Basic Concepts of New Media, Com300

Autumn 2004
Class TTh 1:30-3:20 CMU 120
Lab F CMU 304
Department of Communication, University of Washington

Dr. Philip N. Howard, Assistant Professor
Room 227, Communications Building
Telephone: (206) 221-6532, E-mail: pnhoward-at-u.washington.edu
Office Hours TTh 11:30-1:20 and by appointment

Ted Coopman, Teaching Assistant
Room 340L, Communications Building
E-mail: coopman-at-u.washington.edu
Office Hours TTh 11:30-1:20 and by appointment

Alice Marwick, Teaching Assistant
Room 340L, Communications Building
E-mail: amarwick-at-u.washington.edu
Office Hours by appointment

Class Website: http://faculty.washington.edu/pnhoward/teaching/newmedia/newmedia.html

COURSE CONTENT
This course will investigate both basic concepts in new media and the role of new media technologies in modern life.  The course will be organized around the spheres of social life in which new media technologies play a role:  politics, community, economics, culture, and both personal and global contexts.  This course has several objectives:

-to teach students about the technologies, ideas, people, and cultural meanings of new media;
-to give students cultural literacy and practical familiarity with new media;
-to teach students to develop sophisticated critiques about the role of technology and innovation in communication and culture through short, regular writing assignments.

The course itself has no mandatory pre-requisites.  Students with at least one other upper-level course in communication, anthropology, sociology or political science will be best prepared for the pace and expectations of this course.

TEACHING METHOD
This class will be a workshop in which the instructor, students, and guest lecturers present the basic concepts of new media.  As much as this is a class about communication, culture, and new media, it is also an opportunity for you to choose the questions and themes you find most interesting in the social sciences.  Although you are required to write about many aspects of technology and culture, there is a lot of room for intellectual exploration in your writings; much of the content of this class will depend on the topics that interest students.  Students will finish the course with a good reference packet of notes, reviews, and other handouts.  E-mail will be used to conduct class business outside of class meeting times.  Several of the assignments will evolve into large online collective projects that generate public buzz beyond our classroom.

METHODS OF EVALUATION
This course has no final exam and most coursework will be submitted on E-submit.

Teaching Assistant Ted Coopman will be directing the evaluations, will take attendance at the beginning of each class, and will be noting the names of students has they speak during class discussions.  He has prepared the instructions for labeling your assignments when you use E-submit.  The classes will involve lectures and multimedia presentations, both from Professor Howard and guest speakers.

Teaching Assistant Alice Marwick will be directing the lab work, will take attendance at the beginning of each lab session, and will be noting the names of students as they contribute to lab discussion.  The lab work will involve a daily assignment, due at the end of the lab.  In the first lab meeting there will be a training session with several exercises on how to use E-submit.

We have a number of grading criteria that apply to all assignments.  All of the grading criteria are identified in this course outline, but you may also review our general grading guidelines.  If an assignment is not online by the deadline, you will receive a zero for that assignment.  We encourage you to have a friend proofread your writing before you submit the assignment to us. 

Since irregular attendance will disrupt our learning community, unexplained absences will affect your grade.  However, attendance will not be taken as a formal component of the grade.  We will only consult your attendance record if you ask us to reevaluate your final grade.  Lecture notes and slides are not available online, though course handouts and other multimedia are available online.  We will make every effort to return a grade for your work a week after your work is submitted.  Extensions are available for medical reasons, and you will need a doctor’s note.  All coursework assignments are due before Friday midnight, all labwork assignments are due at the end of the lab session on Friday.

Your grade for this class will be out of 400 points, and your score will be directly translated into the 4.0 scale.

Classwork (200 points).  Students will be given eight short writing or researching assignments, no more than one a week, each valued at 20 points.  Students will be given two short quizzes on terms and ideas covered in class meetings and readings, with each quiz valued at 20 points. 

Labwork (160 points).  Students will use lab time to work on two research projects. The first project is a study of how the presidential candidates and major political parties use the internet for campaign communications.  The second project is to map out the wireless fields in Seattle.

Participation (40 points).  Additionally, class participation will count for 20 points and lab participation will count for 20 points.  Students are expected to actively participate in discussions.  Regular attendance, contributions to the discussion of themes, and engagement and leadership in class exercises will result in a high participation grade.

Work must appear on E-submit by the due date specified in the outline below.  We mark for grammar, spelling, and gender-neutral language.  If your writing style impedes our ability to understand your arguments or embarrasses the University of Washington your grade will suffer, so it is a good idea to have at least one other person proofread your writing.  Use William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White, The Elements of Style (New York:  Macmillan, 1979) for writing style questions.  Purdue University owl.english.purdue.edu has an excellent collection of documents about writing and research.  Please refer to the Statement of Academic Responsibility in the UW Bachelor’s Degree Handbook for definitions of plagiarism.  It is easy to cut and paste phrases from the internet, but E-submit makes it really each to catch this.  It is better to cite an author than to be caught plagiarizing, and citations should be formatted according to the APA style guidelines. 

COURSE MATERIAL
Both books are at the UW bookstore, and both can be found in used and new bookstores around the city and you are welcome to order both books online (http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/, http://www.powells.com/, http://www.alibris.com/). 

Howard, P. N. and S. Jones, Eds. (2004). Society Online:  The Internet in Context. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.  $38.  ISBN 0761927077.

Wardrip-Fruin, N. and N. Monfort, Eds. (2003).  The New Media Reader.  Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press.  $48.  ISBN 0262232278.

COURSE OUTLINE & METHOD OF EVALUATION
In most weeks, there will be a mixture of multimedia presentations, group and individual exercises, guest lectures and sessions devoted to discussing the readings or each other’s work. 

Week 1:  Introduction, Thursday September 30^th, Friday October 1^st
Coursework:  None.
Handouts:  This outline.
Labwork: Do the E-submit Exercise (10 points) and set up for the Political Profile Experiment (20 points) both due at the end of your lab section.
Reading:  Bruce Sterling, Short History of the Internet, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1993 (Online); Engelbart, Augmenting Human Intellect, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Discuss Lecture plan, coursework and labwork; practice using catalyst by putting your resume online; what is new media?
Multimedia:  Thinking Machines: The Creation of the Computer; Engelbart’s 1968 demonstration from the Augmentation Research Center:  augmentation through computing, from paper to screen, linking data, the keyboard and mouse we now use, a control device that didn’t catch on, imagining ARPA’s Network Information Center, what’s the product? (And a nice short essay that treats the presentation as a cultural object).  Is this “bike printer” new media?

Week 2:  Social Capital and Community I, Tuesday October 5^th, Thursday October 7^th, Friday October 8^th.
Coursework:  Take It Apart Essay (20 points), due Friday October 8^th at midnight on E-submit.
Guests:  Jessica Albano, Communication Studies Librarian, on October 5^th.
Handouts:  Social Networks Exercise.
Labwork:  Profile WebQ Survey (10 points).
Reading:  Norris, The Bridging and Bonding Role of Online Communities, in Society Online; Larsen, Deeper Understanding, Deeper Ties, in Society Online; Turkle, Video Games and Computer Holding Power, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Computer networks as social networks; remote communities; smart searching strategies.
Multimedia:  Warriors of the Net.  Bill tracking online http://www.wheresgeorge.com/, organizations of corporate board members http://theyrule.net/, networking applications http://faculty.washington.edu/pnhoward/teaching/newmedia/www.thefacebook.com.

Week 3:  Social Capital and Community II, Tuesday October 12^th, Thursday October 14^th, Friday October 15^th.
Coursework:  Political Candidate URL Spreadsheet (20 points), due at midnight on Friday October 15^th (20 points).  Here is a cheat sheet on how to get the right URLs.
Guest:  Peter York, Seattle Wireless on October 14^th.  His PowerPoint slides are here.  
Handouts:  Glossary of Geek, Smart Searching, Searching Our Library for Com300 Assignments.
Labwork:  Profile WebQ 2 (10 points).
Reading:  Nakamura, Interrogating the Digital Divide, in Society Online; Sandvig, Disorderly Infrastructure (Online); Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Gender, race and new media; the advertisement of technology; WiFi networks.
Multimedia:  http://tv.seattlewireless.net/, (some of these are my titles):  Apple 1984, 1984; IBM 1997, All Languages; Oracle 1998, Technology Revolution; MCI 1997, There is No Race, Microsoft 1995, Race In All of Us, IBM 1998, Whites In Business.

Week 4:  Politics Online I, Tuesday October 19^st, Thursday October 21^rd, and Friday October 22^nd.
Coursework:  Political Website Critique OR Science Fiction Film Critique due by midnight Friday October 22^nd (20 points).
Guests:  Tom Brew, MSNBCi Executive Editor on the 21^st, a link to some of his facts on newspaper circulation.
Handouts:  Ted’s Rough Guide to Reviewing.
Labwork:  Profile Codesheet 3 (20 points)
Reading:  Dessauer, New Media, Internet News, and the News Habit, in Society Online; Jon Katz, The Digital Citizen; Boal, From Theatre of the Oppressed, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Political content online, critiquing political websites, new media in the social imagination.
Multimedia:  Documentary on polling technologies.

Week 5:  Politics Online II, Tuesday October 26^th, Thursday October 28^th, and Friday October 29^th.
Coursework:  In-class quiz on October 28^th (20 points).
Guests:  Mark Stevenson, MSNBC Senior News Editor on the 26^th.  Dr. Kirsten Foot on October 28^th a link to her September 11 Archive.
Handouts:  None.
Labwork:  Profile Codesheet 4 (10 points).
Reading:  Schneider and Foot, Crisis Communication and New Media, in Society Online; Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes:  China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution.
Themes:  Political research online; internet polling; new media as a research instrument; internet research ethics.
Multimedia:  Revolution OS.          

Week 6:  Economic Life Online I, Dates:  Tuesday November 2^nd, Thursday November 4^th, and Friday November 5^th.
Audio:  McLuhan, Hot and Cold Media.
Coursework:  Entry for Seattle New Media Encyclopedia, Version 1, due by midnight Friday November 5^th (20 points).
Guests:  Mary Starman, Lead Product Manager for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, on November 4^th.
Handouts:  Writing Encyclopedia Entries, Searching Our Library for Com300 Assignments.
Labwork:  Profile Codesheet 5 (10 points).
Reading:  Neff and Stark, Permanently Beta, in Society Online; Kotamraju, Art Versus Code, in Society Online; McLuhan, Medium is the Message, Galaxy Reconfigured, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Organizational behavior and technology; new media in developing countries.
Multimedia:  Dot Con and Dot.com; McLuhan World Is A Global Village, McLuhan World Connectivity, Gzowski interviews McLuhan, Oracle of the Electronic Age.

Week 7:  Economic Life Online II, Tuesday November 9^th, Thursday November 11^th NO CLASS, Friday November 12^th, NO LAB.
Coursework:  Entry for Seattle New Media Encyclopedia, Version 2, due by midnight on Friday November 12^th (20 points).  Make the edits we asked for on Version 1 of your paper, organized according to the Draft Template, and submit your entry with E-submit.
Guests:  None.
Handouts:  Searching Our Library for Com300 Assignments.
Labwork:  None.
Reading:  Silver and Garland, shop online!, in Society Online; Stallman, The GNU Manifesto, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Consumerism and the internet, open source software.
Multimedia:  Global Software Programmers (30 minutes, 1997).  Examines opportunities and potential pitfalls in the expanding global software market. Addresses the implications of cross-cultural software development as companies in India partner with clients in Europe and the United States and Western companies relocate to India.  Triumph of the Nerds, excerpts from Nerds 2.0.1.

Week 8:  Culture and Socialization I, Tuesday November 16^th, Thursday November 18^th, Friday November 19^th NO LAB.
Coursework:  New Media and Developing Countries References, due as a *.zip file at midnight on Friday November 19^th (20 points).
Guests:  Dr. Mark Donovan, RealNetworks on November 16^th, Kris Erickson, Geography Department on Hackers and Hacktivism on November 18^th.
Handouts: None.
Labwork:  No required lab meeting, work on WiFi map project (70 points).
Reading:  Griswold and Wright, Wired and Well Read, in Society Online; Morningstar and Farmer, The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Cultural consumption and new media, cellphones and mobile streaming cultural content.
Multimedia:  Seattle World’s Fair, 1968:  Communication in the 21^st Century, Dr. Howard Preparing for Class (needs latest 3gp codecs for Realplayer or Quicktime), Digital Phone / Camera picture of our class. Real time news image tracking. Interview with the designer who came up with the FedEx logo complete with subliminal arrow. Essay on cell phone etiquette.

Week 9:  Culture and Socialization II, Tuesday November 23^rd, Thursday November 25^th NO CLASS and Friday November 26^th NO LAB.
Coursework:  None.
Guests: None.
Handouts: Time Diary Research and Black Entry Form.
Labwork:  No required lab meeting, work on WiFi map project (70 points).
Reading:  Peterson and Ryan, The Disembodied Muse, in Society Online; Williams, The Technology and The Society, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Music and cultural content online; Games and Immersive Environments.
Multimedia:  The X FACTOR: Inside Microsoft's Xbox.

Week 10:  Personal and Global Contexts, Tuesday November 30^th, Thursday December 2^nd, Friday December 3^rd NO LAB.
Coursework: In-class quiz on December 2^nd (20 points).  Electronic Surveillance Essay Or Cultural Consumption Essay, due at midnight, Friday December 3^rd (20 points).
Guests:  Ted Coopman on Dissentworks.
Handouts:  Organizing an Academic Interview, Organizing an Job Informational Interview.
Labwork:  No required lab meeting, work on WiFi map project (70 points).
Reading:  Meyerring et al, American Internet Users and Privacy, in Society Online.
Themes:  Personal activism and informational literacy; finding work in new media industries.
Multimedia:  Almost Real.

Week 11:  Personal and Global Contexts, Tuesday December 7^th, Thursday December 9^th, Friday December 10^th NO LAB.
Coursework:  Interview Assignment, due midnight Friday December 10^th (20 points).
Guests: Jennifer Gossett, Human Resources Manager for World Wide Operations at Microsoft?  Dia Lautenschlauger on privacy?
Labwork:  No required lab meeting, work on WiFi map project (70 points).
Reading:  Hargittai, Informed Web Surfing, in Society Online; Agre, Surveillance and Capture, in New Media Reader.
Themes:  Showing off collective projects:  Seattle Newmediapedia, Data Press Releases, WiFi Map.
Multimedia:  Almost Real.