The following breaks out what we'll read on a weekly basis. Please note that I work on this page throughout the semester, updating it according to current Net events and to ensure that the links still work. Therefore this page is highly subject to change.

Selections range from simple everyday accounts and mass media articles to dense theoretical tracts, and include fiction as well as nonfiction. Everyone should read Wired each month. It would also be a good idea to keep up by regularly dropping by the InfoTech page on Nando.net and the CyberTimes page on the New York Times site.

Periods of heavy reading will alternate with time set aside to work on papers and projects, to search independently and develop skills, and to access other kinds of media. For those of you who want to go further on particular topics, please ask me about additional selections or look around on the Web and find good things on your own.

 

Class 1: July 6 -- [top]

Introduction to the Internet, Ethics, and the Electronic Frontier: Does Anything Go?

Discussion of the syllabus and course topics

Assignment:

Electric Cars, Mobile Computing, and the Technosociety:
URLs TBA and find some relevant sites on your own.

Start reading Neuromancer and view 2001.

 

Classes 2 and 3: July 7 and 9 -- [top]

Net Applications: Electronic Mail, Mailing Lists, Newsgroups, Bulletin Boards, and the World Wide Web

Follow-up discussion on the role of technology in society today

Hafner -- article from Wired:

• "The Epic Saga of The Well"

Rheingold -- selections from the Virtual Community:

• Introduction
• The Heart of the Well
• Daily Life in Cyberspace
• Visionaries and Convergences
• Disinformocracy

 

Classes 4 and 5: July 13 and 14  -- [top]

Neo-Luddites and Anti-Net Backlash, Introduction to Neuromancer

View 2001

Brook and Boal -- Resisting the Virtual Life (purchase):

• "A Flow of Monsters"

• "Women and Children First"

Seabrook -- articles from the New Yorker and his anthology Deeper
(optional: excerpts):

• "E-Mail from Bill" (library online reserve)

• "My First Flame" (class handout)

• "Home on the Net"   (library online reserve)

• "Gates at the Temple"   (library online reserve)

Plus class handouts on the social history of technology:

• Consuming Technologies (chapter)

• "History of the Future"

• When Old Technologies Were New (chapter)

Wendy will lecture on Bill Gates and the DOJ, readings TBA

 

Class 6: July 20 -- [top]

First Online Journal Entries Due

Stork -- essays from his anthology Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality :

• Picard: "Does HAL Cry Digital Tears? Emotion and Computers"
• Dennett: "When HAL Kills, Who's to Blame? Computer Ethics"  (library online reserve)

Wendy will lecture on the history of electric to electronic communication

 

Class 7: July 21 -- [top]

The "Death" of the Book: The Future of Education and Distance Learning

• "What Are We Doing On-Line?", a conversation between Barlow, Kelly, Birkerts, and Slouka in Harper's Magazine, Aug 1995  (library online reserve)
• Negroponte's column on "The Future of the Book" in the Feb 1996 Wired
• "Ex Libris" an article in the July 1998 Wired on digital reading devices (class handout)

You might also be interested in:

• "The Message Is the Medium: A Reply to Sven Birkerts and The Gutenberg Elegies," from the Winter 1995-96 Atlantic Monthly, and Birkerts's Reply
• Saffo's article from the second issue of Wired, "Hot New Medium: Text

 

Class 8: July 23 -- [top]

Bits and Bytes: Digitization, Interactivity, Hypermedia, and Multimedia

Wendy on Why the Digital Age?

 

Negroponte -- selections from Being Digital (online, see index):

Required Readings (articles in Wired may have different titles from the chapters in Being Digital):

• 3.1 "The DNA of Information," 11-20

• 1.3 "Debunking Bandwidth," 21-36

• 1.1 "Bitcasting," 37-50

• 1.2 "The Bit Police," 51-61

• 2.2 "Can We Talk About This?", 137-48

• 2.4 "Good Connections," 184-95
• 5.7 "Digital Obesity" (only online)
• 5.8 "Wireless Revisited" (only online)

• 5.10 "On Digital Growth and Form" (only online)

• 6.07 "The Future of Retail" (class handout -- not yet online)

Suggested Readings (not in Being Digital):

3.8 "Bit by Bit"

3.10 "2020: The Fiber-Coax Legacy"

3.11 "Beam Me Up an Einstein, Scotty," by Lawrence M. Krauss

3.12 "The Media Lab at 10," by Fred Hapgood

3.12 "Being Nicholas," interview with Thomas A. Bass

3.12 "Being Decimal"

 

Also:

Look at Steuer's chart, Vividness and Interactivity.

 

Class 9: July 27 -- [top]

Policy and Politics: The Information Highway, the Electronic Town Hall, and Access Issues

Second Online Journal Entries Due

Browse through the Digest of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and some dissenting opinions on the CDA, such as from the:

Center For Democracy and Technology (CDT)

       particularly Supreme Court Strikes Down CDA

Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC)

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)

       particularly Free Speech Advocates File Lawsuits

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

       particularly Blue Ribbon Campaign

Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW)

Read Browning -- article in Wired, Sept 1994:

"Universal Service (An Idea Whose Time Has Passed)"

Read Barlow:

"Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace"

 

Class 10: July 28 -- [top]

Introduction to the Legal Issues

Branscomb -- read all of Who Owns Information? (purchase)

 

Class 11: July 30 -- [top]

Intellectual Property: Copyright, Plagiarism, Content, and Commerce

U.S. Copyright Office:

• Copyright Basics (skim)

The NII's White Paper on Intellectual Property:

• Executive Summary

Barlow -- "classic" article in Wired:

• "The Economy of Ideas"

Samuelson - influential article in Wired:

• "The Copyright Grab"

Copyright Website (practical info)

 

Class 12: August 3 -- [top]

Fourth Amendment: Privacy, Confidentiality, and Search and Seizure

Third Online Journal Entries Due

Cavazos and Morin -- Cyberspace and the Law (purchase):

• Chapters 2, 3, and 7

Dibbell -- article in the Feb 1995 Wired:

• "Viruses Are Good For You"

Optional:

If this is "your" topic and you are interested, there is quite a bit more available through the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Encryption and Privacy archives of the EFF, the Clipper Chip archives of the CPSR, and the Cyptology and Privacy pages of the CDT

 

Class 13: August 4 -- [top]

First Amendment: CDA, Censorship, Pornography, and Terrorism/Counterterrorism

(I have a lot of material on this topic and may adjust the readings as we move closer to this date)

 

Be familiar with the Bill of Rights and the Telecommunications Act of 1996:

• Read the shorter Digest

• Familiarize yourself with the Communications Decency Act provision

• Familiarize yourself with the V-Chip provision

Cavazos and Morin:

• Chapters 5 and 6

Dibbell -- "classic" article from the Village Voice:

• "A Rape in Cyberspace"

 

Class 14: August 6 -- [top]

NO CLASS: Wendy will be out of town

Finish Neuromancer

Class 15: August 10 -- [top]

Virtual Worlds: Postmodernism, Virtual Reality, Online Life, and Avatars and Agents

Fourth Online Journal Entries Due

Baudrillard:  "The Orders of the Simulacra" from Simulations (purchase)

Haraway: "A Cyborg Manifesto"   (library online reserve)

Turkle -- excerpt from Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet from Wired:

• "Who Am We?"

Interview with Pattie Maes:

• "You Light Up My Life"

Avatar and Agent articles in Wired:

• "Avatars are Next: Metaworlds"

• "Bots Are Hot!"

Class 16: August 11 -- [top]

What Is the Role of the Global Cybercitizen in the Digital Age?

Return to Ethical Questions and Exam Review:

• Read Forester and Morrison: Introduction: Social, Ethical, and Professional Issues in Computing.  (library online reserve)
• Look at some of the Codes Of Ethics And Conduct linked off the Ethics Center for Engineering and Science site. Print out a few concerning computer use and bring them to class.

Also, look at Duke's Computer Policies and Guidelines, particularly:

• Computing and Electronic Communications: Security & Privacy
• Acceptible Use: Computing and Networking

We'll also use this time to get caught up, finish up, and have a farewell party

 

Final Exam: Friday, August 14 -- [top]

Take-Home Exam Due by 8 pm -- details to follow

Internet News Headlines