The book is available at the UW bookstore, in used and new bookstores
around the city, and online (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Powells, Alibris).
Chadwick, A. and P. Howard, Eds. (2009). Handbook of Internet Politics. London, UK: Routledge. $43. ISBN
0415780586.
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.
Please note there will be no class meetings on January 18th or February 15th.
Week 1: Introduction / Social Capital and Community
Evaluation: None.
Handouts: This outline.
Reading: Bruce
Sterling, Short History of the Internet, from The Magazine of Fantasy
and Science Fiction, February 1993 (Online)
Themes: Discuss Lecture plan, coursework and lab work; 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? Here is the NSF's multimedia story of its role in the construction of the internet, here is an eloquent video on digital text..
Is this “bike
printer” new media? Is a 3-D "replicator" new media?
Week 2: Social Capital and Community
Evaluation: Take
It Apart Essay, worth 40 points, due Friday January 15th at 5pm in Catalyst.
Guests: Jessica Albano, Communication Librarian, Wednesday the 13th.
Handouts: Searching
Our Library for Com300 Assignments.
Reading: "The virtual sphere 2.0" in Chadwick and Howard.
Themes: Computer networks as social networks;
remote communities; smart searching strategies; Gender, race and new media; the advertisement
of technology; WiFi networks.
Multimedia: Warriors of the Net, and Packet Switching Flash Demo. Bill tracking online http://www.wheresgeorge.com/, organizations
of corporate board members http://theyrule.net/, networking applications
http://www.thefacebook.com/. Collective intelligence: computing to solve social problems http://www.malariacontrol.net/; AI from conversation http://www.jabberwacky.com/yourbot. Glossary of Geek, Smart
Searching, Searching
Our Library for Com300 Assignments. New Media ads
(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. Huge collection of other ads on YouTube.
Week 3: Politics Online
I
Evaluation: ICTs and Development, worth
40 points, due Friday January 22nd at 5pm on
Catalyst. Note that training sessions for Lab 1 are going to be held 8:30-12:30 in MGH 044 (not CMU302) on Friday January 22nd and 29th.
Guests:
Handouts: Searching
Our Library for Com300 Assignments.
Reading: "The internet in U.S. election campaigns" in Chadwick and Howard.
Themes: Political content online, critiquing political
web sites, new media in the social imagination.
Multimedia: Documentary on polling technologies. Habermas on Technology. Blog Wars. Blog Pulse.
Week 4: Politics Online
II
Evaluation: None.
Guests: None.
Handouts: None.
Reading: "The virtual sphere 2.0: the internet, the public sphere, and beyond" in Chadwick and Howard.
Themes: Political research online; internet polling;
new media as a research instrument; internet research ethics.
Multimedia: Revolution OS, a future history of the news, Neighborhood
Personality Types, World News, 10x10 image bytes,
Week 5:
Economic Life Online I
Evaluation: Lab 1: Social Network Map, worth
40 points, due Friday February 5th at 5pm in Catalyst.
Guests: None.
Handouts: None.
Reading: "Locational surveillance" in Chadwick and Howard.
Themes: Organizational behavior and technology.
Multimedia: Dot Con
and Dot.com and Startup.com; McLuhan
World Is A Global Village, McLuhan
World Connectivity, Gzowski interviews McLuhan, Oracle
of the Electronic Age. McLuhan,
Hot and Cold Media, McLuhan's Tetrad Laws of Media. Internet Memes: Numa Numa
Week 6: Economic Life Online II
Evaluation: In-class quiz on February 10th, worth 40 points.
Guests: None.
Handouts: None.
Reading: "Metaphoric reinforcement of the virtual fence" in Chadwick and Howard; Lawrence Lessig. 2004. “Piracy” in Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New
York: Penguin, pp 62-79.
Themes: Consumerism and the internet, open source
software.
Multimedia: Google Documentary. 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 7: Culture and Socialization I
Evaluation: Personal Social Network Narrative, worth
40 points, due Friday February 19th at 5pm in Catalyst.
Guests: None.
Handouts: Time
Diary Research and Blank
Entry Form.
Reading: "Do the information rich get richer and the
like-minded more similar?" Chadwick and Howard; Thurlow, Generation txt.
Themes: Cultural consumption and new media, cell phones
and mobile streaming cultural content.
Multimedia: Seattle
World’s Fair, 1968: Communication
in the 21st Century, Dr.
Howard Preparing for Class (needs
latest 3gp codecs for Realplayer or Quicktime), Real time news image tracking. Interview with the
designer who came up with the FedEx logo complete with subliminal
arrow. Cross-Cultural Game Play. Student article
on cell
phone etiquette. Gendered visions of the future.
Week 8:
Culture and Socialization II
Evaluation: Electronic Surveillance Essay Or Cultural
Consumption Essay, worth 40 points, due at 5pm on Friday February 26th on Catalyst.
Guests: Dr. Kirsten Foot on fair trade and transnational anti-human trafficking networks, March 1st.
Handouts: None.
Reading: Keri K. Stephens. 2007. "The Successive Use of Information and Communication Technologies at Work," Communication Theory 17(4), 486-507 (available on Catalyst).
Themes: Music and cultural content online; Games
and Immersive Environments.
Multimedia: The X FACTOR: Inside Microsoft's
Xbox; Brand Hype Database. Do you need to actually play an instrument? Digital Learners Video. Tag Rankings. Culture and Radicalization: Hate.com. Co-production and Re-production: Star Trek New Voyages; Store Wars; The Meatrix.
Week 9: Personal and
Global Contexts I
Evaluation: In-class quiz, worth 40 points,
on March 3rd.
Guests:
Handouts: None.
Reading: "Wired to fact" in Chadwick and Howard.
Themes: Personal activism and informational literacy;
finding work in new media industries; showing off collective projects.
Multimedia: Almost Real, How Many Of Me?, Name Voyager , Fight Aids at Home, Video The Vote, Facebook Privacy, the Dumpster of Emotions, We Feel Fine, Celebrity Image Morph. New Ways of Seeing the World: Worldmapper.
Week 10: Personal and Global Contexts II
Evaluation: Lab 2: TBA: worth 40 points, due 5pm on Monday March 8th at 5pm on Catalyst. Interview
Assignment, worth 40 points, due at 5pm on Friday March 12th on Catalyst.
Handouts: Organizing
an Academic Interview, Organizing an Job Informational Interview,
Reading: "Electoral web production practices in cross-national perspective" in Chadwick and Howard.
Themes: From Network Societies to Information Societies; The digital divide, modernization, dependency and underdevelopment.
Multimedia: Hacking the X-Box, Social Algorithms: You Just Get Me, Implicit Bias,
