This semester I am teaching a class at Lang, titled Mediated Subjectivity: Politics and Subjectivity in the Networked Public Sphere.
Course Description
With their emphasis on constant sharing and updating, social network sites, blogging platforms, photo and video sharing services, are reshaping contemporary culture by providing virtually infinite opportunities for self-expression and conversation. While theorists such as Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins, Clay Shirky, and Yochai Benkler celebrate the democratic potential embedded in online participatory culture, political scientists and philosophers such as Cass Sunstein, Slavoj Zizek and Jodi Dean maintain that the echo chamber effect of social media as well as the possibility of realizing one’s fantasies in digital environments have the unintended effect of obfuscating actual power structures and therefore our ability to act upon them. By addressing this bifurcation in contemporary theorizations of cyberculture, the course analyzes online participatory culture not only for its content but also as an extension of the media that enable it. In particular we will be asking what kind of forms of subjectivity are set in motion by media that demand users to provide constant responses, sharing, and updates. Further, students will have the opportunity to test these critical and theoretical problems by analyzing web-based phenomena such as online role-playing games, social network sites, blogs, viral videos, image boards, and news aggregators.
Week 1. Introduction to the Public Sphere
August 29
Class Introduction
August 31
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, pp. 1-12, 27-37. Available on Blackboard.
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, pp. 1-16, pp. 180-185. Available at http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf
Week 2. Criticism of Habermas’s Public Sphere
September 7. Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” Social Text 25-26 (1990): 56-80. Available on Blackboard.
Week 3. Secrecy and Transparency in the Networked Public Sphere
September 12 (Emily)
Jodi Dean, Publicity’s Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy, pp. 15-19, 34-46. Available on Blackboard.
Raffi Khatchadourian, “No Secrets: Julian Assange’s Mission for Total Transparency,” The New Yorker. Available at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?printable=true
September 14 (Max)
Jay Rosen, “The Afghan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, The World First Stateless News Organization,” Press Think. Available at http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/07/26/wikileaks_afghan.html
Farhad Manjod, “The WikiLeaks Paradox. Is radical transparency compatible with total anonymity?” Slate. Available at http://www.slate.com/id/2262066/
Geert Lovink and Patrice Riemens, “Ten Theses on Wikileaks,” available at http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2010/08/30/ten-theses-on-wikileaks/
Jack Z. Bratich, “Kyber-Revolts: Egypt, State-friended Media, and Secret Sovereign Networks,” MediaCommons, http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/tne/pieces/kyber-revolts-egypt-state-friended-media-and-secret-sovereign-networks
— Projects: End of Ideation (individual) —
Week 4. Web 2.0: The New Architecture of Participation
September 19 (William)
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Chapters 1-3, pp. 1-54
September 21 (Dorry and Mario)
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, pp. 55-80
Watch “Clay Shirky on Institutions vs. Collaboration,” TED Talk, available at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html
Watch Clay Shirky, “How Social Media Can Make History,” TED Talk, available at http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html
Week 5. …and Its Critics
September 26 (Mollie)
Cass Sunstein, Republic.com 2.0, pp. 46-96. Available on Blackboard.
September 28 (Amy)
Matthew Hindman, The Myth of Digital Democracy, available at http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8781.pdf
Jodi Dean, Blog Theory, pp. 1-13.
— Projects: End of Brainstorming and Design (collective) —
Week 6. The Open Source Revolution & Commons-based Peer Production
October 3 (Lynlea)
Watch Revolution OS, USA, 2001. Available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, pp. 237-259.
Recommended:
Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Chapter 2, available at http://manybooks.net/titles/levystevetext96hckrs10.html
October 5 (Amanda)
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Chapter 5, pp. 109-142
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, pp. 59-81, available at http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf
Week 7. Network Theory & Power-Law Distributions
October 10 (Daria)
Albert Lazlo Barabasi, Linked, 9-54. Available on Blackboard.
October 12
Albert Lazlo Barabasi, Linked, 55-92. Available on Blackboard.
— Projects: End of Execution (collective) —
Week 8. The Twitter Revolution Must Die
October 17 (Julia)
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, pp. 143-160.
Malcolm Gladwell, “Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted,” The New Yorker, available at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell
October 19
Ethan Zuckerman, “Internet Freedom: Beyond Circumvention”
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/02/22/internet-freedom-beyond-circumvention/
Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, pp. 67-81. Available on Blackboard.
Ulises A. Meijas, “The Twitter Revolution Must Die,” http://blog.ulisesmejias.com/2011/01/30/the-twitter-revolution-must-die/
— Projects: End of Outreach (collective) —
Week 9. A Week Without Google
October 24 (Veronica)
Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Googlization of Everything, pp. 51-72. Available on Blackboard.
Listen to “The Case Against Google,” On the Media, http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/aug/12/case-against-google/
Thomas Claburn, “5 Reasons Google+’s Name Policy Fails,” Information Week, http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/privacy/231500512
October 26
Projects: Reports and Presentations
Week 10. Affective Networks
October 31
Jodi Dean, Blog Theory, pp. 19-53.
November 2
Jodi Dean, Blog Theory, pp. 61-69, 75-86, 99-104, 108-126.
Week 11. The Force of Anonymity
November 7
Michele Knobel & Colin Lankshear, “Online Memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production.” In A New Literacies Sampler, pp. 199-228. Available on Blackboard.
Julian Dibbell, “Radical Opacity,” Technology Review, http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/radical-opacity/
Michele S. Bernstein et. al. “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community,” http://projects.csail.mit.edu/chanthropology/4chan.pdf
November 9
Adrian Crenshaw, “Crude, Inconsistent Threat: Understanding Anonymous,”
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/understanding-anonymous
Gabriella Coleman, “From the Lulz to Collective Action,” MediaCommons,
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/tne/pieces/anonymous-lulz-collective-action
— Projects: End of Ideation (individual) —
Week 12. Managing Friendship and Status in Social Network Sites
November 14
danah boyd, “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” Available at http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf
danah boyd and Alice Marwick, “I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience,” New Media and Society. Blackboard.
November 16
Mizuko Ito et. al., Hanging out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media, pp. 79-115. Available on Blackboard.
Week 13. Social Network Sites and Privacy
November 21
danah boyd and Eszter Hargittai, “Facebook Privacy Settings: Who Cares?” First Monday, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3086/2589
danah boyd, ”Facebook and Radical Transparency (a rant),” Apophenia, http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/05/14/facebook-and-radical-transparency-a-rant.html
— Projects: End of Brainstorming and Design (collective) —
Thanksgiving Break
Week 14. Gaming
November 28
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, pp. 1-27. Available on Blackboard.
Gonzalo Frasca, “Simulation vs Narrative: Introduction to Ludology,” available at http://www.ludology.org/articles/VGT_final.pdf
November 30
Alexander Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, pp. 1-38. Available on Blackboard.
Watch “Jane McGonigal: Games Can Make a Better World,” TED Talk, available at http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html
Week 15. Network Exploitation or Network Expropriation?
December 5
Christian Fuchs, “Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet,” available at http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/class.pdf.
December 7
Adam Arvidsson and Elanor Colleoni, “Value in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet. A Reply to Christian Fuchs.” Available on Blackboard.
— Projects: End of Execution and Outreach (collective) —
Week 16. Digital Socialism & Remix Culture
December 12
Kevin Kelly, “The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online,” Wired, http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism
Jaron Lanier “On Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism,” available at http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html
December 14
Watch Rip: A Remix Manifesto, 2009. Available at http://ripremix.com/getdownloads
Projects: Report and Presentation
Final Comprehensive Take-Home Assignment
