CS 640Y

This graduate course examines how contemporary environmentalism is shaped by digital platforms and the political economies that sustain them. “Platform environmentalism” refers to the growing intersection of environmentalism and conservation with social media, apps, digital games, AI systems, and networked sensors to communicate, visualize, and govern ecological issues, as well as how these same technologies and infrastructures contribute to misinformation, extraction, carbon emissions, and new forms of environmental injustice. Through interdisciplinary readings in critical communication studies, new media studies, political ecology, and environmental humanities, the course explores topics such as the digital surveillance of nature, the material footprint and ecological impacts of cloud computing and AI; algorithmic conservation and remote sensing; the mediation of conservation and climate activism through social media platforms and the attention economy; and the aesthetics and impacts of producing, consuming, and engaging with digital and virtual natures.