Join us for a five-session reading group on the politics and culture of social media, presented in conjunction with the Wages For Facebook campaign.
Click here to download a printable PDF of the Reading Group schedule and assigned readings.
Session #1
Introduction: Social media, audiences, and agency
Friday, September 26, 2 - 3:30pm
Facilitated by Prof. Nicole Cohen
Readings:
Mark Andrejevic. 2011. “Surveillance and Alienation in the Online Economy.” Surveillance & Society 8(3): 278-287.
José van Dijk. 2009. “Users Like You? Theorizing Agency in User-Generated Content.” Media, Culture & Society 31(1): 41-58.
Session #2
Is it work? Social media and the great labour debate
Friday, October 10, 2 - 3:30pm
Facilitated by Prof. Nicole Cohen
Readings:
Tiziana Terranova. 2000. “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy.” Social Text 18(2): 33-58.
Nicole Cohen. 2008. “The Valorization of Surveillance: Toward a Political Economy of Facebook." Democratic Communiqué 22(1): 5–22.
Session #3
Gender and social media
Friday, October 24, 2 - 3:30pm
Facilitated by Prof. Leslie Shade and Prof. Victoria Tahmasebi
Readings:
Leslie Regan Shade. 2014. “’Give Us Bread, But Give Us Roses’: Gender and Labour in the Digital Economy.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 10(2): 129-144.
Melissa Gira Grant. 2013. “Girl Geeks and Boy Kings.” Dissent 60(1): 46–49.
Session #4
The economics of selling personal information
Friday, November 7, 2 - 3:30pm
Facilitated by Prof. Brett Caraway
Readings:
Stephen Lilley, Frances S. Grodzinsky, and Andra Gumbus. 2012. “Revealing the Commercialized and Compliant Facebook User.” Journal of Information, Communication & Ethics in Society 10(2): 82-92.
V. Kumar and Bala Sundaram. 2012. “Lessons Learned from GM’s Pullback from Facebook Ads.” Forbes.com, June 18.
Session #5
Alternatives and resistance?: Rethinking social media
Friday, November 21, 2 - 3:30pm
Facilitated by Prof. Brett Caraway
Readings:
Ariel Bleicher. 2011. “The Anti-Facebook.” IEEE Spectrum,June 2011: 54-83.
Manuel Castells. “Prelude to Revolution: Where it All Started.” 2012. In Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Participation or Exploitation?
All sessions run from 2–3:30pm at the Blackwood Gallery, Kaneff Centre.
Free and open to the public, and all staff, faculty, and students welcome.
The Blackwood
University of Toronto Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road
Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6
[email protected]
(905) 828-3789
The galleries are open. Hours of operation: Monday–Saturday, 12–5pm.
Holiday hours: regular gallery hours are in effect until and including Saturday, December 6. The galleries will then be closed for the holidays, except for regular hours on Saturday, December 13. In 2026, the galleries reopen Monday, January 5.
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The Blackwood is situated on the Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Seneca, and Huron-Wendat.