Assignments

Final Paper — due: Monday, May 17, 12noon
length: 8-10 pages

Many of you commented, especially about the Knight report on the information needs of communities, or the WSIS mission statement on the global Internet, that the goals they laid out were so broad as to be nearly meaningless, and leave you with little sense of what you could actually do. And, the issues we’ve dealt with in class, once we opened them up for real consideration, turned out to be quite complicated, with no easy answers. So, in your final paper, its time to look a little closer, to get your hands dirty, to say something more specific. This paper will ask, how do particular online sites or platforms intervene in the way public discourse works? Can a close look at their impact help us understand the underlying tensions they address?

A. Select a broad issue from the course that you’d like to think about, from the following list:

Viable, emerging forms of journalism
online engagement in the political process
new modes of technologically-mediated social interaction
improvements in online access and participation internationally

B. Within your chosen issue, identify and explain a particular point of concern that you want to address. This could be a particular need that is not being addressed, or a particular tension within the issue that remains unresolved. Use the readings to discuss, clarify, and reveal this point of concern. Where does this problem come from? What are the relevant perspectives on it?

C. Choose one of two paths:

1. Select one of the following sites as your object of analysis, for the way it specifically intervenes in the specific concern you just articulated. Describe the site (find out about its history, technology, business model, governance, and uses so that you can speak of it with authority) and explain how it is relevant to the concern you just raised.

(journalism)
Demand Media — http://www.demandmedia.com/
Spot.us — http://spot.us/
(politics)
Sunlight Foundation — http://sunlightfoundation.com/
Metavid — http://metavid.org/wiki/
(sociality)
Chatroulette — http://chatroulette.com/
Foursquare — http://foursquare.com/
(international)
Global Voices — http://globalvoicesonline.org/
One Laptop per Child — http://laptop.org/en/

2. Propose your own: invent a website, network, or technology that you’d design in order to make a specific, positive intervention around the concern you just raised. It can be pie in the sky, though it shouldn’t entirely ignore contemporary economic or technical realities. Describe the site (its technology, its business model, its uses, its governance; give it a backstory if you like) and explain how it is relevant to the concern you just raised.

D. Analyze how the site you’ve chosen or designed intervenes in the workings of public discourse. What does it offer, what might it change? What are its drawbacks, how might it fit with or improve on comparable alternatives? Be sure to avoid overstatements and grand prognostications; aim for specificity, clarity, and insight. What does your site make clear about the concern you’ve raised, that might not otherwise be obvious? How does it respond to that concern, and with what implications?

You should be using the readings from the course, and readings from beyond the syllabus, all the way through your paper – particularly in articulating your concern and in analyzing how your chosen site addresses it. (You can also look online for others’ discussions of the site you chose, or sites comparable to the one you’ve designed, that weigh their social impact; be sure you understand those debates before you incorporate them in your analysis.) I will make some suggestions for readings, on the blog, in the next few days. And be sure to think about your site and the issue it addresses through multiple lenses: economic, social, political. Use the tools the class has offered.

Practical instructions

Length: Your paper should be 8-10 pages in length, not including the references (double-spaced, reasonable font, etc.). NOTE: Every page more than 11 means a grade down (A- –> B+). So the challenge here is to say something specific, thoughtful, and incisive in an efficient way.

Readings: I’m looking for a cogent and well-written argument; clarity, organization, and style matter. Most importantly, I expect you to support your argument using the readings. This is an opportunity to demonstrate that you are grappling with the readings, taking them apart to better understand them, challenging the arguments they offer, and synthesizing them into a deeper understanding of the ideas in the course. I will also be posting suggested readings on the blog for these areas. I expect you to draw on at least one of the suggested readings for your paper, in addition to readings from the syllabus.

Citations: You must include a list of references, including readings you use from the syllabus. (The format of your citations is up to you, just as long as you are consistent throughout the paper.) Please also be particularly careful with citation: quotation marks and a citation for using another source’s actual words, citations for paraphrased ideas that you draw from others. This is your way to build on an ongoing conversation about these issues, and acknowledge those who helped your thinking along.

Working together: The paper you turn in should be your own; this is not a collaborative project. But, you may think about these issues together, share articles or information you’ve found. In fact, for those who are analyzing existing sites, I’d even recommend using the blogs to share articles you’ve found, discuss them together, build up your knowledge of the site and its relevance. See if you can use new media to your advantage here.

Turning it in: The paper is due by 12 noon on Monday, May 17th, using the DropBox tool in Blackboard – hard copies will not be accepted. Submit your paper in Word format (.doc or .docx), with the filename “lastname_firstname_finalpaper.doc”. Remember that submitting through DropBox is a two step process: ‘ADD the file, then ‘SEND it to us. Be sure to do both. Late papers without a legitimate excuse will be docked a full letter grade every day missed.

Extra credit policy

There are two ways to receive extra credit: participating as a subject in approved research on campus, and/or attending lectures on campus relevant to the course.

1. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the research process, you’re encouraged to participate in faculty or graduate student research studies on campus. To do this, sign up on the SUSAN (http://susan.psych.cornell.edu/) research system run by the Psychology department, select Comm/Info 3200 as the course you want to receive extra credit for, and then sign up for one of the available research projects running at that time. Once you sign up for a research study, SUSAN will give you instructions on how and when you will participate. Please, if you sign up for research, be diligent about actually going, being on time, etc. At the end of the semester I will get a summary who participated in research. (Participating in research that is not approved for this course through Susan will not earn this extra credit.)

SUSAN awards points based on 30-minute time commitments. (In other words, a research project that requires an hour of your time will give you 2 SUSAN points.) One Susan point (or one 30-minute study) will earn you 0.5% extra credit points.

Note that participation in a study can only count as extra credit for one course. You can’t have your participation in a study double-count towards two courses.

30 minutes of research participation = 1 Susan point = 0.5% points extra credit

2. You can also receive extra credit by attending an academic lecture broadly related to the topics covered in this class. I will announce talks as I hear about them; if you are thinking of attending a talk you think is relevant that I haven’t mentioned, feel free to ask me before you attend so I can give the OK (and potentially announce it in class for the benefit of others). After attending the lecture, write a 1-paragraph blog post discussing how the lecture connected to issues covered in this class, then email me with the link to your post, indicating that its for extra credit. Attending a lecture earns 1% extra credit points on top of your course grade.

1 lecture + blog post = 1% point extra credit

You may do any combination of research and lecture report, but you may not earn more than 2 extra credit points total. (Again, that’s 2 points according to the class — that would be 4 points in the Susan system. Confusing, sorry.)

Paper #2 (due Tuesday, April 27)

CHOOSE ONE

1. Whether it’s mybarackobama.com, a news blog at MSNBC, 4chan, or Wikipedia, each of these sites has to in some ways govern how people participate. Whether or not it champions its openness, none of them are unstructured. Choose one of these sites as your example – be sure to go to the site to find out about how they govern participation and content – in order to consider the following question: does the site have an obligation to work according to democratic principles, and how might they balance that with governing its users towards their proclaimed goal: financial, political, or otherwise? Use the readings from the class to think about what tensions there might be between these two imperatives, and discuss how the resolution of these tensions might tell us something about the implications of new media for public participation.

2. Fenton argues that one thing the Internet offers is, simply, “more space.” Some argue that this offers room for more perspectives, more voices, more kinds of expression – with some beneficial democratic outcomes. Whether it’s news or politics or free speech, there is certainly this sense of more space, though this space could be seen as having both beneficial and detrimental aspects. Consider thinking critically about the space the Internet provides may help us understand the kinds of tricky cases and dilemmas we’ve talked about in this class; then propose a concept for understanding the impact of this space, that makes sense of both its advantages and disadvantages. Use Fenton and other readings from the class to make your point.

Your paper must be no more than 5 pages (double-spaced, reasonable font, etc). So the challenge here is to say something specific, thoughtful, and incisive in an efficient way. I’m looking for a cogent and well-written argument; clarity, organization, and style matter. Most importantly, I expect you to support your argument using the readings. This is an opportunity to demonstrate that you are grappling with the readings, taking them apart to better understand them, challenging the arguments they offer, and synthesizing them into a deeper understanding of the ideas in the course.

Your paper is due before class on Tuesday, April 27th, using the DropBox tool in our Blackboard course site – hard copies will not be accepted. Please submit your paper in Word format (.doc or .docx), with the filename “lastname_firstname_paper2.doc”. Remember that submitting a paper through DropBox is a two step process: you ‘ADD the file, then you ‘SEND’ it to us. Be sure to do both. Late papers without a legitimate excuse will be docked a full letter grade every day missed.

Paper #1 (due March 18th)

CHOOSE ONE

1. Papacharissi suggests that the Internet facilitates a kind of public sphere, depending on how you look at it. Hesmondalgh, Turow, and others tell us a bit about the real business arrangements that – at least for the major media platforms, search engines and social networks – shape how they provide public discourse, professional and amateur, to users. Do these particular private entities and their chosen business models help facilitate the public sphere she sees emerging? Do they undercut a real and effective public sphere? Or is the emergence of a virtual public sphere independent of their actions? Use specific arguments from both Papacharissi and other course readings to support your argument.

2. Axel Bruns argues that ‘produsage’ is emerging as an important and widespread element of our public discourse. In the chapter you read, he points to four ‘key principles’ of produsage (pp. 23-30), each of which he suggests makes amateur forms of production consequential. Choose one of these ‘key principles’ and explain why this aspect of amateur production is potentially consequential for media and cultural discourse. Then draw on the other course readings to identify and explain either (2a) the key obstacle that’s in the way of this principle of produsage having some important social benefit, or (2b) the flip-side risk of this principle of produsage being an increasingly prevalent aspect of our public information environment.

Your paper is due before class on Thursday, March 18th, using the DropBox tool in our Blackboard course site – hard copies will not be accepted. Please submit your paper in Word format (.doc or .docx), with the filename “lastname_firstname_paper1.doc”. Remember that submitting a paper through DropBox is a two step process: you ‘add’ the file, then you ‘send’ it to us. Be sure to do both. Late papers without a legitimate excuse will be docked a full letter grade every day missed.

Blogging for Comm/IS 3200

As indicated in the syllabus, a significant component of the course is to be regularly posting to your own individual blog, rating the posts of your classmates, and reading the course blog.

1. The primary expectation is to blog each week of the semester. Your substantive post for the week must be posted by Wednesday at 8pm; I will provide a prompt no later than Tuesday’s class, usually earlier on the course blog. Substantive means 1-2 paragraphs where you thoughtfully engage with the prompt, connect to ideas and arguments in the course, and add to the conversation.

We have 12 weeks available for blogging (week 1 you had no access to the blog, and no post is required over spring break. I will also call the last week of the semester optional, since you may be facing big assignments in your other courses). Posting one substantive post in 10 of those weeks will be considered full credit (meaning, you’ve got two freebie weeks when you can let other work overwhelm this task. You might think about saving them for the weeks we have papers due, or weeks where you have a pile of prelims.)

That said, you are encouraged to use your blog as much as you like: post as often as you like, recommend links you find, explore your interests in this area. Bear in mind that any post could be rated, and any post rated highly enough could end up on the course blog. What I suggest is that you think of your blog as “writing in public” so that you aren’t surprised if something you write actually goes public in ways you hadn’t anticipated.

2. You are also required to read and rate at least five of your classmates’ blog posts each week. This is an important element of this, as highly rated posts will automatically appear on the course blog, to be read by all and be seen by the public, including, even, some of the scholars you’re reading this semester.

I also recommend that you offer comments on the posts that you rate, anything from a simple “good post!” to a substantive reaction to it. And learn how to link your own blog posts to other posts you’ve read (when you do, the first author gets a little notification that their blog has been referenced, they can come see what you said. If we do this right, you will even get to know people in the class who have common interests and concerns, and our discussion will grow in scope and insight.

3. Finally, you are responsible for reading the entire contents of the course blog. I will post there, and the best posts of your classmates will emerge there. I will set it so that we don’t get a flood of material, but do be diligent about keeping up with it, so that reading assignment doesn’t pile up.

Blogging counts for 30% of your course grade. 20% is simply for posting substantively, thoughtfully, and on time; your posts are not graded for content. Think about it: you can guarantee 20% of your grade is a perfect A just by blogging every week and reading some of your classmates’ posts, that’s it. Not bad. For the remaining 10%, at the end of the semester I will ask you to look back over your blog and identify two posts you think are your best; they will be graded for their quality of argument, understanding of the material, insight, and style.