Cute cat theory of the internet

Zuckerman's focus is on cute cats and activism. He identifies the issue:

Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.

Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats. 

For Zuckerman, the popular uses, even if they seem to overflow the information networks with all sorts of boring content, are actually inseparable from the net as a medium for activists (he also discusses this in terms of the porn test--the presence of porn in a medium means that the medium is working; the blogger equivalent might be the troll test; the presence of trolls means you've got readers). He writes:

With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. As a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on - the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.

What's the point of grades?

Excerpt from "A Thought Experiment: Why Grade? Why Test?"

Let’s try a thought experiment.   Let’s assume we live in a culture where all forms of educational achievement tests have been banned and no one is allowed to assign a letter or numerical grade for anything.   How would we evaluate what students are learning?  How would we decide which teachers were doing their job effectively or how they could be more effective?  Would there be objective (i.e. impartial, unbiased) ways of determining who was the smartest student and who needed help?   And why would we want or need to know that?  Without testing, would being the best be a useful question?   Or, as a mathematician would ask, would that question be an interesting one (one that could yield an answer that wasn’t simply a circular restating of the question)?  How would the content and methods of education change if assessment by means of testing and grading was banned?

One uses the method of a thought experiment, or gedanken experiment, when one wants to challenge a paradigm that is so foundational and so entwined with current assumptions that you need to move outside the realm of the experimental, experiential, and the plausible even to see it.   Much of modern physics, going back at least to Galileo, is founded on thought experiments, often subsequently demonstrated empirically (as in dropping objects off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate new theories of gravitation).   A thought experiment is the only way to unravel the current state of thinking from all of the baggage that, over time, becomes not only associated with that mode of thinking but becomes foundational to it. Reform rarely leads to a paradigm shift since it builds upon these interwoven histories.  You use a thought experiment when you want to change not just a way of measuring the world but how we see it.

Syllabus

Requirements: subject to negotiation

Everyone is expected to prepare the assignment prior to class and participate in class discussion.  Attendance is a sign of engagement. Any student missing more than four classes will fail.  Students are encouraged to bring electronic devices to class, although they should not use them until specifically instructed to do so. No student will be admitted to class after 12:05. 

Students will need to be flexible--assignments and requirements are subject to change.

There will be three primary modes of assessment:

40%     Projects and participation (including blogs). These will be graded on a curve.

            Students must have blogs with posts that comment on the readings. The best

            posts will be featured on the class blog. Students are also expected to comment

            on one another's blogs.

40%     Exams and papers. These will not be graded on a curve.

20%     Self-assessment. This is your final paper. In it, you give an account of what you've

            contributed to the class and what you've gotten from the class.  Bluntly put, you

            grade yourself and try to convince me that you deserve this grade.

        

Schedule:

1/20    Introduction: reality/hype

1/25    First group project due: internet timeline

1/27    “After the Dotcom Crash”

            “History of Internet and Flexible Future”

             “Market Ideology and Myths of Web 2.0” 

            “Mass psychology of Internet”

            “Recent Futures: TAZ, Wired, and the Internet”

            “Past and Future History of the Internet”

2/1      Jaron Lanier, You are not a Gadget, part 1              

2/3      Jaron Lanier, You are not a Gadget, parts 2-3

2/6      Jaron Lanier, You are not a Gadget, parts 4-5

2/8      “Powerlaws, Weblogs, and Inequality”

            “Weblogs and Emergent Democracy”

            Galloway interview

            “Bourgeois Anarchism and Authoritarian Democracies"

2/10    No class.  Blogs will be evaluated starting at 5:00 on 2/11.

            Students are expected to have posts on the readings.

            Evaluation criteria include design, comments, features, number of 

            posts, quality of posts.

2/15    Tiziana Terranova, Network Culture, chapter 1

2/17    Tiziana Terranova, Network Culture, chapter 2

2/22    Tiziana Terranova, Network Culture, chapter 3

            “Free” (Chris Anderson)                    

2/24    Tiziana Terranova, Network Culture, chapters 4-5

3/1      Jodi Dean, Blog Theory, chapters 1-2

           

3/3      Jodi Dean, Blog Theory, chapters 3-4

3/8      Midterm exam.

3/10    No class. Papers due in my office at 5:00 on 3/11. I will not accept late papers or electronic submissions.

3/12-3/20       Spring break

3/22    Marc Andrejevic, iSpy, chapters 1-2

3/24    Marc Andrejevic, iSpy, chapter 6-7

3/29    "Google's Revolution Factory" --Alliance of Youth Movements
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23283
look through and analyze this website: http://www.movements.org/. 
"Diverting the Radicalization Track"
Be sure to read the summit reports (links available at both sites).
What is this group? What does it do? How do you know? Are these good guys?
Why or why not?       

3/31    Group Projects: Free/Livre/Open Source

            “Cathedral and Bazaar”

            “Digital Maoism”

4/5      Group Projects:  Google

            “Back to Microsoft” (critique of google)

            “Society of the Query and the Googlization of Our Lives” 

            “The Googlization of Everything”

4/7      Group Projects: Facebook, Twitter,

            “The Viral Me”           

            “Twitter and Long Form Thinking”

4/12    Bifo, Precarious Rhapsody, chapters 1-3

4/14    Bifo, Precarious Rhapsody, chapter 4-8

4/19    Group Projects: Wikileaks

            “Contain This”

            “Twelve Theses on Wikileaks”

4/21    No class. Papers due in my office at 5:00 on 4/22. I will not accept late papers or electronic submissions.

4/26    Nicolas Carr, The Shallows, pp. 1-57

4/28    Nicolas Carr, The Shallows, pp. 58-143

5/3      Nicolas Carr, The Shallows, pp. 144-end

Final Exam: Saturday, May 7 at 1:30.

Blogs will be evaluated starting Monday, May 9, at 12:00 (noon).

Real/Hype

digital media

reality

hype