week_2

In this image released Tuesday Aug. 28, 2007 by the Beijing Public Security
Bureau, shown is cartoon figures of 'virtual police'. Police in Beijing
said Tuesday they will soon begin patrolling the web using the animated
beat cops that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike or drive across
the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content.
(AP Photo/Beijing Public Security Bureau, HO)

agenda

overview, syllabus, questions

introductions

abbreviated discussion

group formation

for next week

questions from lecture

1. how did siva's portrait of the 1990s accord with / depart from your own notions of that decade?
2. what is the difference between the internet and the web?
3. what makes light a medium?

questions from readings

mcluhan links

1. by the logic mcluhan offered to tom brokaw, which of the current presidential candidates possesses the biggest tv advantage?

paul levinson, "millenial mcluhan: clues for deciphering the digital age"

1. do you see the computer as a tool of control or a tool of liberation?
2. re: mcluhan's maxim that "the medium is the message": agree or disagree?

james carey, "a cultural approach to communication"

1. what is the difference between a ritual view of communication and the transmission view of communication?
2. do you turn to digital media more often for ritual purposes or transmission purposes?

siva vaidhyanathan, "afterword: critical information studies. a bibliographic manifesto"

1. does the ideal of cultural democracy merit undoing (or at least weakening) regulatory structures such as content regulation, trademark, and copyright law?
2. why have so many scholars been so reluctant to shift over to a more open model of scholarship?