This second-year CB Stone explores in depth the theory and business practice of the platforms we use every day, from Instagram to Uber and from TikTok to Tinder. How does these influence young adults? What happens to the data they leave on these platforms? How do the actions, practices and policies of platforms have an impact on society at large? As a future media maker, it is important to do research on platforms and understand how they operate.
In this Stone you will examine platforms behind the scenes by asking how do they use and sell users’ data, and how does this affect people’s daily lives? By conducting desk research, conducting interviews and experimenting with personal data collection in teams, you will gain insight into this contemporary and popular business model. The objective of this Stone is to give you a greater awareness what a platform is and what it does. How private are your data? Do you want to share them with others? How do platforms handle privacy issues? How powerful are they in modern society?
Students create an informative podcast for adolescents and young adults (16-24 years) designed to make the target group aware of how digital platform business models work and how platforms use their data footprint (clickbait) for commercial or other purposes.
Students write an creative essay (creative or otherwise) about their own experience of using and sharing data. They produce a creative data visualization about their collective data research.
Expertise:
- Research: analyse the way commercial and public platforms operate and use data.
- Data visualization: collect personal data per student group and use this for an infographic or other type of visualization.
- Write reports, a script and essay on data, and produce a podcast (on the social impact of a specific platform).
In this stone you'll create: