New Course by Trebor Scholz: Democratization and the networked public sphere
Course Description
This course will argue for the potential of sociable media such as weblogs to democratize society through emerging cultures of broad participation. Over the past ten years the public spheres have been dramatically expanded by participatory web-based technologies. “Democratization and the networked public sphere” will focus on various arguments for and against this central claim by examining historical and present-day understandings of the public sphere, ranging from theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and Alexander Kluge to Lawrence Lessig and Yochai Benkler.
The course will investigate the democratizing potential of the Internet by examining the political participation of citizens who contribute news reports to weblogs and wikis, knowledge repositories such as the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia or the open source software archive Freshmeat, web-based platforms for artistic expression, and mobile wireless devices that allow for political participation such as the organization of protests.
Citizen journalism as a corrective to the mass media in countries has had significant effect in countries such as Iraq, China, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, and the United States. People post to weblogs and wikis from their desktop computer or from wireless mobile devices in the city.
Online knowledge repositories such as the free encyclopedia Wikipedia are a challenge to copyright. The collaborative effort of many thousands of contributors creates a quantitative and qualitative leap that corporate initiatives cannot live up to. Subsequently, knowledge pools like Wikipedia “out-cooperate” for-pay services such as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
In the arts, participatory cultures are growing. Artists intervene in public spaces, online and off. They send remote-controlled robots into the streets of major cities spraying political graffiti onto plazas. Artists allow participants to SMS messages onto urban screens. Artist collectives like the Institute for Applied Autonomy solicit input from the urban population to create an interactive map of the surveillance cameras in Manhattan. More and more artists become “cultural context providers”: they enable participants to create content within the parameters that they defined.
Cell phones are the first telecommunications technology in history to have more users in developing countries than in the developed world. Simple cell phones have been used as tools to coordinate political actions. Communication theorist Howard Rheingold writes about the “People Power II” revolution in Manila in 2001, where demonstrations to oust then-president Estrada were coordinated spontaneously through extensive text messaging. The question of political participation in the networked public sphere is central to destabilizing relations of domination. Students who successfully participate in this course will understand the current, intricate, techno-social changes of the public spheres. "Democratization & the Networked Public Sphere" pairs theoretical reflections with examples; course formats will vary between discussions, student presentations, lectures, and screenings.
SYLLABUS
(Find all readings in the course package.)
INTRODUCTION
Week 1.
From Jürgen Habermas, Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt to the
Networked Public Sphere(s)
Assigned Readings:
A Definition of Sociable Media by Judith Donath
The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler
Chapter 1: Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge
and
Chapter 7: Political FreedomPart2: Emergence of the Networked Public Sphere
Week 2.
A Brief History of Online Group Formation
Assigned Readings:
Die Resurrection Co. by W. Hartenau, Louis Kaplan
Virtual Connections: Community Bonding on the Net by Stuart Glogoff
Week 3.
Platforms, Environments, & Technologies of Cooperation
Assigned Readings:
We Are the Web by Kevin Kelly
A Manifesto for Networked Objects (Why Things Matter) by Julian Bleeker
Technologies of Cooperation by Howard Rheingold
The Relationship Revolution by Michael Schrage
Week 4.
Art on Platforms, the Artist as Cultural Context Provider
Assigned Readings:
From Art on Networks to Art on Platforms (Casestudies: Runme.org, Micromusic.net and Udaff.com) by Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin
We Media. Chapter 4: The rules of participation by Dan Gillmor
Recommended Reading:
The Art of Communication: From Mail Art to the e-mail by Dieter Daniels
Week 5.
Citizen Journalism
Assigned Readings:
The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler
Chapter 6 Political FreedomPart1: The Trouble with Mass Media
Besieged Lebanese turn to Internet by Zeina Karam
In the Midst of War, Bloggers Are Talking by Sarah Ellison
Recommended Reading:
Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents by Reporters without Borders
Week 6.
New Publics & the Future of Content (Quantity)
Assigned Readings:
Statistics for use of social networking sites <http://www.cybersoc.com/2006/05/nearly_50_of_us.html>
A new study released by Cornel University surmises that "teens take to the Internet like
ants to a summer picnic."
The Internet--all grown up by Eric J. Sinrod
Get up, stand up, social network by Paul Lamb
Week 7.
Out-Cooperating Empire: Knowledge Repositories, and "Collective Intelligence"
Assigned Readings:
The Principle of Notworking by Geert Lovink
Week 8.
The Digital Divide Is Not What It Used To Be
Assigned Readings:
Making Room for the Third World in the Second Superpower by Ethan Zuckerman
In War-Torn Congo, Going. Wireless to Reach Home by Kevin Sullivan
Internet grows 300 per cent in Vietnam by Bangkok Post
MALAYSIA: Internet users fear govt crackdown by Straits Times
Vote 4 Me by Lee Hudson Teslik and Robbie Brown
Philippines 'virtual sit-in by Age.com'
Week 9.
Control & Freedom in the Networked Public Sphere
Assigned Readings:
‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’ by Jo Freeman
The Moral Panic over Social-Networking Sites by Wade Roush
'DRM' Protects Downloads, But Does It Stifle Innovation?, Wall Street Journal
Debate on blog post by Lawrence Lessig on DRM
David Hajdu on Music (Instant Gratification)
Week 10.
The Future of Content (Quality) or: the Ineptitude of the “Crowd”
Assigned Readings:
Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism by Jaron Lanier
Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse by Geert Lovink
It's on Wikipedia, So It Must Be True by Frank Ahrens
Wikipedia's Wales touts 'free culture' movement by Martin LaMonica
Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy by Katie Hafner
Week 11.
The Babel Objection, the Death of Geography, Fragmentation, Plural Monocultures
Assigned Readings:
Public displays of connection by Judith Donath and Danah Boyd
Download Downtime by Trebor Scholz
Social isolation linked to web by Louisa Hearn
Suggested Readings:
The exaggerated death of geography: learning, proximity and territorial innovation systems by Kevin Morgan
Tech creates a bubble for kids by Sharon Jayso
Week 12.
Sociable Media: Social Change?
Assigned Readings:
Speaking Truth to Power by Edward Said
Support Iraqi Bloggers. Interview with Cecile Landman by Geert Lovink
State governments push for Net neutrality laws by Anne Broache
Web inventor warns of 'dark' net by Jonathan Fildes
Suggested Readings:
Mapping Dialogue. A research project profiling dialogue tools and processes
for social change.
Week 13.
Net Neutrality
Assigned Readings:
Why the net should stay neutral by Bill Thompson.
US Congress joins 'Internet neutrality" debate, Yahoo News
Why 'Net neutrality' means more federal regulation by Jim DeMint
Week 14.
In-class critique of final projects
Week 15.
In-class critique of final projects
Notes
In her definition for The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, Judith Donath, describes sociable media as “media that enhance communication and the formation of social ties among people.“ Such media are not new, she writes, “letter writing can be traced back thousands of years – but the advent of the computer has brought about an immense number of new forms.”
The networked public sphere, a term used by Benkler and many other scholars, describes the expansion of the public spheres in the Internet.
This course will argue for the potential of sociable media such as weblogs to democratize society through emerging cultures of broad participation. Over the past ten years the public spheres have been dramatically expanded by participatory web-based technologies. “Democratization and the networked public sphere” will focus on various arguments for and against this central claim by examining historical and present-day understandings of the public sphere, ranging from theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and Alexander Kluge to Lawrence Lessig and Yochai Benkler.
The course will investigate the democratizing potential of the Internet by examining the political participation of citizens who contribute news reports to weblogs and wikis, knowledge repositories such as the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia or the open source software archive Freshmeat, web-based platforms for artistic expression, and mobile wireless devices that allow for political participation such as the organization of protests.
Citizen journalism as a corrective to the mass media in countries has had significant effect in countries such as Iraq, China, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, and the United States. People post to weblogs and wikis from their desktop computer or from wireless mobile devices in the city.
Online knowledge repositories such as the free encyclopedia Wikipedia are a challenge to copyright. The collaborative effort of many thousands of contributors creates a quantitative and qualitative leap that corporate initiatives cannot live up to. Subsequently, knowledge pools like Wikipedia “out-cooperate” for-pay services such as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
In the arts, participatory cultures are growing. Artists intervene in public spaces, online and off. They send remote-controlled robots into the streets of major cities spraying political graffiti onto plazas. Artists allow participants to SMS messages onto urban screens. Artist collectives like the Institute for Applied Autonomy solicit input from the urban population to create an interactive map of the surveillance cameras in Manhattan. More and more artists become “cultural context providers”: they enable participants to create content within the parameters that they defined.
Cell phones are the first telecommunications technology in history to have more users in developing countries than in the developed world. Simple cell phones have been used as tools to coordinate political actions. Communication theorist Howard Rheingold writes about the “People Power II” revolution in Manila in 2001, where demonstrations to oust then-president Estrada were coordinated spontaneously through extensive text messaging. The question of political participation in the networked public sphere is central to destabilizing relations of domination. Students who successfully participate in this course will understand the current, intricate, techno-social changes of the public spheres. "Democratization & the Networked Public Sphere" pairs theoretical reflections with examples; course formats will vary between discussions, student presentations, lectures, and screenings.
SYLLABUS
(Find all readings in the course package.)
INTRODUCTION
Week 1.
From Jürgen Habermas, Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt to the
Networked Public Sphere(s)
Assigned Readings:
A Definition of Sociable Media by Judith Donath
The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler
Chapter 1: Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge
and
Chapter 7: Political FreedomPart2: Emergence of the Networked Public Sphere
Week 2.
A Brief History of Online Group Formation
Assigned Readings:
Die Resurrection Co. by W. Hartenau, Louis Kaplan
Virtual Connections: Community Bonding on the Net by Stuart Glogoff
- OVERVIEW, REALITIES, POTENTIALS
Week 3.
Platforms, Environments, & Technologies of Cooperation
Assigned Readings:
We Are the Web by Kevin Kelly
A Manifesto for Networked Objects (Why Things Matter) by Julian Bleeker
Technologies of Cooperation by Howard Rheingold
The Relationship Revolution by Michael Schrage
Week 4.
Art on Platforms, the Artist as Cultural Context Provider
Assigned Readings:
From Art on Networks to Art on Platforms (Casestudies: Runme.org, Micromusic.net and Udaff.com) by Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin
We Media. Chapter 4: The rules of participation by Dan Gillmor
Recommended Reading:
The Art of Communication: From Mail Art to the e-mail by Dieter Daniels
Week 5.
Citizen Journalism
Assigned Readings:
The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler
Chapter 6 Political FreedomPart1: The Trouble with Mass Media
Besieged Lebanese turn to Internet by Zeina Karam
In the Midst of War, Bloggers Are Talking by Sarah Ellison
Recommended Reading:
Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents by Reporters without Borders
Week 6.
New Publics & the Future of Content (Quantity)
Assigned Readings:
Statistics for use of social networking sites <http://www.cybersoc.com/2006/05/nearly_50_of_us.html>
A new study released by Cornel University surmises that "teens take to the Internet like
ants to a summer picnic."
The Internet--all grown up by Eric J. Sinrod
Get up, stand up, social network by Paul Lamb
Week 7.
Out-Cooperating Empire: Knowledge Repositories, and "Collective Intelligence"
Assigned Readings:
The Principle of Notworking by Geert Lovink
- CRITICISMS
Week 8.
The Digital Divide Is Not What It Used To Be
Assigned Readings:
Making Room for the Third World in the Second Superpower by Ethan Zuckerman
In War-Torn Congo, Going. Wireless to Reach Home by Kevin Sullivan
Internet grows 300 per cent in Vietnam by Bangkok Post
MALAYSIA: Internet users fear govt crackdown by Straits Times
Vote 4 Me by Lee Hudson Teslik and Robbie Brown
Philippines 'virtual sit-in by Age.com'
Week 9.
Control & Freedom in the Networked Public Sphere
Assigned Readings:
‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’ by Jo Freeman
The Moral Panic over Social-Networking Sites by Wade Roush
'DRM' Protects Downloads, But Does It Stifle Innovation?, Wall Street Journal
Debate on blog post by Lawrence Lessig on DRM
David Hajdu on Music (Instant Gratification)
Week 10.
The Future of Content (Quality) or: the Ineptitude of the “Crowd”
Assigned Readings:
Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism by Jaron Lanier
Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse by Geert Lovink
It's on Wikipedia, So It Must Be True by Frank Ahrens
Wikipedia's Wales touts 'free culture' movement by Martin LaMonica
Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy by Katie Hafner
Week 11.
The Babel Objection, the Death of Geography, Fragmentation, Plural Monocultures
Assigned Readings:
Public displays of connection by Judith Donath and Danah Boyd
Download Downtime by Trebor Scholz
Social isolation linked to web by Louisa Hearn
Suggested Readings:
The exaggerated death of geography: learning, proximity and territorial innovation systems by Kevin Morgan
Tech creates a bubble for kids by Sharon Jayso
- CONCLUSION
Week 12.
Sociable Media: Social Change?
Assigned Readings:
Speaking Truth to Power by Edward Said
Support Iraqi Bloggers. Interview with Cecile Landman by Geert Lovink
State governments push for Net neutrality laws by Anne Broache
Web inventor warns of 'dark' net by Jonathan Fildes
Suggested Readings:
Mapping Dialogue. A research project profiling dialogue tools and processes
for social change.
Week 13.
Net Neutrality
Assigned Readings:
Why the net should stay neutral by Bill Thompson.
US Congress joins 'Internet neutrality" debate, Yahoo News
Why 'Net neutrality' means more federal regulation by Jim DeMint
Week 14.
In-class critique of final projects
Week 15.
In-class critique of final projects
Notes
In her definition for The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, Judith Donath, describes sociable media as “media that enhance communication and the formation of social ties among people.“ Such media are not new, she writes, “letter writing can be traced back thousands of years – but the advent of the computer has brought about an immense number of new forms.”
The networked public sphere, a term used by Benkler and many other scholars, describes the expansion of the public spheres in the Internet.
[Trebor]
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