Digital Technologies and Emerging Media Major
The digital technologies and emerging media (DTEM) major takes a critical approach to internet and participatory technologies. It draws from a broad tradition of communication and media studies research; social science disciplines including anthropology, psychology, sociology, and political science; and the humanities and fine arts.
The major is designed to encourage greater understanding, critical thinking, and analysis of emerging technologies such as the web, social media, mobile apps, video games, wearables, and the like, while also offering a number of production and writing classes. Students wishing to pursue engineering or digital production should augment the major with classes in computer science, visual arts, journalism, and new media and digital design.
Note: Information about the Gabelli concentration in Digital Media and Technology is listed separately.
Learning Outcomes
Upon graduation from the digital technology and emerging media major or minor, students will have achieved the following curricular goals:
- Develop a critically-informed understanding of the key characteristics of digital technologies and emerging media, their affordances, constraints, histories, and infrastructures.
- Learn to analyze digital media as not only tools, but a set of industries and institutions, and a site of political and cultural contestation, creative practice, and professional production.
- Gain the skills to plan, develop and execute appropriate methodologies for researching digital media from a variety of perspectives.
- Be conversant with the ethical, regulatory, political, and economic issues raised by the emergence and evolution of digital media and communication systems - especially as they relate to matters of social equity and equality, right, privacy and surveillance.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the practice of digital technology design, and develop a critical understanding of their processes of invention, creation, deployment and use.
CIP Code
09.0702 - Digital Communication and Media/Multimedia.
You can use the CIP code to learn more about career paths associated with this field of study and, for international students, possible post-graduation visa extensions. Learn more about CIP codes and other information resources.
The digital technologies and emerging media (DTEM) major requires ten courses.
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Required Courses | ||
| COMM 1000 | Fundamentals of Communication and Media Studies 1 | 3 |
| DTEM 1401 | Introduction to Digital Technologies and Emerging Media 2 | 4 |
| DTEM 1402 | Digital Cultures 2 | 4 |
| One DTEM methods course | 4 | |
| Distribution Requirement | ||
| Select two courses drawn from either or both of these categories: 3 | 8 | |
Digital, Equity, Ethics, and Power/Values (DTEV attribute) | ||
Digital Governance, Policy, and Law (DTPL attribute) | ||
| Electives | ||
| Four DTEM electives 4 | 16 | |
- 1
COMM 1010 Introduction to Communication and Media Studies may be used if taken before spring 2017.
- 2
- 3
See below for the lists of courses included in each category.
- 4
Any course with the DTEM subject code or the DTEM attribute code may fulfill this requirement. Up to two courses may be taken outside the Communication and Media Studies department to fulfill major requirements.
DTEM Methods courses
Generally, DTEM methods courses are numbered between DTEM 2410 to 2419, in addition to other courses as listed below.
Courses in this group have the DTMM attribute.
A course covering social-science and/or humanities-based research methods is required for all DTEM majors. These courses can cover either qualitative or quantitative approaches. They teach students about the process of research design (developing questions and designing the appropriate process to answer them rigorously), and methods to collect and analyze data, digital texts, and or platforms and their role in society.
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| COMC 1101 | Communications and Culture: History, Theory, and Methods | 4 |
| DTEM 2411 | Digital Research Methods | 4 |
| DTEM 2412 | Digital Ethnography | 4 |
| DTEM 2413 | Participatory Methods | 4 |
| DTEM 2414 | Media Ecology | 4 |
| DTEM 2417 | Data Visualization | 4 |
| NMDD 3880 | Designing Smart Cities for Social Justice | 4 |
Digital, Equity, Ethics, and Power/Values courses
Courses in this group have the DTEV attribute.
These courses focus on issues of ethics, justice, and values as they are built into digital technologies and the industries that develop and maintain them. Some courses focus on the intersection of social justice and technology.
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| CISC 4650 | Cyberspace: Issues and Ethics | 4 |
| COMC 3240 | Photography, Identity, Power | 4 |
| COMC 4360 | Communication Ethics and the Public Sphere | 4 |
| COMC 4370 | Ethical Controversies in 21st Century Media | 4 |
| DTEM 3444 | Nerds, Geeks, and Bros. | 4 |
| DTEM 3447 | Race, Gender, and Digital Media | 4 |
| DTEM 3463 | Civic Media | 4 |
| DTEM 3500 | Resistance and Global Activism | 4 |
| DTEM 4430 | Digital Media Ethics | 4 |
| DTEM 4470 | Values in Design | 4 |
| DTEM 4480 | Digital Media and Public Responsibility | 4 |
| NMDD 3450 | User Experience Design: Design for Empowerment | 4 |
| NMDD 3880 | Designing Smart Cities for Social Justice | 4 |
Digital Governance, Policy, and Law courses
Courses in this group have the DTPL attribute.
These courses focus on the laws and policy-making that have governed technology across history, as well as the internal policies that govern how technology is deployed, developed, and used.
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| COMC 3350 | Media Law | 4 |
| COMC 4340 | Freedom of Expression | 4 |
| DTEM 2450 | Digital Property: Rights, Policies, and Practice | 4 |
| DTEM 4440 | Privacy and Surveillance | 4 |
| DTEM 4451 | The Technology Industries | 4 |
Availability
The major in digital technologies and emerging media is available at Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) and Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC). Students in Fordham's School of Professional and Continuing Studies may major in digital technologies and emerging media only if they receive the approval of their advising dean and/or department, and their schedules are sufficiently flexible to permit them to take day courses at the Rose Hill or Lincoln Center campuses. Such students must provide the Communication and Media Studies Associate Chair at their home campus a statement confirming they are able to take day classes in order to fulfill their major requirements.
Fordham College at Rose Hill students: The requirements above are in addition to those of the Core Curriculum.
Fordham College at Lincoln Center students: The requirements above are in addition to those of the Core Curriculum.