Digital Platforms and Social Change

/Google/, Airbnb, Etsy, Meta, and Netflix: what do they all have in common? They are digital platforms, aka business applications that run services, which theoretically make our lives easier. In this course, we will examine the social, political, and historical aspects of digital platforms. We will gain good practice in reading, writing, and speaking at the college level by using news articles, book chapters, and scholarly research on digital platforms. We will examine the organizational features of digital platforms where often hidden decisions shape content and services. We will also explore affordances and constraints of these applications in our lives. Finally, we will pause to consider the ways that digital platforms might transform our thoughts and actions and how they might give rise to social change.