Cyberactivism and Cyberliberties
Interdisciplinary Studies Seminar II
Prof. Martha McCaughey
Fall 2004
Appalachian State University
Office: Living Learning Center, Room 211
Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 10:00-NOON and by appt.
Email (but not as a substitute for office hours): mccaugheym@appstate.edu
Class meets: Mon/Wed 6:30-7:45 PM
Classroom: Room 223 Living Learning Center
Course website: http://www.appstate.edu/~mccaugheym/cyberliberties.html
Course Description: Can a university block a student from creating
his or her own political web page stored on the university’s web server?
What makes a web page any different from posting one’s own political flyer
in the print era? This course explores the ways in which the Internet
and other computer technologies have affected people’s civil liberties, identities,
and senses of democracy and community. It simultaneously explores the
efforts by computer professionals, lawyers, ethicists, college students, and
average citizens to democratize the Internet, to make social change, and
to exercise civil liberties. The course stresses the ways in which people
are enhanced, thwarted, and/or transformed by cyberspace and thus the new
challenges before us as we settle into the digital age. We will pursue
questions such as: Is cyberspace as free from government restraint as the
spoken or printed word is, or do special qualities of the medium itself warrant
new standards or constraints? What level of privacy can an employee expect
at work now that most of that work is done on a computer provided by the
employer? What forms of political protest occur online? Are such
forms as effective as traditional, face-to-face activism? As we examine
these issues, we will use interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methods
of inquiry and analysis.
Course Requirements:
Students are expected to attend each seminar meeting, coming prepared to
discuss the assigned readings and homework activities; to present and write
reaction papers on particular issues pertaining to cyberliberties and/or cyberactivism;
and to keep a list of online resources pertaining to cyberactivism and cyberliberties.
This course does not require special computer skills,
other than the ability to surf the Internet and go to specific websites.
The course will allow you to develop more computer skills.
The required books are available for purchase at the university bookstore,
or can be ordered at amazon.com. Additional required readings will be
available online (linked from our course website) or made available to you
at Precision Printing store on Blowing Rock Rd (after announced in class).
You will make four major presentations and submit a final paper, which
you will have the option of putting online. You choose the cyberactivist
site and cyberliberties topic. You may explore some cyberactivism with
which you’re already involved or that you find objectionable. For your
presentation on cyberliberties I encourage you to explore an aspect that we
did not fully cover in class.
For all assignments presented in class I ask that you clear a topic with
me before beginning so that no two presentations cover the same issue.
Possible presentation and paper topics include: peer-to-peer file sharing
controversies; the open-source movement; hacking; cyberwar; employee computer
privacy; students’ free speech online; the Observing Surveillance Project;
phishing; flash mobbing; blogging during war; the USA Patriot Act; campus
identification cards; cyberselfishness; cyberpeeping/cyberstalking; dot-coms;
e- and online marketing and consumer privacy; online petitions; studies of
specific online activist organizations; and studies of specific cyberliberties
organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Grading (totals 100% or 100 points):
Class attendance and participation: 10%
Semi-Weekly Presentations and Papers:
(due as scheduled in class or listed in schedule)
--Presentation of cyberliberties issue 1: 10%
--Presentation of cyberliberties issue 2: 10%
--Presentation on cyberactivist site/issue: 10%
--Presentation on cyberactivist site/issue 2: 10%
--Written and oral presentation of readings 1: 10%
--Written critical commentary and presentation about readings 1: 10%
--Written and oral presentation of readings 2: 10%
--Written critical commentary and presentation about readings 2: 10%
Final paper: 10%
Required Books (both in paperback):
Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers (eds). 2003. Cyberactivism:
Online Activism in Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.
George Orwell. 1977 (1949). 1984. NY: Signet Classic.
Additional Required Reading:
Most of the additional articles are available online, in which cases the
URL is indicated in the reading schedule and is a link from the online syllabus
on the course website. Those not available online will be made available,
after that availability is announced in class, at Precision Printing on Blowing
Rock Road, just beyond the 321/105 intersection in Boone. Be sure to
check in advance so that you know whether your reading assignment is online
or not, and make plans to access readings accordingly.
Course Reading and Assignment Schedule
What is Internet studies? What is cyberculture? How do technologies have
politics?
Wed Aug 25
Introductory Discussion: What is activism? What is liberty? Why study cyberactivism
and cyberliberties? What is the cultural and political impact of computer
and Internet technologies? How do we differentiate between activism,
liberty, identity, community, and commerce online?
(no readings for today- articles for next week passed out in class)
√ Homework (in addition to doing the assigned readings): Go to the Resource
Center for Cyberculture Studies and the ASU Internet Studies Program websites,
check out their missions, and come to class next week prepared to discuss
the reasons people seem to be studying the Internet.
Thinking about Liberty and Technology
Mon Aug 30
Readings:
--Steven Jones, “The Internet and its Social Landscape” in Virtual Culture
(1997) (provided in class Aug 25)
√ Homework: Consider whether/when/how you’ve experienced computer technology
as liberating, constraining, oppressive, empowering, invasive, time consuming,
and/or freeing. Come to class with at least one example from 3 of the
above categories.
Wed. Sept 1
--Progress and Freedom Foundation, “Cyberspace and the American Dream” online
at http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/062.html
--George Orwell, 1984, Part One
Mon Sept 6 (Labor Day)
Wed Sept 8
Readings:
--George Orwell, 1984, Part Two
Mon Sept 13
Readings:
--George Orwell, 1984, Part Three
How the Internet Affects Ethics, Bodies, Spaces, and Meanings
Wed Sept 15
Readings:
--Julian Dibbell, “A Rape in Cyberspace,” online at http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html
The Internet and the University
Mon Sept 20 -- presentations of Cyberliberties Issue #1 begin today
--Robert M. O’Neil, “The Internet in the College Community.” Northern Illinois
Law Review 1997 (provided in class)
--Annalee Newitz, “How US Schools Rate in Cyber Liberties” online at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/start.html?pg=3
√ Homework: Rate ASU’s cyberliberties using some of the criteria Newitz
uses, and make up some of your own criteria
Making Ethical Decisions and Practicing Cyber Etiquette
Wed Sept 22
Readings:
--Jeordan Legon, “Phishing Scams Reel Your Identity,” online at http://www3.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/21/phishing.scam/
--Marsha Woodbury, “Decision Making and Professionalism,” in Computer &
Information Ethics
√ Homework: Bring to class an example of poor Netiquette, a flame
war, or email from a hate group. OR: bring to class an email that you’ve
received that is trying to get you to sign up for a credit card, give your
Social Security Number, or provide banking information
Power, Inequality, Crime, and other Social Issues
Mon, Sept 27
Marsha Woodbury, “Social Issues,” in Computer & Information Ethics
Chris Hoofnagle, “Gender and Electronic Privacy,” online at http://www.epic.org/privacy/gender/
Wed Sept 29
Wyatt Galusky, MY GOOGLE, a play
Student Presentations on Cyberliberties #2 (all students)
Mon Oct 4
(readings supplied by each presenter the week prior)
Computer and Information Privacy
Wed Oct 6
--Erica Hill, “Cyber rights. . . and wrongs” online at http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/05/06/hln.wired.cyber.rights/
--Alan R. Earls, “Is Big Brother Watching the Wired Campus?” in Connection
(2000)
Information, Privacy, and the Law
Mon Oct 11
--Daniel Solove and Marc Rotenberg, “Introduction,” in Information Privacy
Law
--Daniel Solove and Marc Rotenberg, “Privacy at School,” in Information
Privacy Law
Wed Oct 13
Submit written presentation or commentary only today, by email to mccaugheym@appstate.edu
[[[ASU Fall Break]]]
Workplace Privacy
Mon Oct 18
--Liz Stevens, “Work! You’re on Company Camera,” online at http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Roanoke.Times/Privacy.Home.991006.html
--Martha McCaughey, “Windows Without Curtains: Computer Privacy and Academic
Freedom,” online at http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/index.htm
Cyberactivism
Wed Oct 20
Eric Raymond, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” online at http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
--Jonah Peretti, “My Nike Email Adventure,” The Nation (2001), online at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?I=20010409&s=peretti
--Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers, Cyberactivism, Introduction
√ Homework: Bring in one (and only one) web address of a political web site.
Come prepared to tell the class the mission of the website or its organization
and what is political or activist about the site.
The Open-Source Movement
Mon Oct 25
Readings:
--Richard M. Stallman, “Why Software Should Not Have Owners” and “What’s
in a Name?” in Free Software Free Society
The Open-Source Movement (read at least three sections of your choice),
online at http://opensource.erde3.net/
Cyber-Social Movements Emerging Online
Wed Oct 27
Readings:
--Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers, Cyberactivism, chapters 1-2
Mon Nov 1—begin Student Presentations on Cyberactivism #1--
Readings:
--Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers, Cyberactivism, chapter 3-4
Theorizing Online Activism
Wed, Nov 3
Readings:
--Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers, Cyberactivism, chapters 5-6
--“A Manifesto for Bad Subjects in Cyberspace,” Bad Subjects online journal,
online at http://eserver.org/bs/18/Manifesto.html
Mon Nov 8
Readings:
--Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers, Cyberactivism, chapters 7-8
Is it Really Activism? Community, Empowerment, and Capitalism Online
Wed Nov 10
Readings:
--Andrew Feenberg, “Community Technology and Democratic Rationalization”
--Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers, Cyberactivism, chapters 9-10
--Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers, Cyberactivism, chapter 11 and Epilogue
Student Presentations on Cyberactivism
Mon Nov 15
(student presenter will provide a relevant reading the week prior)
Student Presentations on Cyberactivism
Wed Nov 17
(student presenters will provide a relevant reading the week prior)
Mon Nov 22
(open topic/guest presenter)--We will read MY GOOGLE: a Play by Wyatt Galusky
Wed Nov 24
Online assignment today (no class meeting). Details announced in class the
week prior.
[[[ASU Thanksgiving Break]]]
Mon Nov 29
(open topic/guest presenter)--We will read "Virtual Reality" by Derek Stanovsky--
avail. from the Prof. with permission from D.S.
Interdisciplinary Methods of Studying the Internet
Wed Dec 1
Michael D. Ayers, “A Man Studying Women Online,” in XXX. Not yet published
(used with permission)
James Witte, “The Case for Multimethod Research,” in Society Online: The
Internet in Context”
Mon Dec 6 (last class)
Summary, Review, Discussion of Final Papers, Course Evaluations
Final Paper due before or during the scheduled final exam period for this
course at my office (or my office mailbox). No emailed final papers
please unless arranged in advance.
WEBSITES WORTH EXPLORING THIS TERM:
Note: this is not any kind of endorsement of the missions or
perspectives of any of these websites.
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility: http://www.cpsr.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org
Electronic Privacy Information Center: http://www.epic.org
The Digital Speech Project: http://www.digitalspeech.org
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/
Disinformation: http://www.disinfo.com
Kuro5hin, on technology and culture: http://www.kuro5hin.org/
Wired News: http://www.wired.com/news/
New City, a subculture news site: http://www.newcity.com/newcity/
Tasty Bits from the Technology Front: http://www.tbtf.com/
Science and Technology Daily: http://www.scitechdaily.com/
@stake Security News: http://www.atstake.com/security_news/
Linux Today: http://linuxtoday.com/
Erin O’Connor’s Blog: http://www.erinoconnor.org
Kevin Sites’ warblog: http://www.kevinsites.net
Jeremy Hunsinger’s Blog: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy/blog
Howard Rheingold’s Blog: http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html
The Reverse Cowgirl’s Blog: http://blogs.salon.com/0001437/
Sean Savage’s Blog: http://www.cheesebikini.com/
Wired online magazine: http://www.wired.com
Techsploitation: http://www.techsploitation.com
Plastic Plastic: http://www.plastic.com
Salon online magazine: http://www.salon.com/
Sniggle.net: The Culture Jammer’s Encyclopedia: http://www.sniggle.net
Adbusters: http://www.adbusters.org
Stayfree!: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/
Mindjack: http://www.mindjack.com/
Popmatters: http://PopMatters.com/
IT and Society journal: http://www.itandsociety.org
Website of interviews and reviews on new media technology and science:
http://www.frontwheeldrive.com
Center for Law, Technology, and the Arts: http://lawwww.cwru.edu/academic/lta/index.asp
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan: http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/index.html
Feminist Majority Foundation: http://www.feminist.org/
Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies: http://www.com.washington.edu/rccs/
Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org
ASU’s Internet Studies Program: http://www.internetstudies.appstate.edu/