Aram Sinnreich

Visions and Revisions of Cyberspace, revised

I'm almost done with the syllabus I blogged a few weeks back. But I still need some help from all you smart folks out there. Please take a look, and let me know what I'm missing. Feel free to borrow, as well. Remember, this is for Masters students in Media, Culture and Communication.

UPDATE: Here's the final version:

Topics in Digital Media:

Visions and Revisions of Cyberspace

 

Dr. Aram Sinnreich

Description

 

Today, for the first time in history, computer-mediated culture has become mainstream for a majority of individuals in technologically developed societies. From email to texting, from online gaming to online banking, from YouTube to Hulu, from DoS attacks to Second Life sit-ins, nearly every traditional aspect of our lives has found a new expression in its digital proxy.

 

In order to understand the cultural, social, political and economic consequences of this development, we must look to the origins of today’s cyberculture, in the futuristic visions (both dystopian and utopian) that shaped the development of today’s networked technologies. We will trace the genealogy of these visions, as they developed in tandem with the growing digital communications infrastructure over the past three quarters of a century, and evolved into new forms that even the most forward-thinking of visionaries could not have predicted. Ultimately, one can argue that the Internet has both exceeded and fallen short of the hype that surrounded its birth and development, and, by comparing the myth to the reality, we may better understand what aspects of the human condition are likely to persist regardless of technological development.

 

Class will be conducted as a seminar. Students will be responsible for leading discussions on the readings, and are encouraged to critically engage the readings and class conversations.

Schedule

9/9: Introduction

 

9/16: The Memex and the Mushroom Cloud

 

• Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic.
  
  AND 2 OF THE FOLLOWING:
  
  
• Borges, J. L. (1941). The library of Babel.
• Rifkin, J. (1995). A view of the future. Utne Reader.
• Slouka, M. (1996). Reality is death. (from War of the Worlds)
• Leiner, et al (2000). A Brief History of the Internet.

 

9/23: The Metaverse

 

• Nelson, T. (1974). Computer lib/dream machines. [excerpt]
• Baudrillard, J. (1988). Simulacra and Simulations [excerpt]
• Dibbell, J. (2008). Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World
• Pendragon, H. (2008) Griefers: Why Dibbell’s Wired Article Was 1-Sided.

 

OR

 

• Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash (Bantam, 1992)

 

9/30: Rules and Regulation

 

• Internet Society, DNS Root Name Servers Explained for Non-Experts
• Mueller, M. (2002). Dancing the Quango: ICANN as International Regulatory Regime.
• Sinnreich & Zager (2008). E-Speech: The (Uncertain) Future of Free Expression
• Wu, T. (2005). Network neutrality, broadband discrimination.

 

OR

 

• Lawrence Lessig, Code v2 (Basic Books, 2006)

 

10/7: Freedom to Hack

GUEST: Karl Fogel, founder, questioncopyright.org

 

• Christopher Kelty (2005), Geeks, Social Imaginaries, and Recursive Publics
• NY Times (1995), A Most Wanted Cyberthief is caught in his own web.
• 2600, Interview with Kevin Mitnick (video)
• Stallman, R. GNU manifesto

 

OR

 

·      Doug Thomas, Hacker Culture (U. Minn Press, 2002)

10/14: dot-com Fantasies

GUEST: Gene DeRose, CEO, HouseParty, former CEO, Jupiter Research

 

FOUR OF THE FOLLOWING:

 

• Dyson, E. (1995). Intellectual value. Wired.
• Sinnreich, A. (2001). Remixing the Distribution Chain for Digital Music. Jupiter Research.
• Meeker, M. (1995). The Internet Report. Morgan Stanley. [Read part 1. The rest is skimmable].
• CNET, Top 10 dot-com flops
• Anderson, C. (2004). The Long Tail. Wired.
• O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0?
• Schiff, S. (2006). Know it all. The New Yorker.
• boyd, d. (2007). Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.

 

OR

 

• Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (Vintage Books, 1996)

 

10/21: Our Second Selves: Video Games and Identity

 

FOUR OF THE FOLLOWING:

 

• Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Palmgrave Macmillan. Introduction, Conclusion and Appendix (20 pages)
• Smuts, A. (2005, November 2). Are video games art? Contemporary Aesthetics. (11 pages)
• Seabrook, J. (2006). Game master. The New Yorker, November 6, 2006 (14 pages)
• Bogost, I. (2006). Playing politics: Videogames for Politics, Activism and Advocacy. First Monday. Special Issue number 7. (10 pages)
• Jones, Saving Worlds with Videogame Activism. [unpublished paper]
• Ito, et al (2008). Living and Learning with New Media (pp. 18-39)
• Brathwaite, B. (2007). Sex in video games. Charles River Media. Chapter 4, pp. 89-122.
• Parisi, D. (2007). Playing the Interface: Video Games as Bodily Techniques [Unpublished paper]. (19 pages)

 

OR

 

• Dibbell, J. Play Money. (Basic Books, 2006)

 

 

10/28: Remix/Configurable Culture

·      Aram Sinnreich, Mashed Up (U. Mass Press, 2010)

 

OR

 

·      Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture (NYU Press, 2006)

 

OR

 

·      Lawrence Lessig, Remix (Penguin, 2008)

 

11/4: The Cloud

 

·      Downes, S. The Cloud and Collaboration

·      Zittrain, J. Lost in the Cloud

·      Golden, B. Clueless on the Charles: How Zittrain’s Cloud Missive Got it Wrong

·      Doctorow, C. Not Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

OPTIONAL:

 

·      Google Blog, Introducing the Chrome OS

·      Chappell, Windows Azure Whitepaper

 

11/11: Surveillance, Sensors and Semantics

 

• Brin, D. (1998). The transparent society.
• Berners-Lee, et al. (2001). The Semantic Web.
• Dodson, S. (2008). The Net Shapes Up to Get Physical.
• EFF, Surveillance Self-Defense Project

 

11/18: Adventures in MeatSpace

GUEST: Dennis Crowley, founder, Dodgeball.com

 

·      Doctorow, C. (2004) Anda’s Game

·      NY Times (2004). Quick, After Him, Pacman Went Thataway

·      Laura Forlano (2010). WiFi Geographies: When Code Meets Place

·      Area/Code, Big Games Manifesto (1 page)

·      Patti Maes, The Sixth Sense (Video)

 

 

11/25: MOVIE/FIELD TRIP

 

12/2: Presentations

 

12/9: Presentations

 

FINAL PAPER DUE: 12/16

Digital media syllabus

This afternoon, I teach my first installment of Topics in Digital Media, a masters-level course in my department at NYU. I think I've got a pretty bangin' syllabus, but I'd love your feedback on it, too. I may be podcasting, haven't decided yet.

September 4: Introduction

I. Visions of the Digital Future

September 11: Utopia

• Bush, V. (1945).      As we may think. The Atlantic.
• Nelson,      T. (1974). Computer lib/dream machines. [excerpt]
• Rifkin, J. (1995). A      view of the future. Utne Reader.
• Negroponte, N. (1996). Being Digital, Part 3 [pp.      163-233]

September 18: Dystopia

• Borges,      J. L. (1941). The library of Babel.
• Baudrillard,      J. (1988). Simulation and Simulacra [excerpt]
• Slouka,      M. (1996). War of the worlds. [chap 1]
• Brin, D. (1998). The      transparent society.

II. Hackers and Gamers

September 25:

• Thomas,      D. Hacker Culture

October 2:

Guest speaker: Biella Coleman

• Coleman &      Golub (2008). Hacker practice: Moral genres and the cultural      articulation of liberalism
• Stallman, R. GNU manifesto
• Kelty,      C. (2008). Inventing copyleft.
• 2600      editorial tk

October 9:

• Turkle,      S. (1984). Video Games and Computer Holding Power
• Doctorow, C.      (2004) Anda’s Game
• Dibbell,      J. (2008). Mutilated      Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of      the Virtual World. Wired.
• Pendragon,      H. (2008) Griefers:      Why Dibbell’s Wired Article Was 1-Sided.

III. dot-com and Web 2.0

October 16: Dot-com and the “new” economy

Guest speaker: Gene DeRose (tentative)

• Dyson, E.      (1995). Intellectual value. Wired.
• Sinnreich, A. (2001). Remixing the Distribution Chain      for Digital Music. Jupiter Research.
• Meeker,      M. (1995). The Internet Report. Morgan      Stanley. [Read part 1. The      rest is skimmable].     
• CNET, Top 10      dot-com flops

October 23: Social Networks and Web 2.0

Movie: Startup.com

• O’Reilly,      T. (2005). What is Web 2.0?
• Anderson, C.      (2004). The Long Tail. Wired.
• Schiff,      S. (2006). Know it all. The New Yorker.
• boyd, d.      (2007). Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.

IV. Governance and Policy

October 30: Content

• Lessig, L. (2004). Free      Culture.

November 6: Acccess and privacy

Guest speaker: Andrew Rasiej (tentative)

• Wu, T. (2005).      Network neutrality, broadband discrimination.
• Cohen,      E. (2008). The end of privacy. Truthdig.
• Ginsburg, F. (2005). Rethinking the digital age.

V. Mixing and Mashing

November 13:

• Jenkins,      H. (2006). Convergence Culture

November 20:

• Sinnreich,      A. (2007). Configurable Culture

November 27: THANKSGIVING

December 4: Presentations

December 11: Presentations

December 15: Final Paper Due

Readings on Deck

Now that I'm past the quals process and still reading new stuff basically for the purpose of procrastination (that ole dissertation's a-callin'), the old reading list post needs a companion. So I guess I'll just call this post "Readings on Deck" and update it whenever I add new stuff to it. Right now the deck includes:

• Galloway, Alexander. (2004). Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. MIT Press.
• Cook, Nicholas. (2000). Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. (Thanks to Steve Savage for the recommendation)
• Raymond, Eric (2001). The Cathedral & the Bazaar. O'Reilly.
• Chang, J. (2005). Can't Stop Won't Stop. St. Martin's Press.

 

Reading list

Danah alerted me to the fact that I haven't posted my reading list. Here it is. As you can see, the notes on this site represent a (too) small subset of the total list. But, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm mostly posting notes on the stuff I had no prior familiarity with.

READING LISTS

1. Network Society and Communication Policy

BOOKS

Arquilla, J. & Rondfeldt, D. (2000). Swarming and the Future of Conflict. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

Bagdikian, B. H. (2004). The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon.

Barabasi, A.-L. (2002). Linked.

Bell, D. (1999). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (Special Anniversary Edition). New York: Basic Books.

Bollier, D. (2005). Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Burt, R. (1992). Structural Holes

Castells, M. (2000). The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

Gitlin, T. (1980). The Whole World is Watching.

Lessig, L. (2004). Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New York: Penguin

McChesney, R. W. (2004). The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21^st Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.

NcNeill & McNeill. (2002). The Human Web: A Birdseye View of History

Monge, P. R., & Contractor, N. S. (2003). Theories of communication networks. New York: Oxford University Press.

Vaidhyanathan, S. (2001). Copyrights and Copywrongs. New York: New York University Press.

Wasserman & Faust. Social Network Analysis.

Watts, D. (2003) Six Degrees.

ARTICLES/CHAPTERS

Boyle, J. (2003). The second enclosure movement and the construction of the public domain. Law and Contemporary Problems, 66(1), 33-74.

Coase , R. H. (1979). Payola in radio and television broadcasting. The Journal of Law & Economics, 22(2), 269-328.

Costonis, J. J. (1982). Law and aesthetics: A critique and a reformulation of the dilemmas. Michigan Law Review, 80, 355-??.

DiCola, P., & Thomson, K. (2002). Radio deregulation: has it served citizens and musicians? Washington, D.C.: Future of Music Coalition.

Duff, A. S. (2002). The status of information society studies in the information science curriculum. Library Review, 51(3/4), 139-148.

Flanagin, A., & Metzger, M. (2001). Internet use in the contemporary media environment. Human Communication Research, 27(1), 153-181.

Giddens , A. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. (introduction).

Granovetter (1985). Article on embeddedness.

Haythornewaite, C. (2001). Introduction to the Internet in everyday life. American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 363-382.

Jung, J.-Y., Qiu, J. L., & Kim, Y.-C. (2001). Internet connectedness and inequality: Beyond the "divide". Communication Research, 28(4), 507-535.

Katunich, L. J. (2002). Time to quit paying the payola piper: why music industry abuse demands a complete system overhaul. Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, 22, 643-685.

Katz, J. E., Rice, R. E., & Aspden, P. (2001). The Internet, 1995-2000: Access, civic involvement, and social interaction. The American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), 405-419

Powell, W. W., White, D. R., Koput, K. W., & Owen-Smith, J. (forthcoming) Network dynamics and field evolution: the growth of interorganizational collaboration in the life sciences.

Robinson , L., & Halle, D. (2002). Digitization, the Internet, and the arts: eBay, Napster, SAG, and e-Books. Qualitative Sociology, 25(3), 359-383.

Watts, D. J. & Strogatz, S. H. (1998). Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature, 393, 440-442.

Watts, D. J. (1999). Networks, dynamics, and the small-world phenomenon. The American Journal of Sociology, 105(2), 493-527

Williams, R., & Edge, D. (1996). The social shaping of technology. Research Policy, 25, 856-899.

2. Cultural Studies

BOOKS

Barthes, R. (1977) Image, Music, Text (Stephen Heath, Ed. and trans.). New York: Hill

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish

Frank, T. & Weiland, M. (Eds.) (1997). Commodify your dissent: salvos from the Baffler.  New York: Norton.

Frank, T. (tk). The Conquest of Cool.

Goodwin, Andrew. Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture.

Grossberg, L. (1992.) We Gotta Get Out of This Place.

Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: the meaning of style. New York: Methuen.

Hebdige, D. (1987). Cut 'n' mix: cultural identity and Caribbean music. London: Comedia.

Lasn, K. (1999). Culture Jam.

Lochhead, J., & Auner, J. (Eds.). (2002). Postmodern music, postmodern thought. New York: Routledge.

Morley, D. (2000). Home Territories: Media, Mobility, and Identity. London: Routledge.

Morley, D. & Chen, K.-H. (1996). Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.

Moten, F. (2003) In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Neal, M. A. (1999). What the music said: Black popular music and Black public culture. New York: Routledge.

Radway, J. (1991). Reading the Romance.

ARTICLES/CHAPTERS

Adorno, T. W. (1998). On popular music. In J. Storey (Ed.), Cultural theory & popular culture: A reader (2^nd ed.) (pp. 197-209). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Althusser , L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses.

Anderson, A. (1998). Cosmopolitanism, universalism, and the divided legacies of modernity. In Cosmopolitics.

Benjamin, W. (1968). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In Illuminations. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Bernard-Donals, M. (1994). Jazz, rock ’n’ roll, rap and politics. Journal of Popular Culture, 28(2), 127–138.

De Certeau, M. (1984). Reading as poaching. In The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Grossberg, L. Another boring day in paradise: rock and roll and the empowerment of everyday life. In K. Gelder and S. Thornton (Eds.), The Subcultures Reader.

Haraway, D. J. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women.

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual Poachers. (introduction and first chapter)

Lipsitz, G. Cruising around the historical bloc: postmodern and popular music in East Los Angeles. In K. Gelder and S. Thornton (Eds.), The Subcultures Reader.

Lott, E. (1993). Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford (Intro and 2^nd chapter).

Neale , S. (1990). Questions of genre. Screen, 31(1), 45-66.

Stapleton, K. R. (1998). From the margins to mainstream: the political power of hip-hop. Media, Culture & Society, 20, 219–234.

Straw, W. Communities and scenes in popular music. In K. Gelder and S. Thornton (Eds.), The Subcultures Reader.

Williams, R. (1958). Culture is ordinary. In N. McKenzie, ed., Conviction, pp. 74-92.

Williams, R. (1983). Cambridge English, past and present. In Writing in Society. London: Verso.

Wooley, C. A. (2002). Visible fandom: reading the X-files through X-philes. Journal of Film and Video, 53(4), Arts Module, 29.

Yates, J., & Orlikowski, W. (2002). Genre systems: structuring interaction through communicative norms. Journal of Business Communication, 39(1), 13-35.

3. Art, Communication and Aesthetic Theory

BOOKS

Baxandall, M. (1972). Painting and Experience in 15^th Century Italy.

Becker, H. (1982). Art Worlds.

Berger, J. Ways of Seeing.

Blacking, J (1974). How Musical Is Man?

Caves, R. E. (2002) Creative Industries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Dewey, J. (1934/1958). Art as experience. New York: Capricorn Books.

Green, L. (2002). How Popular Musicians Learn.

Herrigel, E. (1953). Zen in the Art of Archery.

Johnson, J. (2002). Who Needs Classical Music?

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media.

Meyer, L. B. (1961). Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Moles, A. (1966). Information Theory and Esthetic Perception.

Penley , C. (1997). Nasa/Trek. New York: Verso.

Polyani, M. (1967). The Tacit Dimension.

Stebbins, R. A. (1992). Amateurs, Professionals, and Serious Leisure.

ARTICLES/CHAPTERS

Aucouturier, J.-J., & Pachet, F. (2003). Representing musical genre: a state of the art. Journal of New Music Research, 32(1), 83-93.

Cross, I. (2001). Music, cognition, culture and evolution. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930, 28-42.

Dawkins, R. (1989). Memes: the new replicators. In The Selfish Gene.

de Jager, H.(1972). Some sociological remarks on innovation in music. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 3(2), 252-258.

Dowd, T. J. (2004). Concentration and diversity revisited: production logics and the U.S. mainstream recording market, 1940-1990. Social Forces, 82(4), 1411-1455.

Greenberg, C. (1965). Modernist painting. Art & Literature, 4.

Gross, L. (1995). Art and artists on the margin. In L. Gross, ed., On the Margins of Art Worlds.

Gross, L. (1973). Art as the communication of competence. Social Science Information, 12.

Lopes, P. D. (1992). Innovation and diversity in the popular music industry, 1969 to 1990. American Sociological Review, 57(1), 56-71.

Jensen, J. (2001). Art, the public, and Deweyan cultural criticism. In D. K. Perry (Ed.), American pragmatism

Kosuth, J. (1969, October). Art after philosophy. Studio International, p. 20.

Krauss, R. (1973, November). Sense and sensibility. Artforum, p.48

Krauss, R. (1985). Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge: MIT Press

Newberg, A. B. & d’Aquili, E. G. (2000). The creative brain / the creative mind. Zygon, 35(1), 53-68.

Perrot , D., & Gjerdigen, R. O. (1999). Scanning the dial: An exploration of factors in the identification of musical style. Paper presented at the Society for Music Perception and Cognition.

Peterson, R. A. & Berger, D. B. (1975). Cycles in symbol production: the case of popular music. American Sociological Review, 40, 158-173.

Pollock, G. (1980). Artists mythologies and media genius: madness and art history. Screen, 21(3), 57-96.

Rothstein , E. Who shot the piano player? The New Republic.

Saunders, W. (1993). Making art making artists. Art in America.

Slonimsky, N. (1965). Non-acceptance of the familiar. In A Lexicon of Musical Invective.

Williams G., Brown, K. & Alexander, P. (2002). Radio market structure and music diversity. FCC staff research paper retrieved December 10, 2004 from http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-226838A18.pdf

4. Musicology

BOOKS

Adorno & Horkheimer (1972). The Dialectic of the Enlightenment. New York: Herder and Herder.

Attali, J. (1985). Noise: The Political Economy of Music (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1977)

Frith, S. (1996). Performing Rites.

Gendron, B. (2002). Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club.

Gracyk, T. (1996) Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock. Durham: Duke University Press..

Lipsitz, G. (?). Dangerous Crossroads.

McClary, S. (1991). Feminine Endings.

Rose, T. (1994). Black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary America. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press.

Taylor, T. Strange Sounds .

Thornton, S. Club Cultures .

ARTICLES/CHAPTERS

Adorno, T. W. (1941). On popular music. Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9(1), 17-48.

Auner, J. (2003). Sing it for me: Posthuman ventriloquism in recent popular music. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128, 98-122.

Cateforis, T. Performing the Avant-Garde Groove: Devo and the Whiteness of the New Wave. American Music, 22(4), 564-588.

Kronengold, C. (2000). Identity, value and the work of genre: Black action films. In The Seventies: The Age of Glitter in Popular Culture. (S. Waldrep, Ed.)., pp. 79-124. New York: Routledge.

Paddison, M. (1982). The critique criticized: Adorno and popular music. Popular Music, 2, 201-218.

Walser, R. (1997). Eruptions: heavy metal appropriations of classical virtuosity. In K. Gelder & S. Thornton (eds.), The Subcultures Reader, pp. 459-70. London: Routlege.

Wicke, P. (1982). Rock music: a musical-aesthetic study. Popular Music, 2, 219-243.