The Googlization of Everything

Introduction to Digital Media Studies

TuTh 2:00PM to 3:15PM
Minor Hall 125

Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siva_Vaidhyanathan




This class is an introduction to digital media studies. It explores 
the ways digital media have had an impact on various aspects of
contemporary culture such as concepts of community, communication,
identity, privacy, property, and so on. The class takes a political
economy approach, but our questions will be informed by a variety of 
theoretical perspectives including cultural studies, media studies,
and technology studies. The course is grounded in the history and
theory of media technology as a site of cultural production.

The 
class is a prerequisite for both the major and minor in Media Studies.



Here are some of the questions we will ask during this course:



• What is a network?


• What are its features?


• What are its flaws?


• And what's so "new" about "New Media?"

• How is the Internet regulated?

• How should the Internet be regulated?

• What is "artificial intelligence" and why does it matter?



This course will approach each of these questions through a
consideration of some key texts in cyberculture, new media studies,
and “Critical Information Studies.” It will begin with a series of
descriptions of some common networks: the "Internet;" "peer-to-peer"
networks; "social networking" sites and software; "Web 2.0"; etc.
Students will be encouraged to use Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Google
Video, blogs, Wikipedia as laboratories for
exploring networked communication and the principles of new media.



Requirements:

You must submit the quizzes and exams.
You must be registered in and attend a lab.
Weekly readings will be the basis of class lecture and discussion.
If you miss three lab sections you will be subject to a failing grade for your lab project.



Exams will contain a combination of short-answer and essay questions
and will demand a mastery of the assigned reading. Midterm essay
questions will be posted the week before the midterms. Final essay
questions will be posted two weeks before the final. All questions will require knowledge of the
readings, arguments, issues, and case studies discussed in lecture.
No lecture notes will be posted since lectures will include
discussions that cannot be scripted in advance.

Lab sessions will be used to discuss the readings and experiment with
various methods of networked digital communication.

Readings:
 
All reading materials for class are listed in this
 syllabus.  If a link fails to work, let the instructor know by email. Additional 
readings may be assigned during the semester. You are responsible for 
reading the materials in the syllabus and coming to lecture ready to
discuss the issues set in discussion.



Grades:
• Five quizzes (Collab): 20 points each = 100 points
• Three exams: 100 points each = 300 points
• Optional group project: = 100 points to be averaged in with the other 400 points

All quizzes will be taken in lab. All exams will be take-home on Collab. The deadlines will be announced later.

There will be no extensions. No exceptions. Don’t ask.




Optional Group Projects:



Students who opt to do the group project shall form groups of four to six people. That group MUST have every member taught by the SAME TA. There will be no exceptions to this.

Students who choose to pursue this project must pass a special quiz about copyright and personality rights and clearances. They must attend the appropriate courses sponsored by SHANTI and the Robertson Media Center.

Each group will collaborate on the production of a piece of digital work. Each group will produce a five- to 10-minute video about the uses and
abuses of digital technology in the university environment. In addition, the group must create a Web page to frame or host the video.

The Web page should contain the following information:

• Course information
• Participants
• Background information (about 200 words)
• Links to important and useful Web resources about the subject
• Disclaimers, licenses, etc. explaining copyright, privacy, permissions, etc.

Please give a one-sentence proposal to your TA by February 14.


Please give a seven-sentence proposal (that would reflect a change in
subject or project option) to your TA by the week of March 1.

The 
seven sentences should indicate the scope and subject, the division 
of labor, the method of research, steps in production, and the plans
for publication, publicity, and distribution.



The optional group projects are due on May 1. They will be submitted by sending an email with the page link to the professor and TA.

Evaluation and Policies:



A:    Rare and outstanding work that shows thought, enterprise, and
attention to detail (spelling, grammar, structure, citations). Do not
expect an A in this class.



B:     Very good work that shows care for and understanding of the
material.



C:    Fair work that demonstrates a pedestrian or superficial
familiarity with the material in the class or is presented in a
sloppy fashion.



D:     Unsatisfactory work that demonstrates a lack of understanding
of the reading or lectures.



F:    Failure because work was not submitted, the student missed more
than three sessions, or the student committed an abrogation of
academic trust and a commitment to honesty.



Etiquette:

 A polite and respectful environment is essential to the success of
any class (and any professional relationship). We expect and demand
that students will treat us and peers with the utmost respect. We
will not tolerate insults or taunts in class. We will abruptly wake
up a student who dozes off and ask her or him to leave the class for
the day. If a mobile phone should ring in class, we will pause to
allow the owner to turn off the ring. And we will consider such
carelessness to be very rude. So please turn off all potentially
 annoying devices.



A special note on Facebook use: I have a Facebook profile and use it
 often. However, I would ask that you not add me as a friend on Facebook until you have graduated from UVa. I do not want to be flooded
 with dozens of requests during the semester. If, after your time at UVa 
has ended, you still like me, then please feel free to request a
 friendship on Facebook.


 

Readings:



Students will read and comment on the following:



Articles:



Anderson, Chris. “The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete.” Wired, June 23, 2008. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory.

Barlow, John. “Declaring Indepondence.” Wired. 4, no. 6 (1996): 121. http://wac.colostate.edu/rhetnet/barlow/barlow_declaration.html.  

Bartow, Ann. "Some Peer-to-Peer, Democratically and Voluntarily
Produced Thoughts About 'the Wealth of Networks: How Social
Production Transforms Markets and Freedom,' by Yochai Benkler." 
Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law, (2007),
 http://ssrn.com/paper=964735



Benkler, Yochai. 2006. Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and
Challenge.  In The Wealth of Networks (Yale University Press, 2006)
 http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-01.htm



Benkler, Yochai. 2006. Chapter 3: Peer Production and Sharing.  In,
The Wealth of Networks, 
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-03.htm



Benkler, Yochai, and Christian Ahlert. "Mining the Wealth of Networks
with Yochai Benkler " OpenDemocracy.net, no.  (2006),
 http://www.opendemocracy.net/media-copyrightlaw/benkler_3487.jsp



boyd, danah. "Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community into
Being on Social Network Sites "  First Monday, no. 12 (2006), 
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html



boyd, danah. "Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?" The
Knowledge Tree, no. 13 (2007),
 http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/?page_id=28



Carr, Nick. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” The Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2008. Available at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google



Cohen, Julie. E. “Cyberspace as/and Space.” 107 Colum. L. Rev. 210 (2007)
Available at
 http://www.columbialawreview.org/articles/index.cfm?article_id=850



Crawford, Susan P. , "The Radio and the Internet" (August 14, 2007).
Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper Series Available at SSRN: 
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1007221



Farrell, Henry, ed.. "The Wealth of Networks Seminar." Crooked
Timber, no.  (2006),
 http://crookedtimber.org/2006/05/30/introduction-the-wealth-of-network
s-seminar/


Hoofnagle, Chris Jay. “Beyond Google and evil: How policy makers, journalists and consumers should talk differently about Google and privacy.” First Monday 14, no. 4 (April 6, 2009). http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2326/2156.  

Ito, et al. Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media. Chicago: McArthur Foundation, 2008. Available at http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report



O'Reilly, Tim. "What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models
for the Next Generation of Software." O'Reilly, no. May 8 (2005),
 http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-we
b-20.html

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. “Naked in the 'Nonopticon': Surveillance and marketing combine to strip away our privacy.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 15, 2008, sec. The Chronicle Review. http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i23/23b00701.htm.

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. “Generational Myth.” Chronicle of Higher Education 55, no. 4 (September 2008).  

Wu, Tim. "The Wrong Tail: How to Turn a Powerful Idea into a Dubious
Theory of Everything." Slate.com, no. July 21 (2006), 
http://www.slate.com/id/2146225/



Wu, Tim and Yoo, Christopher S., "Keeping the Internet Neutral?: Tim
Wu and Christopher Yoo Debate" (December 28, 2006). Vanderbilt Public
Law Research Paper No. 06-27 Available at SSRN:
 http://ssrn.com/abstract=953989




Books available at UVa Bookstore:


Abelson, Harold, Ken Ledeen, and Harry R. Lewis. Blown to bits : your life, liberty, and happiness after the digital explosion. Upper Saddle River NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2008.  

Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail : The Revolution Changing Small
Markets into Big Business.  New York: Hyperion, 2006.



Bauerlein, Mark. The Dumbest Generation. New York: Tarcher Penguin, 2008.

Fritz, Sandy, ed. Understanding artificial intelligence. New York: Warner Books, 2002.  

Jarvis, Jeff. What would Google do? New York, NY: Collins Business, 2009.  

Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008.



Sunstein, Cass R. Republic 2.0. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.



Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.


Books available in PDF form on Collab:

Bishop, Mark. Views into the Chinese room : new essays on Searle and artificial intelligence. Oxford [u.a.]: Clarendon Press [u.a.], 2002.  

Hey, Anthony, ed. The fourth paradigm data-intensive scientific discovery. Redmond, Wash. :: Microsoft Research,, 2009.  

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The anarchist in the library : how the clash between freedom and control is hacking the real world and crashing the system. New York: Basic Books, 2004.  

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010

Books available on Ebrary via UVa Library (reading software required):

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. Copyrights and copywrongs : the rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. New York [u.a.]: Univ. Press, 2003.  

Class Schedule (NOTE: EVERYTHING BELOW IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE)



1) January 21: What the heck are “Digital Media Studies”?


Read:
 

Vaidhyanathan, “Critical Information Studies: A Manifesto”
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g743885185~db=all

   

Vaidhyanathan, “Generational Myth,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 19, 2008. Available at http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i04/04b00701.htm


 
No Lab sessions this week.

2)

Week of January 26:   What are digital media doing to us?
   


Read:

 

Carr, Nick. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” The Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2008. Available at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google


 

Shirky, Clay. “Why Abundance is Good: A Reply to Nick Carr.” Brittanica Online. Available at http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/why-abundance-is-good-a-reply-to-nick-carr/



“Britannica Online Forum: Is Google Making us Stupid?.” Britannica Online. Available at http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/this-is-your-brain-this-is-your-brain-on-the-internetthe-nick-carr-thesis/




FIRST QUIZ

3) Week of February 2: Online identities, societies, and communities
    


Read:



boyd, danah. "Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community into
Being on Social Network Sites "  First Monday, no. 12 (2006),
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html

 

Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations.


4) Week of February 9: Digital Youth?

  

Read:

Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation


Abelson, Harold, Ken Ledeen, and Harry R. Lewis. Blown to bits : your life, liberty, and happiness after the digital explosion. Upper Saddle River NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2008.  Chapter 7



Ito, et al.Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media. Chicago: McArthur Foundation, 2008. Available at http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report

SECOND QUIZ



5) Week of February 16: What's so special about Digital Media?
    


Read:
Abelson, Harold, Ken Ledeen, and Harry R. Lewis. Blown to bits : your life, liberty, and happiness after the digital explosion. Upper Saddle River NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2008.  Chapters 1, 3, 5

   O'Reilly, Tim. "What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business
Models for the Next Generation of Software." O'Reilly, no. May 8
(2005),
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-we
b-20.html

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. "Me? Person of the Year? No Thanks." MSNBC.com, December 28, 2006. Available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16371425/

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. "Why Thomas Jefferson would Love Napster," MSNBC.com, July 3, 2001. Available at http://elastico.net/copyfight/upload/siva_jefferson.pdf

FIRST EXAM

6)  Week of February 23: Intellectual Property and Free Software
Read:
Abelson, Harold, Ken Ledeen, and Harry R. Lewis. Blown to bits : your life, liberty, and happiness after the digital explosion. Upper Saddle River NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2008.  Chapter 6.

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. Copyrights and copywrongs : the rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. New York [u.a.]: Univ. Press, 2003.  


7) Week of March 2 (Texas Independence Day): Governing the Internet

Read:
Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet.
Barlow, John. “Declaring Indepondence.” Wired. 4, no. 6 (1996): 121. http://wac.colostate.edu/rhetnet/barlow/barlow_declaration.html.  


THIRD QUIZ

8) Week of March 9:  Spring Break


9) Week of March 16: The Googlization of the Internet
Read:

Jarvis, Jeff. What would Google do? New York, NY: Collins Business, 2009.  
Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010


9) Week of March 22: No class.


SECOND EXAM

10) Week of March 30:

Surveillance and Privacy

Read:

Abelson, Harold, Ken Ledeen, and Harry R. Lewis. Blown to bits : your life, liberty, and happiness after the digital explosion. Upper Saddle River NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2008.  Chapter 2

boyd, danah. "Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?" The Knowledge Tree, no. 13 (2007), http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/?page_id=28

Hoofnagle, Chris Jay. “Beyond Google and evil: How policy makers, journalists and consumers should talk differently about Google and privacy.” First Monday 14, no. 4 (April 6, 2009). http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2326/2156.  

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. “Naked in the 'Nonopticon': Surveillance and marketing combine to strip away our privacy.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 15, 2008, sec. The Chronicle Review. http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i23/23b00701.htm.


11) Week of April 6: Is this a new economic age?
   

Read:

   

Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail : The Revolution Changing
Small Markets into Big Business. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion, 2006.

   

Wu, Tim. "The Wrong Tail: How to Turn a Powerful Idea into a
Dubious Theory of Everything." Slate.com, no. July 21 (2006),
http://www.slate.com/id/2146225/



FOURTH QUIZ

10) Week of April 13: Is this a new social and political age?


    Read:



Benkler, Yochai. 2006. Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and 
Challenge.  In The Wealth of Networks (Yale University Press, 2006)
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-01.htm

Benkler, Yochai. 2006.

Chapter 3: Peer Production and Sharing.  In,
The Wealth of Networks, 
http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-03.htm



Benkler, Yochai, and Christian Ahlert. "Mining the Wealth of Networks
with Yochai Benkler " OpenDemocracy.net, no.  (2006),
http://www.opendemocracy.net/media-copyrightlaw/benkler_3487.jsp



Bartow, Ann. "Some Peer-to-Peer, Democratically and Voluntarily
Produced Thoughts About 'the Wealth of Networks: How Social
Production Transforms Markets and Freedom,' by Yochai Benkler." 
Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law, (2007),
http://ssrn.com/paper=964735



Farrell, Henry, ed.. "The Wealth of Networks Seminar." Crooked
Timber, no.  (2006),
http://crookedtimber.org/2006/05/30/introduction-the-wealth-of-network
s-seminar/


11) Week of April 20: Is this a new scientific age?

Read:

Anderson, Chris. “The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete.” Wired, June 23, 2008. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory.

Hey, Anthony, ed. The fourth paradigm data-intensive scientific discovery. Redmond, Wash. :: Microsoft Research,, 2009.  

FIFTH QUIZ



12) Week of April 27: Is this a new human age?

Bishop, Mark. Views into the Chinese room : new essays on Searle and artificial intelligence. Oxford [u.a.]: Clarendon Press [u.a.], 2002.  

Fritz, Sandy, ed. Understanding artificial intelligence. New York: Warner Books, 2002.  

OPTIONAL GROUP PROJECT DUE MAY 1

13) Week of May 4:  The Digital Republic?
Read:
Sunstein, Cass R. Republic.com 2.0. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2007.



Final Exam due in Collab (of your LAB SECTION) by midnight on May 9.