Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT3095: Social Media, Disinformation, and Authoritarianism

This module descriptor refers to the 2022/3 academic year.

Module Aims

The intentions of this module are to critically assess social media from a social scientific perspective. How social media platforms enable, exacerbate, and profit from the spread of disinformation will be a key focus. Further, this module connects the spread of disinformation on social media to rising and emergent authoritarianism around the globe.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. Demonstrate extensive familiarity with the major social media platforms and how they operate to spread disinformation globally 2. Show an advanced understanding of the impact of social media on different cultures 3. Display a critical awareness of the relationship between social media and politics
Discipline-Specific Skills	4. Show an in-depth understanding of how qualitative social scientific approaches can be used to study digital sources 5. Evaluate how social media platforms affect societies
Personal and Key Skills	6. Communicate effectively in written and oral form 7. Conduct specialised research on a topic and organize findings in written form in a compelling manner

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Digital ethnography as methodology
The digital self
Anonymity and harassment
Algorithms as digital infrastructure
Civil unrest and populism
Online conspiracy theories and “cults”
Technology and authoritarianism

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Schedule Learning and Teaching Activity	22	Weekly 2-hour lectures/seminars or 1 hour lecture + 1 hour seminar.
Guided Independent Study	40	Weekly reading for seminars
Guided Independent Study	60	Essay writing and research
Guided Independent Study	28	Presentation of one example of disinformation on a social media platform

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

ELE – College to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages