Understanding the inherent mechanisms of the massive processes of communication and civil participation in the web and other multimedia devices. Gaining a broader knowledge of the latest community¿s information needs and participation in the media. Ability to analyze from a theoretical standpoint the following elements: the process of formation and the sphere of action of social networks and their environment, the change produced from traditional media models (based on one-way communication) to the new communication paradigm (based on feedback and two-way interaction with the audience), the limits and determining factors that affect audience feedback, and the persistence of situations of communication and information asymmetry.

SECTION I: The Information Society Subject 1. From the Information Society to the Networked Society. The origin of the internet and social media. Internet use worldwide. Subject 2. The digital divide. Technological development indexes per country. Subject 3. Background of the Internet. Who manages it? How? Digital privacy and security. Subject 4. Hacker Ethics, hacktivism. Wikileaks, Anonymous. Subject 5. The Commons. Free culture, resources, licenses. Open Science and education. Subject 6. Open Government and Open Data. Transparency. Civic technologies. SECTION II: (Ciber)activism and Social Movements Subject 7. (Ciber)activism. The role of the internet in the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, the May 15 movement, Occupy Wall Street. Subject 8. Internet and Censorship. Circumvention tools to bypass censorship under authoritarian regimes. SECTION III: New trends Subject 9. The crowd phenomena and citizen Journalism. Background, theoretical approaches, controversy. Subject 10. Digital and collaborative economy. Subject 11. Transmedia. Subject 12. Pos truth era. Disinformation and citizenship.

This course will consist of a combination of theory seminars (3ECTS) and hands-on projects (3ECTS) in which the students will be able to put in practice the conceptual base learned in the theory seminars. The students will be required to use bibliography dynamically and to observe attentively the environmental elements susceptible to be categorized in accordance with the concepts learned. Along the semester, the students will elaborate short documented essays in which they will be expected to apply these notions and theoretical framework to real cases of communication and participation in the digital media. The hands-on projects will be supplemented with in-class analysis and debate on several experiences and platforms for citizen participation in the web, with special attention to their interaction with professional journalistic procedures or formats, and with the analysis of research on new tendencies, such as crowdsourcing.