Syllabus


Reading Schedule and Course Calendar:
All readings and activities should be completed prior to the class meeting under which they are listed. Quizzes will take place, and papers will be due, at the beginning of course meetings. Blog posts should be done before your section meeting on the assigned week.

All readings are available as PDFs through Learn@UW, or as online resources linked below.

Unit 1 | Introduction & Internet History

Tues. 1/18: What is New Media? Introduction to critical approaches

Discussion Sections 1/18 and 1/19: Introduction to assignments; Practicum sign-up; In-class screening: Frontline: Digital Nation (2010)

Thurs. 1/20: Computing History & Imagining Cyberspace
-       David Bell, “Storying Cyberspace”

Tues. 1/25: ARPANET and Origins of the Internet
-       Nancy Baym, excerpt from Personal Connections in a Digital Age
-       Janet Abbate, “Cold War and White Heat”

Discussion Sections 1/25 and 1/26: Social shaping of technology: Packet switching and ARPANET (discuss Abbate reading); Finalize practicum assignments
            Blog #1: Set up your account and post an introduction that includes a picture!
Blog #2: Watch and respond to this video

Thurs. 1/27: Emergence of the WWW
-       Tim Berners-Lee, "Enquire Within Upon Everything,” and "Tangles, Links, and Webs"

Tues. 2/1: Dot.com Boom and Bust
-       John Cassidy, "Prologue" and "Irrational Exuberance"
-       Megan Sapnar Ankerson, “Web Industries, Economies, Aesthetics: Mapping the Look of the Web in the Dot-com Era”

Discussion Sections 2/1 and 2/2: Web industry discussion; Web 2.0 debate

Thurs. 2/3: Web2.0 (2004-present)
-       Andrew Keen, “Intro” and “Chap. 1” from The Cult of the Amateur
-       Mary Madden and Susannah Fox, "Riding the Waves of Web 2.0"
** QUIZ #1 IN LECTURE
---

Unit 2 | Analyzing Representations and Relationships

Tues. 2/8: Popular representations of the internet & moral panics
-       Alice Marwick, “To catch a predator? The MySpace Moral Panic” 
-       Burgess & Green “YouTube and the Mainstream Media” Pages 17-21

Discussion Sections 2/8 and 2/9: Analyze representations of the internet; Discuss Marwick reading; Introduce paper assignment
            Blog #3: Try and respond to: i-Dosing, ChatRoulette, or view 15 MySpace profiles

Thurs. 2/10: Software and interfaces as representations
-       Steven Johnson, “Desktop”
-       Lev Manovich “The Interface”

Tues. 2/15: Online communities (Web 1.0)
-       Nessim Watson, "Why We Argue about Virtual Community: A Case Study of the Phish.net Fan Community"
-       Steinkuehler, C. & Williams, D., “Where everybody knows your (screen) name” 
**MIDTERM PAPER PROMPTS AVAILABLE

Discussion Sections 2/15 and 2/16: Virtual community presentations

Thurs. 2/17: Online identities
-       Nancy Baym “Identity” Pages 105-119
-       Lisa Nakamura, “Race In/For Cyberspace”
-       Tom Boellstorff, “Participant Observation”

Tues. 2/22: Social networking: Web2.0 identities and communities
-       danah boyd, “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics”
-       Nancy Baym, “The New Shape of Online Community: The Example of Swedish Independent Music Fandom” 
** QUIZ #2 IN LECTURE

Discussion Sections 2/22 and 2/23: Identity & Social Networking presentations
           
Thurs. 2/24: Challenging communities
-       Susan Herring et al., “Trolling in a Feminist Forum”

Tues. 3/1: Privacy, surveillance and reputation management
-       Douglas MacMillan, “Why Facebook Wants Your ID” 
-       Jonathan Zittrain, excerpt from The Future of the Internet & How to Stop It

Discussion Sections 3/1 and 3/2: Discuss the idea of “privacy” online
            Blog #4: Google yourself and reflect on what you find (or don’t find).

Thurs. 3/3: Online celebrity
-       Terri Senft, excerpt from Camgirls
-       Anne Helen Petersen, “We’re Making Our Own Paparazzi” 


Unit 3 | Policy, Access, and Democracy

Tues. 3/8: Digital Divides
-       Jenkins et al, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture” Pages 12-21
-       Eszter Hargittai “Digital Na(t)ives”
** PAPERS DUE IN LECTURE

Discussion Sections 3/1 and 3/2: Internet Users and Audiences presentations

Thurs. 3/10: (Guest lecturer: Danny Kimball): Net Neutrality
-       Tim Wu & Christopher Yoo, “Keeping the Internet Neutral?”
-       Tim Berners-Lee, “Long Live the Web

------- SPRING BREAK -------

Tues. 3/22: Democracy, the Press and the Transformation of News Journalism
-       Cass Sunstein, "The Daily We", Boston Review, 2000
-       Henry Jenkins, "Challenging the Consensus", Boston Review, 2000
-    Zizi Papacharissi, “The Digital Citizen” Pages 103-107

Discussion Sections 3/22 and 3/23: News Journalism: Sunstein, Jenkins debate

Thurs. 3/24: Political Campaigns and Activism
-       Boehlert, "Introduction" and “The Obama Nation”
-       Evgeny Morozov, “Iran: Downside to the ‘Twitter Revolution’” 

Unit 4 | Participatory Culture, Intellectual Property, and Convergence

Tues. 3/29: Introduction to Participatory Culture
-       Pierre Lévy, “Collective Intelligence”
-       Henry Jenkins et al, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture” Pages 1-11
-       Burgess & Green, “YouTube and the Mainstream Media” Pages 21-37
**QUIZ #3 IN LECTURE

Discussion Sections 3/29 and 3/30: Forms of Collective Intelligence presentations
           
Thurs. 3/31: Aesthetics of Participatory Culture and Web 2.0
-       Jay David Bolter & Richard Grusin, “Remediation" Pages 44-50
-       Jean Burgess, “All Your Chocolate Rain Are Belong to Us?' Viral Video, YouTube
and the Dynamics of Participatory Culture”

Tues. 4/5: Introduction to online gaming
-       James Paul Gee, "Good Games, Good Learning"
-       Jesper Juul, “A Casual Revolution”

Discussion Sections 4/5 and 4/6: Networked Gaming presentations
Blog #5: Play and respond to Plants vs. Zombies

Thurs. 4/7: “Bad” play?
-       Mia Consalvo, from Cheaters
-       Dibbell, Julian "The Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer
-       Hector Postigo, “Video Game Appropriation through Modifications”

Tues. 4/12: Copyright           
 -       Patricia Aufderheide, “Copyright, Fair Use, and Social Networks”
-       Siva Vaidhyanathan, “The Digital Moment”

Discussion Sections 4/12 and 4/13: Discuss copyright and digital era; Discuss Postigo
Blog #6: Watch 1 YouTube video and 1 Hulu video; reflect on sites' differences

Thurs. 4/14: Piracy, Filesharing, and Media Industries           
-       Lawrence Lessig, "Piracy"
-       Damian Kulash, Jr. “Free Viral Videos” 

Tues. 4/19: Spatial convergence: virtual and physical space
            -    Zizi Papacharissi, “Spatial Convergence,” Pages 68-74
-       William Mitchell, “Recombinant Architecture”
**QUIZ #4 IN LECTURE

Discussion Sections 4/19 and 4/20: Discuss blending of real/virtual spaces
           
Thurs. 4/21: Cell Phones & Mobile Cultures
-       Mimi Ito et al., “Portable Objects in Three Global Cities”
-    Gerard Goggin, “Adapting the Mobile Phone: The iPhone and its Consumption”

Unit 5 | Computer and Internet Futures

Tues. 4/26: Ubiquitous computing
-       Adam Greenfield, “How is Everyware Different from What We’re Used to?” – (read three “theses” thoroughly) 
-       Mark Weiser, “The Computer for the 21st Century”

Discussion Sections 4/26 and 4/27: Discussion of mobile and ubiquitous computing
Blog #7: Track every computerized thing that you interact with in an evening

Thurs. 4/28: Embodied computing
-       Michele White, “Where Do You Want to Sit Today? Computer Programmers’ Static Bodies and Disability”
-       Jakob Nielsen, “Kinect Gestural UI” 

Tues. 5/3: E-waste
-       Elizabeth Grossman, “The Underside of High Tech”

Discussion Sections 5/3 and 5/4: Final exam review; Course evaluations

Thurs. 5/5: Web Showcase

Sun. 5/8, 7:45am: Final Exam