MECM90041 Political Economy of Digital Life

How MECM90041 is assessed

What MECM90041 covers

The subject moves through three published phases: political economy as a way into mediated experience; historical, sociological and political perspectives; and phenomenological investigations into mediation. The chapters connect value form and technics to computing, platforms, globalisation, semiconductor supply chains, hyperreality, speed, attention, spectacle and everyday rhythm.

The subject asks how digitality shapes people, which forces develop and embed it, which historical path computing opens, how capitalism and modernity relate to that path, and how digitally constituted experience informs mentality and desire. Its recurring DIGITALITY map connects the computing revolution, technology, modernity, political economy, socialisation, social life and personal life.

Its stack map pushes analysis below the interface to Earth, cloud, city, network, address and the material and institutional systems that make a user position possible.

The first phase establishes political economy through mode of production, social organisation, socialisation and capacity for action.

Value form distinguishes use from exchange value and concrete from abstract labour; commodification traces how activities become exchangeable; the base-superstructure model gives material relations general dominance while preserving historical feedback through law, culture and politics.

Week-two materials use Varoufakis and Harvey to pose the technofeudalism and crisis questions, while week three examines exteriorisation, writing, modernity, enframing, standing-reserve, cosmotechnics and plasticity.

The historical phase follows mechanical calculation into information theory, semiconductors, packet switching, protocol standardisation and the web.

Free software, peer production and open licences are compared with Web 2.0 platform loops, surveillance capitalism and control through defaults and ranking. The globalisation chapters place computing inside empire, trade, industrial periodisation, cybernetic planning and world-order disputes.

The semiconductor case then traces design, software, fabrication, equipment, lithography, packaging, critical minerals, export controls and technological sovereignty through knowledge, supply and governance.

The political weeks examine tech oligarchy, post-democratic conditions, state-platform contracting and the contrast between poetic and bureaucratic technologies.

The available record is uneven: weeks six and seven have no lecture decks, so the guide uses tutorial methods, topic descriptions and published readings with attribution. It teaches how to investigate career, company aims, ideology and oligarchy without turning a classroom question into an unsupported statement about a living person.

Resistance is treated through social imagination, accountable procedure and material organisational capacity.

The phenomenological phase studies public appearance, signs, simulation, the four stages of simulacra, hyperreality as excess, analogue feedback, alienation and database consumption.

Speed is analysed through technological acceleration, social change, pace of life, time-space compression, timeless time, dromology, refusal and plural futurisms. Attention is treated as finite time selected, measured and made productive; digital, affective and cognitive labour connect subjectivity to value.

The spectacle and its interactive 2.0 form reveal how lived relations move into representation and feed back into precarious participation.

The assessment system contains three weighted tasks totalling 100% and two separate subject-level hurdles.

The offering-correct lecture slide dates the plan to 30 March 2026, the book review to 2 April 2026 and the research essay to 9 June 2026; the tutorial deck retains 2025 for the latter two dates, so all dates should be confirmed on Canvas. The 40% task is called Book Review, Book Review Essay and A Research Essay in different official locations.

This guide identifies it through its stable 2,000-word length, 40% weight, date and dedicated template rather than silently erasing the naming conflict.

The plan and book-review templates publish section allocations, criteria and tips. The research essay record is much narrower: it provides the 2,500-word length, 50% weight, date, flexibility about topic and the location of a question list in the Subject Guide on Canvas.

The list, structure, tolerance, criteria, rubric, marking scheme, late rule, extension rule and referencing style are not available here.

Original practice prompts and model paragraphs are visibly labelled and never presented as University questions.

MECM90041 cheatsheet for exam revision

AskSia publishes a free MECM90041 cheatsheet for exam revision, an essay toolkit that follows the official permitted-materials rule for this assessment and condenses the topics in this guide.

Open the MECM90041 cheatsheet.

Worked example · free

Illustrative political-economy paragraph plan

Key terms

Digitality

The relational condition connecting computing, modernity, political economy, socialisation and personal and social life.

Value form

The social form through which useful, heterogeneous activity becomes comparable in exchange.

Cosmotechnics

An account of technical activity as related to cosmology and moral order, opening plural technical trajectories.

Technological sovereignty

Political capacity grounded in knowledge, supply, governance, maintenance and recoverability across technical systems.

Hyperreality

A condition of intensified and circulating representation that can become the practical reference for action.

Attention economy

An arrangement in which finite attention is selected, measured and made productive within systems of value.

MECM90041 FAQ

Questions students ask in each MECM90041 chapter

Do the weights total 100%?

Yes: 10 + 40 + 50. Chapter 01 · Assessment Map and the Two Hurdles

How many framing questions are there?

Six, in two clusters of three. Chapter 02 · How Political Economy Reads Digital Life

Is concrete labour always manual?

No; it is specific useful activity. Chapter 03 · Value Form and the Base-Superstructure Model

Is the week-two lecture available?

No deck is available here. Chapter 04 · Technofeudalism and the Crises of Capital

Is technology neutral here?

No; tools embody cultural and institutional relations. Chapter 05 · Technics, Modernity and Cosmotechnics

What happened in 1969?

The lecture dates the first inter-computer link to 1969. Chapter 06 · How Computing and the Internet Were Built

Does free mean zero price?

No; it concerns liberty. Chapter 07 · Commons, Platforms and Surveillance Capital

Did digital networks create globalisation?

No; they reorganise older connections. Chapter 08 · Globalisation and the Computer Revolution

Are smaller nodes always better?

No; capability depends on application. Chapter 09 · Chips, Supply Chains and Technological Sovereignty

Are the guest lectures available?

No lecture decks are available here. Chapter 10 · Tech Oligarchy, Bureaucracy and Resistance

Is hyperreality the same as fake content?

No; it concerns excess and circulation. Chapter 11 · Hyperreality and the Analogue Self

Why does saved time feel scarce?

Expectations and task volume can absorb the saving. Chapter 12 · Speed, Acceleration and Futurisms

Is attention only duration?

No; metrics abstract heterogeneous effort and meaning. Chapter 13 · Attention, Spectacle and Everyday Rhythms

Does the plan receive tutor feedback?

The template states that it does not. Chapter 14 · Book Review and Research Essay Toolkit

How to prepare for the assessments

Use one concept ledger across the semester. For every lecture, tutorial or reading, record the term, its contrast, the bounded object, layer, institution, relation of power, mechanism, evidence and limit.

Recheck direction words: use versus exchange value; concrete versus abstract labour; base versus superstructure; centralised, decentralised and distributed; upstream versus downstream; more versus less open licences; technical acceleration versus scarcity of time. Build figures only when geometry carries the argument.

For assessment, keep an authority column distinguishing official task wording, published scholarship, teaching prompts and original practice. Use the official plan and review allocations as qualitative controls without inventing scores. Retrieve the exact research-essay question and live criteria from the Subject Guide on Canvas.

Before submission, verify the current task identity and date, check every paragraph for claim–evidence–concept–mechanism–qualification, reopen sources for direction and scope, and retain the final file and confirmation.

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