BRITT S. PARIS
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COURSE SCHEDULE
Please make sure to read the assigned readings before our class meeting on the corresponding day.

PART ONE — INTERNET HISTORY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND CONCEPTS

WEEK 1
• Course Overview and Goals (Activity)
• What was the historical milieu in which the internet was born and how did it come to be what it is today?
• What are the historical concepts and practices of knowledge organization that we see in today’s internet?
• How do the different technical components of Internet infrastructure shape knowledge?

TUESDAY – INTERNET PRECURSORS
Bush, V. (1948). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, July, 101-108.
http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier/pub/vbush/vbush-all.shtml

Wells, H.G. (1938). World brain: The idea of a permanent world encyclopedia. From World Brain, pp. 83-88. New York: Doubleday. http://sherlock.berkeley.edu/wells/world_brain.html

Wright, A. (2008) The Web That Time Forgot. The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/health/17iht-17mund.13760031.html

VISIT:
The Mundaneum Google Arts & Culture https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/u/0/partner/mundaneum

THURSDAY – INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE
Gleick, J. (2012) The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood. Pantheon: New Work, pp. excerpts 1-77.

Mayo, K. & Newcombe, P. (2008) How The Web Was Won Pts. I-II. Vanity Fair.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807
 
VISIT/WATCH:
40 Maps that Explain the Internet http://www.vox.com/a/internet-maps

Greg’s map of submarine Internet cables (just play around with it a little):
http://Cablemap.info
 
Vint Cerf explains how TCP/IP works
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZlNNiI-hq0
 
WEEK 2
• How do we manage information through technology?
 
TUESDAY – INFRASTRUCTURE, CONTINUED
Wikipedia entry: Browser Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
 
Jowitt, T. (2016). Tales in Tech History: Netscape Navigator. TechWeek Europe. September 2. http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/workspace/browser/tales-tech-history-netscape-navigator-197105
 
Mayo, K. & Newcombe, P. (2008) How The Web Was Won Pts. III-VIII. Vanity Fair.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807
     
THURSDAY – DATA, BIG & SMALL, OVERLOAD
boyd, danah and Crawford, Kate, Six Provocations for Big Data (September 21, 2011). A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society, September 2011. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1926431 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1926431
 
Lievrouw, L.A. (2000). 'Dead media' and the loss of electronic cultural heritage. ICA Newsletter, January, 12-13.
 
WEEK 3
• What are the problems of managing information?
• How does the Internet reflect and shape our culture and socioeconomic systems?
 
TUESDAY – ALGORITHMS, BIAS AND PREDICTION
Sandvig, C. (2015) Seeing The Sort: The Aesthetic And Industrial Defense Of The Algorithm. Media-N. http://median.newmediacaucus.org/art-infrastructures-information/seeing-the-sort-the-aesthetic-and-industrial-defense-of-the-algorithm/
 
Crawford, K. (2016) Algorithms Are Hard to See. Medium Coprporation.
https://medium.com/@katecrawford/artificial-intelligence-is-hard-to-see-a71e74f386db#.xnfvccf2q
Hermann, J. (2016) (Totally Insane, Unintentionally Gigantic, Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/magazine/inside-facebooks-totally-insane-unintentionally-gigantic-hyperpartisan-political-media-machine.htmlPariser, Eli. (2011). Beware online filter bubbles. Video. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html
 
Video: Noble, S. (2016) Challenging the algorithms of oppression. Personal Democracy Forum. June 15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRVZozEEWlE
 
THURSDAY – INTERNET AND SOCIETY?
Winner, L. Do Artifacts Have Politics? (Winter, 1980). Daedalus, Vol. 109, No. 1, Modern Technology: Problem or Opportunity? pp. 121-13 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024652?seq=1 - page_scan_tab_contents
 
Feenberg, A. (2010) Ten Paradoxes of Technology. Techne 14:1, https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/paradoxes.pdf
 
Castells, M.: (2013) The Network State in Communication Power, pp. 38-42. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 
Castells, M.: (2013) Power in the Network Society: “Networks”/”The Global Network Society”/”What Is Value In The Network Society?”/ “Work, Labor, Class, and Gender: The Network Enterprise and the New Social Division of Labor” in Communication Power, p. 19-33. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

WEEK 4
• As we live in a network society, how is value distributed and what are the implications?
• If we live in a “networked society”, then what are the political implications?
 
TUESDAY – PROPERTY, COPYRIGHTS AND PATENTS
Cohen, D.J. & Rosenstand, R. A Brief History of Copyright. Digital History, retrieved at:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/copyright/1.php
 
Duhigg, C. & Lohr, S. (2012). The patent, used as a sword. The New York Times,
Oct 7. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-warsamong-
tech-giants-can-stifle- competition.html
 
PART TWO — INTERNET & CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
 
THURSDAY – ISSUES OF POWER AND POLITICS
Honan, M. (2015). Now the Internet belongs to us — and to politics. BuzzFeed,
February 26. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathonan/now-the-internetbelongs-
to-us-and-to-politics#.ofRWX9ja0A
 
Internet democracy: This house believes that the Internet is not inherently a force
for democracy. (2011). The Economist: The Economist Debates.
http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/662
 
Morozov, E. (2009, July). How the Net aids dictatorships. TED.
http://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_what_orwell_feared.html
 
Video: Srinivasan, R (2013): Interview with The Young Turks on social media, revolutions and the Arab Spring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pi29UzPnMs


WEEK 5
• How have socioeconomic conditions changed with relation to the Internet?
• What tactics have been developed to cope with socioeconomic changes?
 
TUESDAY – INTERNET ECONOMICS
Glikman, P. & Glady, N. (2015) What’s The Value Of Your Data? TechCrunch. October 13.
https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/13/whats-the-value-of-your-data/
 
Schuber & Isaac. (2016) Uber Recognizes New York Drivers’ Group, Short of a Union. The New York Times, May 10.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/technology/uber-agrees-to-union-deal-in-new-york.html?_r=0
 
Al-Ani, A. & Stumpp, S. (2016). Rebalancing interests and power structures on crowdworking platforms. Internet Policy Review, 5(2).
 
THURSDAY – DISRUPTION, REPLACEMENT AND PIRACY
Kelty, C. (2013). There is no free software. Journal of Peer Production 1(3).
 
Lee, T.B. (2012). If Android is a “stolen product,” then so was the iPhone.
ArsTechnica. February 23 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/ifandroid-
is-a-stolen-product- then-so-was-the-iphone/
           
Andreesen, M (2014). Why Bitcoin Matters. The New York Times.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/?_r=0
           
Ferguson, C (2009): Technology left behind: The Demise of Newspapers. Against the Grain, Issue 40, Volume 32, p. 91-92
 
Suskind, A. (2014) 15 years after Napster. The Daily Beast.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/06/15-years-after-napster-how-the-music-service-changed-the-industry.html
 
Sanchez, J. (2012). SOPA, Internet regulation, and the economics of piracy. Ars
Technica. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/internet-regulationand-
the-economics-of-piracy/
 
 
WEEK 6  – MIDTERM ARGUMENT ESSAY DUE FRIDAY AT MIDNIGHT
• How do we interact with these social media and open platforms for communication?
• How can we think critically about the practices of use of Internet and related technologies?
 
TUESDAY – PRACTICES OF ONLINE SELF CONSTRUCTION
boyd, danah. (2007) “Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life.” MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
 
Alang, N. (2016, October 17). Auto Format. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://reallifemag.com/auto-format/
 
Jurgenson, N. (2012). The IRL fetish. The New Inquiry, June 28.
http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-irl-fetish/
 
THURSDAY – COSTS AND BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION?
 
Carr, N. (2008). Is Google making us stupid? The Atlantic, July/August. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
 
Marche, S. (2012). Is Facebook making us lonely? The Atlantic, May.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebookmaking-
us- lonely/308930/
 
Randall, E. (2014). How a raccoon became an aardvark. The New Yorker, May
19. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-a-raccoon-became-anaardvark
 
            [Guest Speaker Jen Pierre]
 
WEEK 7
• As we share and participate in network society, what things should we be aware of?
 
THURSDAY – PRIVACY
Solove, D. (2011). Why privacy matters even if you have “nothing to hide.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 15, 2011.
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/
 
Villasenor, J. (2016) Some key issues in the Apple Encryption Case. Forbes.com, February 21. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnvillasenor/2016/02/21/some-key-issues-in-the-apple-iphone-decryption-matter/#e1400c94d2bb
 
TUESDAY – SURVEILLANCE
Wood, S. (2016) Police body cameras: Emotional mediation and the economies of visuality. Emotions, Technology, and Design. Ed. Sharon Tettegah and Safiya Noble. Routledge.
 
            Parks, L. (2016, March 12). Rise of the IMSI Catcher. Media Fields Journal. Retrieved April 30, 2016, from http://mediafieldsjournal.squarespace.com/rise-of-the-imsi-catcher/2016/3/12/rise-of-the-imsi-catcher.html
 
            [Guest Speaker Stacy Wood]
 
WEEK 8
• What is ”cyber” and how can we understand its implications?
• What is ‘hacking’, anyway?
• How can we change balances of power and value distribution in ways that serve our own interests?
 
THURSDAY – CYBERSECURITY
Bay, M. (2016) What Is Cybersecurity? In search of an encompassing definition for the post-Snowden era. French Journal for Media Research 6/2016 – Negociating the Web (Special Issue). http://frenchjournalformediaresearch.com/lodel/index.php?id=988
 
Francheschi-Bicchieri, L. (2016) How Hackers Broke into Johan Podesta and Colin Powell’s Gmail Accounts, Motherboard
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-hackers-broke-into-john-podesta-and-colin-powells-gmail-accounts
 
Flintley, K. (2016) We’ve Just Encrypted All of Wired.com, Wired. https://www.wired.com/2016/09/now-encrypting-wired-com/
 
TUESDAY – HACKING
Yagoda, B. (2014) A Short History of ‘Hack’” The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-short-history-of-hack
 
Coleman, G. (2012) Our weirdness is free: The logic of Anonymous—online army, agent of chaos, and seeker of justice. Triple Canopy, p. 15. http://canopycanopycanopy.com/15/our_weirdness_is_free#
        
WEEK 9
• What are some technological and social tactics to investigate social practices and institutions?
 
TUESDAY – HACKTIVISM
DiSalvo, C., Louw, M., Holstus, D., Nourbakhsh, I., & Akin, A. (2012). Toward a Public  Rhetoric Through Participatory Design: Critical Engagements and Creative Expression in the Neighborhood Networks Project. Design Issues, 28(3), 48–61. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00161
           
Wardell, C. & Ross D. (2016) “The Police Data Initiative Year of Progress”. The Medium Corp. https://medium.com/the-white-house/the-police-data-initiative-year-of-progress-how-we-re-building-on-the-president-s-call-to-leverage-3ac86053e1a9#.w8cr1dy3y

VISIT:
“The Counted” (2015) The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
 
THURSDAY – WHISTLEBLOWING, COUNTER-DESIGN AND OTHER FORMS OF RESISTANCE
Greenwald, G. (2013), “Edward Snowden, The Whistle-blower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance
 
Sifry, M. (2014). Transparency, big data and Internet activism. Utne Reader, October.

Nisssenbaum, H. and Brunton, F. (2016) Obfuscation: A User’s Guide For Privacy and Protest, pp. 1-20, 50-65.

VISIT:
“The Snowden Archive” (2016) The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/documents/
 
The Tactical Technology Collective. “Data Politics” https://tacticaltech.org/projects/27

WEEK 10
• How might ethical, political and economic debates of the internet progress as it changes?
• How can we imagine futures about identity construction, labor and ways of living and how might they come about or not?
 
TUESDAY — VISIONS OF THE FUTURE
Janna, Anderson, & Rainie, L. (2012b, February 29). Millennials will benefit and suffer due to their hyperconnected lives. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/02/29/millennials-will-benefit-and-suffer-due-to-their-hyperconnected-lives/

Malik, O. (2016) In The Future We Will Photograph Everything and Look At Nothing. The New Yorker. April 4.
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/in-the-future-we-will-photograph-everything-and-look-at-nothing
 
Lievrouw, L.A. (2011) The Next Decade in Internet Time” Information Communication And Society, 616-638
 
THURSDAY — SPECULATIVE FUTURES    
Hart, C. (2016, August 31). “Perpetual Motion Machines” Real Life. http://reallifemag.com/perpetual-motion-machines/

Resnick, S.  (2015)  “Suspended Automation” Triple Canopy, https://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/series/speculations-archive/contents/speculations-archive-suspended-automation/ - talk-fortyfive-frame
 
Kiesling, L. (2016) “Watch Again” Real Life.
http://reallifemag.com/watch-again/    


EXAM WEEK – FINAL ARGUMENT PAPER DUE TUESDAY OF WEEK 11 AT MIDNIGHT

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  • PROJECTS
  • ABOUT
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • TEACHING
  • PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP