 4 also relevant).
Gorwa, Robert (2019) ‘The platform governance triangle: Conceptualising the informal regulation of online content’, Internet Policy Review 8(2),
Bowers, Jonathon & Zittrain, Jonathon (2021) Answering impossible questions: Content governance in an age of disinformation. Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review 1(1), pp. 1-8.

Week 7 Global Internet Governance

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, Ch. 6.
Weber, Rolf (2010) Introduction. In Shaping Internet Governance: Regulatory Challenges. Cham: Springer, pp. 1-23.
Mueller, Milton (2017) Will the Internet Fragment? Sovereignty, Globalization and Cyberspace. Oxford: Polity Press, Ch. 5.

Week 8 Current Debates: Misinformation and Fake News

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 86-91.
Benkler, Y., Faris, R. & Roberts. H. (2018) Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-43.
Livingston, S. & Bennett, W. L. (2020) A Brief History of the Disinformation Age: Information Wars and the Decline of Institutional Authority. In S. Livingston & W. L Bennett (eds.) The Disinformation Age: Politics, Technology, and Disruptive Communication in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3-40.

Week 9 Current Debates: Information Monopolies and Competition Policy

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 99-103, 200-223.
Barwise, P. & Watkins, L. (2018) ‘The Evolution of Digital Dominance: How we got to GAFA’, in M. Moore & D. Tambini (eds.), Digital Dominance: The Power of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 21-49.
Flew, Terry, and Gillett, Rosalie (2020) ‘Platform Policy: Evaluating Different Responses to the Challenges of Platform Power’, Journal of Digital Media and Policy, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 231-246.

Week 10 Current Debates: Impact on Media and Creative Industries

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 95-99, 227-232.
Lotz, Amanda (2021) ‘The end of television as we know it’. In Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 123-152.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (2019). Digital Platforms Inquiry: Final Report- Executive Summary. Canberra: ACCC, pp. 4-38.

Week 11 Data Colonialism and Data Sovereignty

Stephanie Carroll Rainie, Tahu Kukutai, Maggie Walter, Oscar Luis Figueroa-Rodríguez, Jennifer Walker, Per Axelsson (2019), ‘Indigenous Data Sovereignty’, in T. Davies & B. Walker (eds.), The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons. African Minds, pp. 300-319.
Couldry, Nick, Mejias, Ulises, Trere, Emiliano & Milan, Stefania (2019) ‘Data Colonialism: Rethinking Big Data’s Relation to the Contemporary Subject’. Television and New Media 20(4), pp. 336-349.

Week 12 Platform Power, Nation States and the Global System

Flew, Terry (2021) Regulating Platforms. Cambridge: Polity, Conclusion (pp. 234-248).
Haggart, Blayne (2020) ‘Global platform governance and the Internet impossibility theorem’, Journal of Digital Media & Policy 11(3), pp. 321-339.
Tambini, Damian, and Moore, Martin (2021) ‘Introduction: Regulating Big Tech – The Policy Toolkit’, in M. Moore & D. Tambini (eds.) Regulating Big Tech: Policy Responses to Digital Dominance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-14.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. analyse key definitions, stakeholders and models related to internet governance
LO2. identify and understand the key issues that relate to governance of the internet
LO3. understand the link between culture, public policy and governance
LO4. understand the links between internet governance and broader governance frameworks such as global governance
LO5. monitor and comment on current issues in internet cultures and governance
LO6. demonstrate ability to present critical evaluation of internet technologies.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

Number of assessments reduced from 4 to 3 in S1C 2022 in response to student feedback.

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect

Current students

ARIN6902: Internet Cultures and Governance

Semester 1, 2022 [Normal day] - Remote

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect