Social History of New Media Syllabus

Social History of New Media 6273 -‐ LCST 2037 -‐ A Class 8:00 am -‐ 9:40 am TR Johnson/Kaplan 66 West 12th 518 Seminar Instructor: Trebor Scholz, PhD Course website: http://socialhistoryofnewmedia.ning.com/ Office Hours and Contact Information Tuesday 4pm and by appointment Office: rm. 251 (65 W11th St) Email: [email protected]

This course follows the history of computing and networked communication. We

will approach the history of communication -‐-‐ from the telegraph, radio, and

television to the Internet and World Wide Web, from a political, cultural, and social

perspective. Key themes will include copyright, community, virtual worlds, and

games, privacy, social networking, peer to peer culture, exploitation and

empowerment of Internet users, remix, and the reoccurring utopian hopes and

dreams that accompany the development of communication media.

Course Formats:

Discussions, Weekly Responses

In order to meaningfully participate in class, you will need to read the required

readings for each week and bring your notes to class. The first few classes will start

with questions formulated by the instructor but soon you will frame our class

discussions with your questions. Participation includes listening and building on

what others have said. Participation accounts for 30% of your final grade.

We will make use of Seesmic for some video discussions.

Every week before Saturday 10pm you will post short responses to the readings.

You will also pose questions that we will then become part of class discussion.

Throughout the semester there will be bi-‐weekly anonymous after-‐class

questionnaires that give allow to give feedback on the class all throughout the

semester.

Evaluation:

Participation 30%

1 class presentation 20% (throughout the semester)

Mid-‐term paper 20% (DUE 10/13 before class. I will only accept printed and

stapled papers. Please do not email your paper.)

Final 30% (DUE 12/6 before class. I will not accept late submissions.)

Learning Objectives:

Understanding of today’s networked media through the lens of the more than 100

years of cinema, and 60 years of television.

Participation

In order to meaningfully participate in class, you will need to read the required

readings for each week and bring your notes to class. The first few classes will start

with questions formulated by the instructor but soon you will frame our class

discussions with your questions. Participation includes listening and building on

what others have said.

Each student is expected to spend up to two hours each week reading the required

texts. All students are expected to read and come to class prepared to discuss the

assigned readings. You are asked to use the social networking site Ning to share

question sand summaries of the readings before each Monday.

Eugene Lang Attendance Policy:

Students are expected to attend classes regularly and promptly. More than 3

absences may result in a failing final grade. If a student is more than 10 minutes late

to a class, this will count as an absence.

Schedule for Presentations:

09/13 11/01

09/20 11/08

10/04

11/15

10/11 11/22

10/18 11/29

10/25 12/06

12/13

PART I

Week 1 Overview Syllabus, Introductions

08/30, 09/01

• Setting up social networking site for class: Ning

http://socialhistoryofnewmedia.ning.com/

• What is the value of discussion? Think of the worst group discussion you have ever been involved in. What happened that made these discussions so unpleasant? Conversely, think of the best discussions you have ever been involved in. What made these conversations so satisfying? How would you like to be spoken to by your peers? Together we formulate ground rules for discussion for the weeks to

come.

• Mapping Exercise

• New Media? What is Social Media? What is History?

Required Reading for Thursday: McLuhan, Marshall. ”The Medium is the Message” The New Media Reader. New York: The MIT P, 2003. Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think," The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1945 -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐

Week 2 From BBS and Usenet to ARPANET and the Internet

09/06, 09/08

Required Reading: Abbate, Janet. “’The most neglected element:’ users transform arpanet.” Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, Mass: MIT P, 1999.

Hafner, Katie. “Email.” Where wizards stay up late the origins of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Suggested Reading: Winston, Brian. “The First Computers.” Media technology and society a history : from the telegraph to the Internet. London: Routledge, 1998. Licklider, J. C. R., and R. W. Taylor. "The computer as a communication device." KurzweilAI.net. 25 Aug. 2009 <http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0353.html>. History of the Internet http://www.thocp.net/reference/internet/internet1.htm

Video: History of the Internet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4&feature=channel_page

Artwork: Trackers by Merce Cunningham, 1987

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Week 3 Counterculture, Computing and Participation in the Sixties

09/13, 09/15 Required Reading: Turner, Fred. Introduction and The Well from From Counterculture to Cyberculture Suggested Reading: Feenberg, Andrew. Technocracy and rebellion the may events of 1968. Questioning technology. London: Routledge, 1999. 21-‐43. Campbell-‐Kelly, Martin, and Aspray, William . Babbage’s Dream Comes True. Computer A History of the Information Machine (The Sloan Technology Series). New York: Westview P, 2004. 23-‐61. Online Version of The Well, Fall 1968 http://www.wholeearth.com/issue-‐electronic-‐edition.php?iss=1010

Short Film Excerpts:

Commune

The Summer of Love

The Early Days of The Well (http://blip.tv/file/805566)

Video of The Well Party (http://blip.tv/file/860833/)

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Week 4 Cybernetics and The Failure of the Soviet Internet

09/20, 09/22 Required Reading: Barbrook, Richard. Imaginary Futures From Thinking Machines to the Global Village. New York: Pluto P, 2007. Chapter 3, 4, 5. Suggested Reading: Briggs, A., Burke, P. The Age of Television. In: A Social History of the Media. From Gutenberg to the Internet.

Guest Lecture: Ben Peters (Columbia University) http://www.columbia.edu/~bjp2108/blog/

Video: http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/book/video/

Artwork:

TV Decoll/age by Wolf Vostell, 1958 Magnet TV by Nam Jun Paik, 1965 -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐

Week 5 The World Wide Web

09/27(CLASS MEETS), 09/29 (ROSH HASHANAH, NO CLASSES)

Required Reading: How the Web Was Won by Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb July 2008 http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807 boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-‐Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html#history Reference: Gillies, James; Cailliau, Robert. “Timeline.” How the Web Was Born. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Film Excerpts: Homepage by Doug Bock (http://old.d-‐word.com/homepage/) Artwork: ARTIST'S STATEMENT N0. 45,730,944: THE PERFECT ARTISTIC WEB SITE Young-‐Hae Chang http://www.yhchang.com/PERFECT_ARTISTIC_WEB_SITE.html

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-‐ PART II -‐

Week 6 Dreams of Love, Democracy, and Liberation -‐-‐ from the Telegraph to the Internet 10/04, 10/06

Required Reading: Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet. New York: Berkley Trade, 1999. Chapters 5, 6, 8, 9,10, 11, 12 Suggested Reading: Hindman, Matthew Scott. “The Internet and the Democratization of Politics.” Myth of digital democracy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2008. Video: Telecommunications services for the 1990s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqtoVmACDng Artwork: Kino-‐Automat by Raduz Cincera, 1967 -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ Week 7 Electrifying the World

10/11, 10/13

MID-‐TERM DUE 10/13 before class. I will only accept printed and stapled papers.

Required Reading:

Part 1 (chapter 1-‐5) Carr, Nicholas. “One Machine.” The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2009.

Burke, Peter, and Asa Briggs. "From Steam to Electricity." A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. Polity, 2005. -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐

Week 8 Reproducibility and Transmission

10/18, 10/20

Required Readings:

Benjamin, Walter. “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.” H. Zohn

(Trans.), Illuminations: Essays and reflections New York: Schocken. 1968.

Nichols, Bill. "Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems." The New Media Reader. New York: The MIT P, 2003. -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐

Week 9 Piracy and a history of intellectual property 10/25, 10/27

Required Reading:

Coleman, Gabriella. Code is Speech: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest Among Free and Open Source Software Developers. Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 24, Issue 3, pp. 420–454. 2009. Hesse, Carla. "The rise of intellectual property, 700 b.c.–a.d. 2000: an idea in the balance." Weblogs at Harvard Law School. 25 Aug. 2009 <http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/geekroom/2004/02/23/carla-‐hesses-‐the-‐rise-‐of-‐intellectual-‐property-‐and-‐a-‐gift-‐economy/>.

Suggested Reading: Communication and Media in NYC http://www.nycarchivists.org/exhibit/comtime.html

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Week 10 The Early Years: Digital Labor and Exploitation

11/1, 11/3

Required Reading: Terranova, Tiziana. "Free Labour." Network Culture Politics for the Information Age. New York: Pluto P, 2004. Andrejevic, Mark. “iManagement-‐ the early years” iSpy surveillance and power in the interactive era. University Press of Kansas, 2007. Suggested Reading: Thrift, Nigel. Re-‐inventing invention: new tendencies in capitalist commodification. Economy and Society Volume 35 Number 2 May 2006: 279/306.

http://nigelthrift.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/reinventing.pdf. Economy and Society Volume 35 Number 2 May 2006: 279-‐ 306

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Week 11 Fan Culture, and the History of the Commoditization of Networked

Publics

11/8, 11/10

Required Reading: Benedikt, Michael L. "The Lessons from Lucas Film' Habitat." Cyberspace First Steps. New York: The MIT P, 1992. Jenkins, Henry. “Searching for Origami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling.” Convergence Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Suggested Reading: Atton, Chris. “Fan culture and the internet.” An Alternative Internet. New York: Edinburgh UP, 2005. Imagining Community http://socialmediaclassroom.com/host/vircom/wiki/imagining-‐community

Resource on the history of fan culture: http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/Main_Page -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐

Week 12 Branding and the Audience Commodity: from Quaker Oats to

Facebook

11/15, 11/17

Required Reading: Mattelart, Armand. “The Power of Propaganda” Networking the World, 1794-‐2000. New York: University of Minnesota P, 2000. Bermejo, Fernando. "Audience manufacture in historical perspective: from broadcasting to Google." New Media & Society. Web. 25 Aug. 2009. <http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/11/1-‐2/133>. Film Excerpts: Metropolis by Fritz Lang The Matrix

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Week 13 Memory, Permanence, Erasure

11/22 (Class MEETS), 11/24 (THANKSGIVING, NO CLASSES)

Required Readings: Kittler, Friedrich A. "Gramophone." Gramophone, film, typewriter. Stanford, Calif: Stanford UP, 1999.

Suggested Reading: Winston, Brian. "The Capture of Sound." Media technology and society a history : from the telegraph to the Internet. London: Routledge, 1998. Guest Speaker: Douglas Kahn (unconfirmed) Assignment: Prepare questions for David Golumbia via Seesmic -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐

Week 14 The Cultural Logic of Computation

11/29, 12/1

Golumbia, David. “Computation, Globalization, and Cultural Striation.” The Cultural Logic of Computation. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2009.

Golumbia, David. “Epilogue.” The Cultural Logic of Computation.” Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2009.

Guest Speaker: David Golumbia (University of Virginia) (http://www.mindspring.com/~dgolumbi/docs/cv.html) -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ Week 15 The Globalized Network of Networks 12/6, 12/8

Required Reading:

Thompson, John B. “The globalization of communication.” The Media and Modernity A Social Theory of the Media. New York: Stanford UP, 1996.

Mattelart, Armand. “Globalization: The Networks of the Postnational Economy.” Networking the World, 1794-‐2000. New York: University of Minnesota P, 2000.

Suggested Reading:

Siegert, Bernhard. “The world postal system, or the end of the world.” Relays Literature as an epoch of the postal system. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999.

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Week 16

12/13, 12/15 A Short History of Peer-‐to-‐Peer Culture

Goldsmith, Jack and Wu, Tim. “The File Sharing Movement.” Who Controls The

Internet. New York, Oxford University Press. 1998.

Palfrey, John, Gasser, Urs. “Pirates.” Born Digital. New York: Basic Books. 2008.

Suggested:

Peer-‐to-‐Peer Art

(Art made for -‐ and only available on -‐ the peer to peer networks)

http://www.p2p-‐art.com/

Reference for History of Peer-‐to-‐Peer Culture

http://tinyurl.com/ngjrs2

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Eugene Lang Policy on Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of someone else’s work as one’s own in all

forms of academic endeavor (such as essays, theses, examinations, research data,

creative projects, etc.), which may be derived from a variety of sources (such as

books, journals, Internet postings, student or faculty papers, etc.). Students should

refer to the Policy on Academic Honesty in the Eugene Lang College catalog for full

information on the consequences of plagiarism.

Eugene Lang Policy on Disabilities:

In keeping with the University's policy of providing equal access for students with

disabilities, any student requesting accommodations must first meet with Student

Disability Services. Jason Luchs or a designee from that office will meet with

students requesting accommodations and related services, and if appropriate,

provide an Academic Adjustment Notice for the student to provide to his or her

instructors. The instructor is required to review the letter with the student and

discuss the accommodations, provided the student brings the letter to the attention

of the instructor. This letter is necessary in order for classroom accommodations to

be provided. Student Disability Services is located at 79 Fifth Avenue -‐ 5th Floor.

The phone number is (212) 229-‐5626. Students and faculty are expected to review

the Student Disability Services webpage. The webpage can be found at

http://www.newschool.edu/studentaffairs/disability/ and the office is available to

answer any questions or concerns.

References

• How to present well? (Authors@Google: Garr Reynolds) http://is.gd/hgqd

• Hacker, D. (2004) A Pocket Style Manual. Boston: St. Martin's.

• Writing skills (Slideshare presentation by the instructor) http://is.gd/hgrl

• Skills for critical reading (http://www.uefap.com/reading/readfram.htm)

• MLA formatting (http://easybib.com/)

Grade Chart

93-‐100 % A

86-‐92.9% A-‐

80-‐85.9% B+

75-‐79.9% B

70-‐74.9% B-‐

65-‐69.9% C+

60-‐64.9% C

55-‐59.9% C-‐

50-‐54.9% D+

30-‐49.9% D

Less than 30% F

Social History of New Media Syllabus

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