Logistics

• Online texts
• Need to be on campus, in most cases
• Can download all at once
• Can do VPN http://lar.me/vpnconu
• Also coursepack volume, H–1132, library…
• References on Moodle

Work for the Course

• Contributions (degree of engagement, putting yourself in…)
• Reflection posts (working with material, sharing insight…)
• Activities (hands-on, put into practice…)
• Exams (define concepts, explain position, contrast terms…)

Podcasts

• CBC Spark: http://lar.me/1an
• The Broad Experience: http://lar.me/2–8
• Twit.tv network (This Week in Tech)
• 5by5.tv network
• Relay.fm network
• Tummelvision.tv
• Place de la toile: http://lar.me/1ao

Online History Activity

• Noticed Patterns?
• What has changed?
• Has society changed in sync?

Required Texts

• Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” Atlantic Monthly, 1945. http://lar.me/2z8
• Leiner, Barry M. et al. “A Brief History of the Internet.” ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 39, no. 5 (2009): 22. doi:10.1145/1629607.1629613. http://lar.me/2–9

Technology and Prospective

• War context
• Knowledge Management
  • Power of intellect
  • Shoulder of Giants
• Scale

End of an Era?

• Industrial Era
  • Productivity
  • Rationality
• Post-industrial
  • Hyperproductivity
  • Knowledge work (call centres…)
  • Information Overload
  • Getting Things Done (GTD) http://lar.me/2-a

Engineering mindset

• Human/machine
• Creativity
  • Sir Ken Robinson TED talk: http://lar.me/1av

Inspiration

• Douglas Engelbart
  • NYTimes.com http://lar.me/2z5
  • 1968 Demo http://lar.me/2z6
• Bret Victor
  • Inventing on Principle http://lar.me/cusec
  • “The Future of Programming” http://lar.me/2z7
• Apple Knowledge Navigator http://lar.me/2z9

Internet Infrastructure

• Plumbing
  • Commodity
  • Reliability
  • Scalability
  • Flow
• Information Technology
• Academics
  • Open publication
  • Vendors and inventors

Internet Infrastructure

• Beyond Web
• Finances
• Social aspect
  • Email
  • Community
• Political Aspect
  • Who decides?
    • “Core group of designers”
    • Global Inequalities

Sociology Crash Course

• WMDs: Weber, Marx, Durkheim http://lar.me/wmd
  • Symbolic Interactionism, Conflict Theory, Functionalism
  • Dialogue, Inequality, Stability
• Group, socialization, role, status…
• Power, control, conformity, norms, deviance
• Culture, subculture, counterculture
• Feminism as key

Cyberspace Precursors

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  • Ron Eglash on African fractals http://lar.me/281
• Charles Babbage
• Alan Turing
• Norbert Weiner 1948 “Cybernetics”
• J.C.R. Licklider 1962 “Intergalactic Computer Network”
• Vernor Vinge 1981 “Cyberspace”

The Macy Conference Core

• http://lar.me/2za
• Gregory Bateson
• Lawrence K. Frank
• Frank Fremont-Smith
• Margaret Mead
• Arturo Rosenblueth
• Warren McCulloch

The Macy Conference Attendees

• Lawrence Kubie
• Walter Pitts
• Paul Lazarsfeld
• John von Neumann
• Norbert Wiener
• Clyde Kluckhohn
• Roman Jakobson
• Claude Shannon

Macy Subconference

• Talcott Parsons
• Robert Merton

Online Exercise/Activity: Before and After

• Pick a topic related to social change in an online world (education, dating, labour, publishing, networking…).
• Find someone who lived through a transition to an online world.
• Ask that person about the change topic, describing a bit of the context for the course.
• Share a quick piece of insight from that interaction, not giving away any personal detail.

Required Texts

• Silver, David. “Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990–2000.” Web Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age. Oxford University Press, 2000. http://rccs.usfca.edu/intro.asp
• Turner, Fred. “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community.” Technology and Culture 46, no. 3 (2005): 485–512. doi:10.1353/tech.2005.0154. http://lar.me/2zb

Silver

Silver, David. “Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990–2000.” Web Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age. Oxford University Press, 2000. http://rccs.usfca.edu/intro.asp

Silver

• Three phases in Cyberculture studies
• Enthusiasm to critical thinking
• Frontier mentality (Web’s soul, “perpetual beta”, libertarianism…)
• Turner on “frontier” http://lar.me/2-b
• Globalization
• Conformity (norms)
• Gender
• Hypertext to UI/UX (HCI)

Turner

Turner, Fred. “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community.” Technology and Culture 46, no. 3 (2005): 485–512. doi:10.1353/tech.2005.0154. http://lar.me/2zb

Turner

• Counterculture
  • Peace
  • Community
  • Capitalism
• Howard Rheingold
  • Virtual Community

Stewart Brand

• Merry Pranksters (Magic Trip)
• Whole Earth Catalog
• The WELL
• Global Business Network (GBN)
• Long Now Foundation

Photo by Joe Mabel