The course aims at providing students with the latest theoretical frameworks, governance models, and real-life cases to discuss the impact of digital technologies on markets and organizations, with a particular focus on the cultural and creative industries. The course’s main objective is to help students develop a critical and creative perspective on the role digital technologies play in transforming cultural production and consumption. Governance will be explored by looking at how cultural data and digital technologies change organization and work practices, business models, and the rules of market exchange and coordination. The course will also give an extensive overview on Artificial Intelligence (AI), in terms of critically understanding the challenges of deploying and regulating AI. Delivered as a mix of lectures, case-studies from a variety of contexts and insight from guest speakers (practitioners and professionals) the course aims at facilitating students’ acquisition of skills and methods to apply the knowledge gained from the course to real-life scenarios.

At the end of the course, the students will be able to: • Demonstrate knowledge on the new governance models and mechanisms adopted across digital cultural and creative industries and digital platforms ecosystems. • Making judgements to assess the role of data and digital technology in transforming organizational and market practices. • Apply the understanding gained from the course to identify novel governance solutions for digital organizations. • Critically examine the socio-technical aspects of technologies such as dashboard, repositories, AI applications, and their implications for organizing. • Develop a critical awareness of the opportunities and risks of data-based innovation for the economy and society. • Apply the analytical framework gained from the course to assess the implications of digitalization using real-life cases and scenarios.

The course reviews theories and approaches to assess and critically analyse the far-reaching changes introduced by digitalization and datafication of goods and processes across markets and organizations. The course analyses the different aspects of digital transformation reviewing existing paradigms of the digital economy. It focuses on the analysis of innovative organizations such as digital platforms and ecosystems as well as on their governance practices. Core topics of the course will concern, for instance, the transformation of cultural institutions in the age of data, the study of how digital technology transforms audiences, AI and the changing nature of culture, EU approaches to the governance of data, AI and platforms.

Key Reading: Alaimo, C. and Kallinikos, J. (2020) Managing by data: Algorithmic categorization and organizing, Organization Studies, online first https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0170840620934062 Alaimo, C., (2021) Book review: Nanna Bonde Thylstrup The Politics of Mass Digitization, Organization Studies, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0170840621995411 Bender, E. M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Shmitchell, S. (2021). On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922 Cameron, F. R. (2021). The Future of Digital Data, Heritage and Curation: in a More-than-Human World, Taylor & Francis. Mariátegui, J.-C. (2024). Book review: Matteo Pasquinelli. The Eye of the Master: a social history of artificial intelligence. AI & Society. Parry, R. (2010). Museums in a Digital Age, Routledge. Parker G. Van Alstyne M. & Choudary S. P. (2016) Platform Revolution. New York: Norton. Subramaniam, M. (2021). The 4 Tiers of Digital Transformation. Harvard Business Review. Winner, L. (1986). “Do artifacts have politics?” in The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Chapter 2, 19-39 The complete list of readings will be given at the beginning of the course.

The course includes a mix of frontal lectures, group discussions and case studies and will use a variety of innovative student-centred teaching methods. Lectures will make students familiar with theories, methods and analytical frameworks to help them gain knowledge on digital economy principles. Seminars will allow students to apply the knowledge they gain from the lecture through the discussion of a variety of real-life cases and scenarios. They will also let students practically work in teams and will help them gaining a number of soft skills such as collaborative and communicative skills and the ability to think creatively and critically about real-life cases and scenarios.

Students will be assessed based on: 1. Seminars and lectures attendance and participation (20%) 2. Mid-term Written Exam (30%) 3. Group Work (20%) 4. Final Oral Exam (30%) Non-attending students will be assigned supplementary readings and asked to prepare a project similar to the Group Work.

A minimum of 28/30 as a final exam mark, an interest in the subject attested by a relevant thesis proposal, and good writing and analytical skills.