Sociology 230: Internet and Society

Another thing that you guys might be interested in... Tomorrow afternoon, NPR's Talk of the Nation will be devoting a portion of the program to a discussion of MySpace. You can hear the show between 2 and 4 pm on WBFO or online after about 6 pm. I don't know if they'll be discussing MySpace during the 2:00 or the 3:00 hour, however.

ETA: All I needed to do to know what time it would be was to keep listening. The discussion of MySpace will take place during the 3 o'clock hour tomorrow afternoon.

This morning I pointed you to a CNN article about the latest Pew Internet & American Life Project report on "The Strength of Internet Ties." This is interesting and timely because it relates directly to our discussion last Thursday about the effects of the Internet on social ties. So there you have the various links in case you want to investigate either.

For Thursday, February 2, you should read:

• Kaiser, Scott. "Community Technology Centers and Bridging the Digital Divide." (BB)
• Nakamura, Lisa. "Interrogating the Digital Divide." (SO)
  

As you read, consider the following questions:

• Does the digital divide really exist?
• Does it matter? And why?

This will also be our first day of student-led discussion. You should expect the discussion to focus on the Nakamura article.

For Tuesday, January 31, you should read the following (all of which are available on Blackboard):

• Pew Internet & American Life Project.,"Digital Divisions."
• Kang et al., "Internet Skeptics: An Analysis of Intermittent Users and Net Dropouts."
• Lenhart & Horrigan, "Re-Visualizing the Digital Divide as a Digital Spectrum."
  

You should post a response to these readings by 10 pm Monday. In your response, I want you to reflect on if and how the digital divide has impacted your own life. If it has not, please reflect on what advantages your connectedness has given you.

As I said in class today, I'm grading your responses to the readings out of 10 points. Each individual response is worth 1% of your final grade. So far, I've given out a bunch of 10's, and a handful each of 9's and 8's.

• Papers that receive a "10" address the questions I asked by illustrating the writer's impressions of the assigned readings. They are of an adequate length and have no glaring grammatical/spelling errors.
• Papers that receive a "9" include a fair quantity of regurgitation of the readings (remember, I've read the same articles that I asked you to read - I know what they say!) along with the writer's own opinion, and may be a little too short or have a number of grammatical/spelling errors.
• Papers that receive an "8" are entirely a summary of the readings, are probably too short, and may have a number of grammatical/spelling errors.

I haven't given any grades below an "8" yet - they would have to be woefully too short, incomprehensible, or not at all related to the assigned readings.

There's really no reason why these responses shouldn't be 10% of your final grade that's a complete "gimme." Remember, I'll be dropping the three lowest response scores when I calculate final grades.

Since many of you are still working out the kinks with 'blogger, I've decided to extend the deadline for this first reading response. Your responses to today's readings are now due at 9 am on Wednesday, January 25th. This should give us enough time to sort out the last of the technical difficulties and get all of you 'blogging smoothly.

NOTE THAT THIS EXTENSION APPLIES ONLY TO THE 'BLOG RESPONSE FOR TUESDAY, JANUARY 24TH!!!!!

Found this timeline of the history of the Internet and thought some of you might find it interesting. It's obviously not definitive, but it does give a good idea of when things happened and how fast they happened in the early days of computer networking.

For Thursday, January 26, you should read the following two articles, both available on Blackboard:

• Haythornthwaite & Wellman. "The Internet in Everyday Life: An Introduction"
  This article is the editors' introduction to their larger edited volume of the same title.
• Nie & Erbring. "Internet and Society: A Preliminary Report."
  These authors ask what effects Internet use has on society as a whole.

After you read the Nie & Erbring article, please take the short (3-question) survey that appears at the end of the article and bring your answers to class with you.

For fun, you might also want to take a look at the two chapters of Don Tapscott's Growing Up Digital that are on Blackboard - I think you'll find it a pretty good portrait of today's college students (keeping in mind that it was published in the mid-nineties).

All right, guys, the first iteration of the course 'blogroll is now in the sidebar. I'm going to send out an all-class e-mail about this, but I'll say it here, too:

If you haven't sent me the link for your 'blog, you need to do so as soon as possible! If I don't know what your URL is, I can't grade your reading response for Tuesday! See, it really is in your best interests to get it to me.

There were a couple of you whose links didn't work, and I've let you know that. Please make sure you send me the correct link in time!

By 5 pm on Friday, January 20, you should set up your course 'blog and e-mail me its URL for inclusion in the course blogroll. You should also make a brief introductory post to your new 'blog.

A note about the "tone" of your 'blog posts:
Despite their online nature, your reading responses ARE formal academic writing, and should be treated as such. Online writing does not have to be sloppy writing; online writing does not have to be grammatically incorrect writing. In short, your academic writing online will be held to the same standards as your academic writing offline. You should proofread your responses before posting them. If this means that you need to compose your responses offline and then copy-and-paste them to your 'blog, then that's what you should do. My rule of thumb for grammar and spelling in response papers is as follows:

"If I have to read it more than once to understand it, you didn't say it."

You should compose your reading responses with this in mind.

For Tuesday, January 24, you should read the following two articles:

• Sterling, Bruce. "Short History of the Internet."
• Pew Internet & American Life Project. "Internet: The Mainstreaming of Online Life" (.pdf download, also available on BB)

You should post a response to these readings on your 'blog by 10 pm on Monday. In that response, I would like you to address one of the following questions:

• What is the Internet, anyway?
• In what ways is your Internet use typical, and in what ways is it atypical?

As I said in class today, I'm going to insist that each discussion-leading group have at least three people in it. When you guys signed up, however, we were left with two groups with fewer than three. Thus, I need one volunteer to join the group leading the February 2 discussion of "The Digital Divide", and two volunteers to join the group leading the February 9 discussion of "The Broadband Revolution."

If you'd be willing to change which session you signed up for, please e-mail me as soon as possible. If I don't get enough volunteers before class on Thursday, we'll take care of this during class.

For Thursday's class meeting, you should read Chapter 1 of Society Online by Philip Howard. The chapter title is "Embedded Media: Who We Know, What We Know, and Society Online." As you read this you should focus on the themes that he develops, and don't stress too much about the statistics - we'll talk about them in class.

You will NOT be expected to 'blog a response to this reading.

Welcome to Internet and Society! I'm really excited about teaching this class - it should be a lot of fun.

This 'blog is going to be your clearinghouse for course-related information. Any announements made in class will also be available here, including which readings will be required, changes to the syllabus, questions to be addressed in your reading responses, etc. I have comments enabled, so you can ask me questions via the 'blog if you feel like it - or you can always e-mail me.

On the right you'll find a set of course-related links. This will include the syllabus as well as links to your classmates' 'blogs. Since I will be asking you to read each others' weekly responses, you might want to consider setting up a Bloglines account to from which to access each others' postings - that's certainly what I'll be doing in order to read your responses!