CO
342: Technoculture and the Information Society
SPRING
Professor: Mark
Andrejevic
Office: Donnarumma
222
Phone: 203
254-4000 x3043
Office hours: Wednesday, 2-5, or by appointment
Goals: We are immersed in claims about "new"
media, "new" technology, and their role in the "new"
economy. We can debate the advantages or disadvantages of all these
"new" forces ad infinitum, taking the side of technophobia, Luddism,
technophilia, or resigned technological determinism, but the argument is unlikely
to progress in a fruitful direction without the help of a little history and
some theory. The goal of this class is not just to explore the ongoing popular
discourse surrounding the emergence of new media, but to think about it in new
and different ways, to put it in historical perspective, and, ultimately, to
evaluate the claims with which we are inundated.
Class format: This is meant to be a discussion-oriented
class, which means that I won’t be coming in and lecturing for the full class
period. Instead, I will organize in-class discussions and student-led
discussion groups based on the out-of-class assignments, which must be
completed in time for class. Past experience suggests that some incentive is
needed to ensure that assignments are completed on time, which means that I
will either assign written responses to the readings or give in-class quizzes
which will play an important part in your final grade.
Course expectations: These are the main components to
your grade:
1. Reading responses: most weeks you will be asked to
write a five (out of eight) short (3-page, double-spaced) response to questions
based on the readings. The goal of these responses is to give you a chance to
reflect on the material before we discuss it in class. Conclude your paper with
at least two discussion questions for the class. This will count as part of
your grade for the paper.
2. In-class quizzes: If there is no assigned reading
response for the day, you can expect an in-class quiz on the readings. These
will generally be short answer quizzes that take about five minutes to
complete. I will focus on main themes and memorable examples from the
readings.
3. Final
project: As this is an upper-level seminar, I will expect you to
complete a 12 page research paper by the end of the semester. This research
paper should focus on a topic that is of interest to you, allowing you to bring
to bear some of the theoretical approaches we have explored in class upon a
concrete example. If you would like to prepare a project that is not a
conventional paper, but a video or multi-media project, or perhaps a hypertext
project, that would be great – but make sure to discuss the details of the
project with me in advance. Possible research topics include: the fate of
Napster and the future of on-line music/video delivery, the Digital Millenium
Copyright Act (and decryption technologies – see, for example, the case of
Dimitri Sklyarov), Gnutella and Freenet, Interactive Television, developments
in GPS technology, and the like. Over the course of the semester, you will be
asked to complete assignments related to your final project (including a
proposal and an annotated bibliography).
4. Group presentations: after the first month of classes,
I’ll divide you up into groups of three and ask each group to be responsible
for presenting one aspect of the readings for 20 minutes in class. The goal
will be to prepare some discussion questions based on the readings, and to
provide a more in-depth look at one of the topics covered in the readings by
bringing in examples for the class to consider.
5. Final exam: A cumulative, short-answer, multiple
choice, and true/false exam based on the readings and class
lectures/discussions.
6. BONUS POINTS are available to anyone who wants to bring
in an item in the news about new media. Just summarize a current topic in the
news – or something that you’ve come across which relates to the themes of the
class. Provide a couple of discussion questions for the class.
Grading:
Reading responses: 40
percent
Quizzes 15
percent
Discussion leadership: 10
percent
Final exam 15
percent
Final project: 20
percent
Required Texts:
Negroponte, Nicholas. (1996) Being Digital,
Course pack: available in class
Class schedule:
Monday, January 13: Introduction
Thursday,
January 16: OVERVIEW:
The information society and the digital
revolution
Required
Monday, January
20: MLK, Jr. Day. I
encourage you to attend campus events dedicated to the legacy of a man who
devoted his life to the pursuit of freedom and justice.
Thursday, January 23 BEING
DIGITAL
Required
Reading/listening: Being
Digital, chapters 1, 2, 13-18, and the
epilogue
Listen
to a short profile of the dumb smart car: BMW 7-series: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20020808.atc.17.ram
Monday January 27 TECHNOLOGICAL
DETERMINISM
Required
readings: Langdon Winner,
“Do Artifacts Have Politics?” (reading packet) or online at: http://www.courses.psu.edu/phil/phil403_pam208/winner/ or at Winner.
ALSO, Being
Digital, chapters 9-10, 12
Also: the fate
of Kazaa
For more info on technological determinism,
take a look at: http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1996/feb/chandler.html
Thursday, January 30 DIGITAL
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Required
Check this out
online: Customized pants online: mass customization
Typecasting
brought to you by TiVo
Crackdown on illegal movie downloads on college campuses
Monday, February 3 MORE
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Required
Optional: Call centers
Crackdown on illegal movie downloads on college campuses
READING RESPONSE #1 DUE IN CLASS
Thursday, February 6 CYBERSPACE
Required
Property
Protection in cyberspace: the future of intellectual property
Lessig’s “The Internet
Under Siege”
Monday, February 10 HACKERS
Required
Also:
“The Electric Commons”
READING RESPONSE #2 DUE
Thursday,
February 13 WHAT IS
POSTMODERNISM? (also, a discussion of Fordism and Taylorism)
Required
Optional
readings: An ironic artifact from
postmodern author Mark Leyner
An information virus at work: terrorism and telemarketing
Monday,
February 17 PRESIDENT’S
DAY
Thursday, February 20 IDENTITY
ONLINE
Required
Sherry
Turkle “Introduction: Identity in the age of the Internet”
Lisa Nakamura “Race in/for cyberspace:
identity tourism and racial passing on the Internet”.
Virginia Eubanks “Paradigms and
Perversions: A Women’s Place in Cyberspace”,
K.K. Campbell, “Attack of the cyber-weenies”,
and
Stephanie Brail, “Harassment and Free
Speech in the Wild, Wild West”
Monday,
February 24 CYBERPUNK
Required
Readings: “Johnny Mnemonic” and “The
Winter Market”
Optional: (If you’re interested, the
entire text of Neuromancer
is available as an online bootleg)
Thursday, February 27 ARITIFICIAL AND DISTRIBUTED
INTELLIGENCE
Required Reading: Sherry Turkle, “Artificial Life as the New Frontier”
Rheingold,
Smart Mobs, chapter 4 (handout)
Monday, March 3 VIRTUAL
COMMUNITY
Required
Reading: Howard Rheingold: first three
chapters of The Virtual Community (pp. 1-63).
Thursday, March 6 COMMUNITY
CONTINUED
Required
Reading: Julian Dibble “A Rape in
Cyberspace”
SPRING BREAK
Monday, March 17 THE
FUTURE OF THE FLESH
Required
Try talking to Ramona: http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=2
Optional: The first remote touch…
Thursday, March 20 BORGDOM
Required
Optional
reading:
Virtual touching: the latest breakthrough,
according to USA Today
Monday, March 24 The digital aesthetic
Required Reading: Ray Kurzweil: “The Day the Computers Stopped”
Roberston: “The computer revolution in the
arts”
Visit the cybernetic poet and artist: http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/
Optional: Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction”
Image manipulation: the George Bush reading photo
(click on “photo gallery” and then on “This is
Thursday, March
27 ONLINE ART
Required
reading: Read some hypertext fiction:
(sort through these and pick one to write about for the reading response)
http://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/waves/
http://www.centenary.edu/~balexand/data/ht/fictions.html
http://raven.ubalt.edu/staff/moulthrop/hypertexts/HGS/
http://www.marrowmonkey.com/lair/index.htm
http://netwurkerz.de/mez/datableed/complete/
http://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/waves/
http://worldofawe.net/index.html
Optional: Katharine Hayles on the future of electronic
literature
WAR RESOURCES: The
Web has lots of information to help you inform yourself.
READING RESPONSE #6 DUE
(digital art)
Monday, March 31 Virtual
reality
Required
Reading: Sherry Turkle: Virtuality and
its Discontents
Mark
Slouka: “Republic of Illusion”
An interesting use of VR : online campus
tour: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~admit/visit/qtvr/
Commercial
uses? http://www.mindwave.com/flash.html
Thursday, April 3 SURVEILLANCE
AND PRIVACY
Required
reading: David Lyon: “From Big
Brother to the Electric Panopticon”
Optional: The government’s
office of Total Information Awareness
Keeping track of John Poindexter
A look at the panopticon: http://cartome.org/panopticon1.htm
Optional
reading: A slide
show of the LAPD’s surveillance system, also some great information
on consumer profiling
from EPIC.
Monday, April 7 ANNOTATED
BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
Optional: Erase-ism
on the net
Fortress America: our heavily monitored future
Also: if you’re interested in my interview
with Jennifer Ringley of Jennicam fame, I’ve posted some excerpts.
Thursday, April 10 PRIVACY
CONTINUED
Required Readings: Toby Lester: “The Reinvention of Privacy”
Watching
the watchers: “Sousveillance”
Optional: Website: http://www.epic.org/
Surveillance in action: the
Denver story
Monday, April 14 SMART MOBS
Required Reading: Rheingold’s Smart Mobs, chapters 1, 6,7
(handout)
Online subversion and “reamweaver” – check out the mock “Dow Chemical”
site
Thursday, April 24 ONLINE
POLITICS
Required
Reading: Selections from Cass
Sunstein’s “Republic.Com”: “The Daily Me”, “An analogy and an ideal” and
“Republic.com”.
Optional: How the Web will change politics
The role of the bloggers in
Lott’s resignation
Blogs from the right and left: http://www.andrewsullivan.com/
Monday, April 28 CRITICAL
REFLECTIONS
Required
reading: Selections from Vote.Com:
“Introduction” and “Vox Populi in Cyberspace.” Also, visit the Vote.Com website
(http://www.vote.com).
Reading:
Bill Joy “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”
Optional: Some predictions about the future by a variety of
authors, scholars, pundits and prophets.
Final Paper due in
class
FINAL EXAM: Friday,
May 9, 1:30 p.m. (in our regular classroom)