Audiences are social constructions which must be imagined to be actualized. Beginning with an exploration of the nature and role of audiences from early 20th century media, students explore how audiences make meaning of popular media platforms today. How are audiences situated within media texts, what role does this play in how media is generated and circulated, and how do audiences both enact and resist media influence? Broadcast models, interactive models, audience reading, gender, culture, race, and audience feedback are investigated.

This course explores the fundamentals of the process of game design through prototyping. It focuses on the contexts and components of game design, such as design iteration and user testing along relevant dimensions such as art style, narrative, and game balance. Students will be introduced to design across different genres and types of digital games, including games for education, serious games, indie, and AAA games. Working in collaborative groups, students will learn and practice the appropriate methodology to design game mechanics, characters, art assets and other appropriate deliverables in order to create a game or high-fidelity prototype.

This course introduces students to the theoretical and practical study of how interactive digital media and systems affect, influence and reshape our society and what does it mean to be a "user" in the information-centric society. It will expose students to specific theoretical issues such as privacy by design, usable privacy, marginalized and at-risk user groups, the digital divide, behavioural modification (persuasion) through new media, ICT4D (info tech for development) and empowerment/alienation through intelligent interactive systems. Focus will be on developing skills that will enable students to propose changes (design, policy, framework) to existing and future envisioned interactive technologies that address the issues analyzed.

Virtual environments, immersive 3D environments accessed via computers or virtual reality headsets, comprise a unique and futuristic communication environment. Virtual environments have the potential to support a wide variety of activities related to information creation, distribution, and reception and can support social, economic, and cultural causes. Compared to everyday information practices, however, those enacted in virtual worlds are uniquely characterized by multimodality, synchronicity, digital embodiment and geographic distribution of users. In this course, students engage in participatory learning in virtual environments, using avatars to assess how the world's technological and social affordances support and constrain information practices. Using theories of gaming, virtuality, and information lifecycles, students critically analyse how information is produced and used in these environments.

Students on International exchange programs are encouraged to seek out courses in digital media and technologies that enrich their learning within an international context. This course is intended as an opportunity for students to study global issues and contexts abroad that provide a comparator to the Canadian media and communications landscape.

An in-depth examination of selected topics in communication, culture and information technology. Topics vary from year to year, and the content in any given year depends upon the instructor. The contact hours for this course may vary in terms of contact type (L, S, T, P) from year to year, but will be between 24-36 contact hours in total. See the UTM Timetable.

Majors and specialists are given the opportunity to develop a critical perspective on selected issues in CCIT. Students design and implement an advanced project on a topic of interest by engaging with advanced readings. A central aim is to refine the skills in critical analysis and in oral and written communication.

Students will carry out a research project on a topic of their choosing which is related to their specific program focus in Digital Enterprise Management. Students will meet as a group for selected seminars emphasizing advanced research skills and thesis writing. Students will develop a research proposal, conduct research, and produce a research paper.

Digital artifacts play an increasingly important role in our society. It is essential that in the digitization of these artifacts appropriate attention is paid to their representation, protection and management. Students will review the theories and practices of representation. They will investigate the technologies associated with the storage of digital artifacts as well as investigating appropriate legal perspectives. This varied knowledge will be integrated into a study of best practices in the management of digital artifacts.

Students will learn about financial aspects of digital industries. They will gain knowledge about how financial and other incentives shape the decisions of agents in the digital marketplace. Such a knowledge helps to identify industry trends aiding their own decisions when participating in Internet related industries. Topics covered include online and traditional media industries, aspects of e-commerce and marketing, open source software and crowd-sourcing. A highly effective way to gain such knowledge is by covering a relevant topic in an academic essay. This way the students will also improve their writing skills, and learn better how to cover financial aspects of their chosen topic in a scholarly manner.

This project-based course aims to demonstrate how collaboration is a critical capability often overlooked. During the course students will integrate their learning and experience and first hand see how, in combination with collaboration it can lead to creatively solving problems in areas as varied as business, health care delivery, urban planning and development. In addition to lectures, students will have the benefit of a series of guest lecturers. A large, group based project will serve to integrate learning and allow students the benefit of experiential learning.

A research project carried out under the supervision of a faculty member. Students will carry out a research project on a selected topic related to CCIT. Students must obtain signed permission from the faculty member who they would like to have as their supervisor.

This course provides students the opportunity to test their skills, immerse themselves within a different cultural or social context and explore communication and technology issues through an intense field experience either in Canada or abroad. The type of field experience varies from year to year and some experiences may evolve through collaborations with other disciplines or through special industry projects. The advanced field experience may involve travel and participation in international conferences or other relevant activities. Students are responsible for travel expenses.

An advanced unpaid field placement working on specially designed projects that explore collaborative, collective and global approaches to practical knowledge application. The placements may include international internships, collaborative group internships and community-based initiatives. The projects may vary from year to year depending on the external partners. Students will engage with others in the course through an online class component and complete individual reports and critical evaluations of the work experience.

This course is a practical internship and is available only upon application from students registered in the CCIT/DEM/TCS programs. Through a placement, students will apply the expertise in communication, culture, and information technology that they have gained through previous courses. Students must plan well in advance for the placement and work closely with the placement officer for CCIT to determine eligibility and suitability. A report and presentation will be required at the end of the placement. These, along with the employer's assessment, will provide the main part of the course mark.

This course is a practical internship and is available upon application from students registered in any CCIT program who have completed CCT410H5. The course is intended for students who have the opportunity to continue their CCT410H5 internship for a second semester. A report and presentation will be required at the end of the placement. These, along with the employer's assessment, will provide the main part of the course mark.

An in-depth examination of selected topics in interactive digital media with emphasis on knowledge, media and design. The contact hours for this course may vary in terms of contact type (L, S, T, P) from year to year, but will be between 24-36 contact hours in total. See the UTM Timetable.

This course highlights the research in analysis for social data and builds skills to undertake those analysis. It is a lab-intensive course intended to build up data analytic skills for novice and intermediate researchers. Students look at recent studies using "big data" which are primarily theoretical, including critiques of data analytics and concerns surrounding data ethics. Students learn a programming language -- Python -- and how to scrape social data, store and collect it, run basic statistics, generate visuals, and create a report based on a project of interest.

This course examines the history, politics and aesthetics of a range of alternative, underground and radical media, as well as their relation to mainstream media. Students will study and experiment with a range of alternative media, including zines, graffiti, hacking, and culture jamming, for example. Students will gain hands-on experience in the creation of alternative media.

The course analyses the political, historical, and technical relationships between media, technology, and work in contemporary capitalism. The course will examine the power and social relationships that structure work in contexts such as media, creative industries, and the platform or "gig" economy. The course will focus on critical theories of work and will engage with case studies of the intersection of work, media and technology. The aim of the course is to build a tool kit for encountering an increasingly casualized and digitally-mediated labour market.

This course allows students to explore issues related to user interface, user experience, materiality, gamification and game theory. Board games represent a space to consider social interaction, the use of materials, the role of emotion in design (UX), knowledge sharing and the role gamification plays in influencing behaviour. Students will be exposed to professional and research publications related to design, game theory, user experience and game mechanics.

The variety of ways in which various information technologies influence and are influenced by globalization will be critically examined. The class will explore metaphors or ways of thinking about society and technology to critically examine the complex process and the diverse consequences of globalization. Topics may shift focus yearly but will include the economy, culture, politics, social movements, migration, social identity, war and global conflict, etc.

An in-depth study of the development of innovative strategies for organizations with an emphasis on digital enterprises. The nature of strategic innovation will be studied and a variety of analytic frameworks introduced. Concepts will be explored through a combination of lectures and case studies.

The rise of information and communication technologies in contemporary societies has highlighted the interdependent nature of relationships; person-person, person-machine, machine-person, and machine-machine. Network analysis offers a point-of-view with which we can analyze networks to understand the roles of people and technology, identify the source of existing or potential issues, and the exchange of resources and information. This course applies network theory and methodology to examine how technology is used to maintain and build personal networks. It will further explore how personal networks intersect with larger institutional networks (e.g. corporations and universities) and informal networks (e.g. online communities and sports clubs). In the process, students will be guided in how to identify, measure, and collect data on selected networks, how to then analyze this data using a variety of analytic techniques.

Drones, robots, and artificial intelligence are three interrelated technologies that are changing the most fundamental considerations of how society and sociality should operate. Work, war, consumption, and even love are being reconfigured. This course will address debates concerning the cultural, political, economic, military, and economic considerations surrounding the growing use of these technologies.

A self-driving car should always protect pedestrians, even if that implies serious threat for the vehicle's passengers. Current ethical challenges within our computational cultures has brought forward dilemmas involving code such as designing killer robots, the use of technology to predict and prevent crimes before they happen, and platform surveillance in social media. Students in this course will use theories and case based examples to examine questions such as what is meant with ethics in new media and critical computing, can we program computational systems according to ethical models, and does digital culture force us to rethink what ethics are?

An advanced project-based seminar on the art and creative directions of design thinking. Combining traditional and innovative creativity methods, a variety of design projects are conceptualized and drafted for proposal or implementation. This course embraces design thinking as a holistic, interdisciplinary approach that integrates methodical creativity and overarching design principles, such as aesthetics, futures-thinking, progress and metadesign.

Examines the relationship between media studies and Outer Space inhabitation and exploration. Through analysis of military, technological, industrial, scientific, design, artistic, and civilian projects, films, novels, science fictions, and other media forms, the class investigates and reveals the historical, social, cultural, and political implications of our mediated relation with Outer Space. Technologies and topics include: the space race and the Cold War, space imagery, extreme environments, space travel, space suits, space vehicles, and space habitats, satellites, extra-terrestrial intelligence, mining, extraction, terraforming, radiation, gravity, and levitation.

This seminar course students will conduct original research to examine the role that culture plays in choosing and using communication technologies within the context of family, work, and friendship. We will focus on how individuals draw on communication technology to navigate cultural expectations and roles at home, work, and in social settings. To frame this research we will discuss various approaches to defining and understanding culture, and consider how these approaches help us to understand the use of communication technology within a variety of relationships.

How is social inequality reproduced and encoded in technology systems and in digital media? In what ways do technology and media creations inform and influence perceptions, beliefs, and practices that impact girls and women, communities of colour, Indigenous groups, LGBTQ+ and other minoritized people? This course will address overlapping and intersectional issues of power, privilege, oppression, and sociotechnical imaginaries - all related to networks, big data and predictive analytics, algorithms, digital gig economies, and interactive multimedia like social media and virtual reality.