Internet Studies: Appalachian State University

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internet studies

Spring 2010

IDS 3250-101 / 3300-101
MW 2:00-3:15
LLA 223

This course provides an introduction to cyberculture and Internet Studies. As the Internet continues to insinuate itself into our daily lives, it is changing both our culture and ourselves. This course will look at some of those changes through an interdisciplinary investigation of some of the social, political, cultural, psychological, economic, and legal implications of the Internet. It will also provide an opportunity for you to hone your critical reading skills in the context of the Internet as well as learn some of the technical and editorial skills needed to publish your own blogs and web pages. This class fulfills requirements for the IDS Internet Studies major concentration and minor. There are no prerequisites.

Textbooks

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. New York: Penguin, 2004.

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Requirements

The most important requirements for this course are regular class attendance, participation, and preparation. You should come prepared to ask and answer questions and to discuss the readings each day. The formal grading requirements are as follows:

Class Participation 25%
Two Web Writing Assignments 25% each
Final Web Project and Presentation 25%

The class participation portion of your grade will be based on regular class attendance and participation as well as on periodic homeworks, blog posts, in-class assignments, and group work. Also included in your class participation grade will be your presentation of your Web pages to the class for discussion.

Two absences are allowed during the semester. Each additional absence will lower your class participation grade by one letter grade. More than six absences and/or failure to complete any of the written assignments detailed below are grounds for failing the course.

There will be two Web Writing Assignments during the semester. Late assignments will be docked one-third of a letter grade for each day late. You will receive two grades for your Web writings each of which will count one-half of your assignment grade: one for writing content and mechanics, and one for online media design and mechanics. You also may be asked to present your Web pages to the class for discussion.

There will be a Final Web Project and Symposium during our regularly scheduled final exam time.

More information about these assignments will be posted online later in the semester.

With regard to all assignments for this course, you are expected to know and follow the current ASU code of academic integrity.

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Class Schedule

Week	Day	Assignment
1	M 1/11	Introductions.
	W 1/13	Read Bruce Sterling, "A Short History of the Internet," Douglas Adams, "Beyond the Brochure" and browse "Hobbes' Internet Timeline."
2	M 1/18	MLK DAY
	W 1/20	How To: Create your own blog.
3	M 1/25	Read Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think." Browse this Vannevar Bush page, as well as these photographs, timeline and wikipedia article. Read Time 100 article on "Sir Tim Berners-Lee" and his wikipedia article.
	W 1/27	Read Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Fire Worship."
4	M 2/1	First Web Writing Assignment due.
	W 2/3	How To: Create your own web page.
5	M 2/8	Homework due: create and publish the ugliest web page possible. Post a link to your ugly web page on your blog.
	W 2/10	Henry Jenkins, "Convergence Culture." (Introduction only.)
6	M 2/15	Michael Wesch's "Anthropological Introduction to YouTube." (in class video)
	W 2/17	Jonathan Zittrain, "The Lessons of Wikipedia."
7	M 2/22	Criticism of Wikipedia.
	W 2/24	Ethan Zuckerman, The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism.
8	M 3/1	Second Web Writing Assignment due.
	W 3/3	TBA
9	M 3/8	SPRING BREAK
10	M 3/15	Lessig, Free Culture, "Introduction" and "Piracy," pp. 1-79.
	W 3/17	Lessig, Free Culture, "Property," pp. 83-173.
11	M 3/22	rip! documentary shown in class.
	W 3/24	rip! documentary and discussion continued.
12	M 3/29	Lessig, Free Culture, "Puzzles" to Afterword, pp. 177-306. Browse creativecommons.org, eff.org and A Fair(y) Use Tale.
	W 3/31	TBA
13	M 4/5	EASTER BREAK
	W 4/7	TBA
14	M 4/12	TBA
	W 4/14	TBA
15	M 4/19	In Class Group Work.
	W 4/21	In Class Group Work.
16	M 4/26	In Class Group Work.
	R 4/29	Final Symposium during our regularly scheduled final exam period: Thursday, April 29, 2010 from 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM

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Assignments

First Web Writing Assignment (750-1500 words):

Create your own personal blog on blogger.com or some similar site. Include an easy to find link to this syllabus in the sidebar of your blog and a link to the other student blogs.
Internet Studies Syllabus
Student Blogs
Write and post to your blog an essay about one of your early encounters with the internet -- maybe your first experiences with email, web pages, downloading music, chat, etc. Was it at school, at home, or at a friend's house? What machine did you use? Was it fascinating or frustrating? Was it using a dial-up modem on AOL? Or was it downloading endless files from Napster? In short, tell us a little about your early, formative history with the internet. Be as specific, concrete, detailed and engaging as possible. Include links and graphics where appropriate.

Was this early brush with the internet more like the use of technology envisioned by Vannevar Bush or Nathaniel Hawthorne? That is, does your early encounter with the internet seem to you more like a realization of Bush's dream of the memex? Or was it more like the insidious threat to social and domestic life Hawthorne foresaw in his new-fangled wood stove? Take a clear position and argue for your view making specific use of both articles.

Bring a printed copy of your paper to hand in to me in class.

Second Web Writing Assignment (750-1500 words):

In the Michael Wesch video we watched in class, he discusses media in terms of the ways it mediates human relationships and argues that when media changes, then human relationships also change. Write an essay discussing one specific example you find online of a way in which the internet mediates and changes our relationships. Wesch draws his own examples from YouTube, but you may want to look at FaceBook, Flickr, Gmail, Twitter, 4chan or some other site or tool for examples of ways in which this new media is changing and transforming our relationships. Be specific, concrete, detailed, and thorough in describing the ways your example may impact our relationships.
In your essay, make explicit use of at least one of the readings from Jenkins, Zittrain and/or Zuckerman. Be specific about the ways the reading reflects on the particular example you chose to discuss and the implications it has for understanding the ways in which the internet is changing our culture and our relationships.
Publish your essay online as a web page (or pages). Give attention to your web page design making appropriate use of links and graphics.
Post a link to your web page on your blog.
Bring a printed copy of your essay to hand in to me in class.

Final Group Web Project and Symposium:

Focus on one specific web site that deals with copyrighted digital content such as YouTube, Pandora, Flickr, LastFM, deviantArt, Google Books, Hulu, Internet Archive or any of the many, many other possible sites. Be creative in selecting your example. Then, write an essay making explicit and substantive use of Lessig's book, Free Culture, that explains and examines the ways in which current copyright law impacts this site and the services it offers. How does the site try to accommodate copyright and how do copyright laws limit the services they might provide? Again, making use of Lessig, in what ways does your example either illustrate, or fail to illustrate, Lessig's claim that the past limits the creativity of the future and that we are less free today in how we use and create culture today than ever before? Be clear and specific in your examples and discussion.

Publish your essay online in the format of your choice. You may publish your essay as a web page or blog entry but, where possible, consider ways to use the site that is the focus of your example as the location for your content. You may post some or all of your content as audio, video, or digital photographs as appropriate, or publish your text in comments or as parts of the profile pages on the sites you are using as your example. Or you may mix these various platforms as you like. Be creative in your use of the online possibilities for presenting your argument.

Post a link to your essay on your blog.

Bring a printed copy of your essay to hand in to me in class.

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