The Annenberg School for Communication
University of Southern California
Summer Term 2002 (15 May - 25 June 2002)
| Instructor: | Bill Dutton, Professor |
| Telephone: | (213) 740-2759 or tel/fax (310) 379-9250 |
| E-mail: | wdutton@usc.edu |
| Web: | http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~wdutton |
| Seminar: | Tues and Thur, 6:00-10:00 pm in THH 110 |
| Office: | Tues and Thus, 5.00-6.00 pm in ASC 301B |
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have developed rapidly over the last several decades. However, the explosion of the Internet and Web along with wireless media has brought this revolution to the attention of the public-at-large. This unprecedented diffusion of new ICTs within the communication industry itself, but also across every other institutional sector, has generated great enthusiasm, but also more debate over their long-term social and economic implications. Proponents contend that technological change will result in dramatic benefits for society as a whole, while critics argue that people fail to employ ICTs in ways that improve their effectiveness, whether it be achieving productivity or enhancing democratic control. The strongest critics claim that technological change has increased threats to such basic values as community, anonymity, privacy, and equality.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
This course provides students with an understanding of how social factors shape technical change in ICTs, as well as their societal implications. Students will be introduced to theoretical perspectives on technology and society that they can use to think critically about the adoption and design -- not only the impact -- of ICTs in social, governmental, educational and business settings. In addition, the course aims to:
REQUIREMENTS
Grades will be based on a book review, term paper, its oral presentation and regular contributions to seminar discussions, weighted in the following manner:
Book Review: 20 points
Term paper proposal: 10
Term paper: 50
Presentation: 10
Discussion: 10
TOTAL: 100 points
Students must be awarded 90 points for an A, 80 for a B, and 70 for a grade of C.
1. Book Review. I would like you to review and critically assess The Lexus and teh Olive Tree (Friedman, 1999, 2000) or Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our Lives (Giddens, 2000). You may compare and contrast these two books, or compare one with other popular books that deal with the role of new ICTs in the globalization of society -- one theme of this course. Whatever book(s) you choose, focus on how the author(s) think about the revolution in ICTs and its social implications. Your review should be written for a specific academic journal or trade publication, and should adhere to any guidelines on style or length that are provided by the editors. The review will be judged by its overall quality, and the degree to which it is informed by other readings and the discussion of this seminar. Your paper should be no more than 1,000 words, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins, and use 12-point font.
2. Term Paper. Your term paper should be from 4,000-5,000 words, including notes and references. It should be typed, double-spaced with one inch margins, 12-point font, and adhere to an accepted style, such as Harvard, American Psychological Association (APA), MLA, or K. L. Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. The papers will be presented in class, probably during the final session, and discussed from time to time throughout the term. Papers should focus on a specific ICT, such as the pager, the Internet, or wireless multimedia devices, a specific social setting, such as the office or household, or an issue, such as privacy, intellectual property or the digital divide.
The paper should draw from the readings and discussions of this course. It should also demonstrate that you can locate and critically assess historical and contemporary material about ICTs and their social implications. Interviews and personal observation are encouraged but not required. For example, you might look at the application of a particular technology in a real setting within the Los Angeles area. Generally, students are encouraged to move beyond pure desk research, based only on literature, or only using the Internet and Web. Get out from behind your computer screen and come face to face with experts, producers, users, or consumers to directly observe applications in your chosen area of study.
PhD Students: You should use a critical analysis of literature, meta-research, or original field research (even if only one user, or case) to further refine, elaborate, or extend theory and research on the social shaping and impacts of ICTs. You might try to respond to one of the two following program solicitations: a) the UK Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) e-Society programme proposal; or b) NSF's IT Research program on "People and Social Groups Interacting with Computers and Infrastructure". The paper could take the form of a proposal for research, or a submission to a journal in your field.
To insure that you start down a good path, you should turn in a one page proposal for your term paper by the 4 June class session.
3. Presentations. During our last class session, each student will present a brief oral presentation of their term paper, and respond to questions.
4. Discussion. Students should attend the seminar regularly and be prepared to discuss the assigned readings for each class period, participate in panels or other class presentations, and make constructive contributions to class discussions. From time to time, specific students will be assigned to kick-off discussion of particular readings, but all students are responsible for reading and discussing all assigned readings.
Academic Integrity
The Annenberg School for Communication is committed to upholding the University's Academic Integrity code as detailed in the SCampus Guide. It is the policy of the School of Communication to report all violations of the code. Any serious violation or pattern of violations of the Academic Integrity Code will result in the student's expulsion from the Communication major or minor. See section 11 of Scampus.
Students with Disabilities and Academic Accommodations
Students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP when adequate documentation in filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to Professor Dutton as early in the semester as possible. DSP is open Monday-Friday, 8:30-5:00. The office is in Student Union 301 and their phone number is (213) 740-0776. For additional information, see the Web page of the Disabilities Services Program in SCAMPUS.
Readings
Required Readings Available at USC Bookstores:
The following three books, which incorporate most of the required reading for this course, are available for purchase at the Pertusati University Bookstore:
Castells, Manuel (2001), The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).
Dutton, William H. (1999), Society on the Line: Information Politics in the Digital Age (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).
Further Recommended Readings:
Dutton (1999) includes an extensive bibliography, which can guide your further reading.
Also, a list of books related to social aspects of ICTs assembled for a doctoral course on this topic is available at: Selected Books on Communication Technology and Society
In addition, I draw a number of recommended readings from the following books, most of which should be available at the university libraries:
Castells, M. (2000, 1996), The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture: Volume I , Second Edition (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers).
Dutton, William H. (1996) (ed.), Information and Communication Technologies--Visions and Realities (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).
Friedman, Thomas L. (2000), The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (New York: Anchor Books).
Giddens, Anthony (2000), Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our Lives (London: Routledge).
Lievrouw, Leah and Livingstone, Sonia (2002) (eds), The Handbook of New Media (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
Selected Web Sites of Use to Students in this Course
Albert Teich, Director of Science and Policy Programs for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has created a Web site that complements the 8th edition of Technology and the Future Web site at: http://www.alteich.com
The UK's Virtual Society? Programme has compiled another Web site related well to this course. Also, a number of journals are online or have useful online resources. They include:
Information, Communication and Society (iCS) , with online resources
Journal of Computer Mediated Communication
The Social Science Computer Review
SCHEDULE & OUTLINE OF TOPICS AND READINGS
The seminar sessions will follow this schedule of topics, although the schedule may change to accommodate the availability of speakers and materials:
1. Introduction (16 May)
In order to influence policy and practice in a timely way, policy-makers, managers, and the general public require an understanding of the social implications of developments long before the technologies are in place. How can social scientists forecast or better help people think about the future of ICTs and their social implications?
Required Reading:
Survey Course Syllabus and Required Books
Read The Economic and Social Research Council's e-Society Programme
Supplementary Readings:
Dutton (1996): xx-xxv, 1-16.
2. Information, Technology, and Society: Competing Views (21 May)
We bring competing definitions of technology and its relationships to society into debates over the social and economic implications of the revolution in ICTs. Does technology drive social change? Does technology play a positive, negative, mixed, or essentially neutral role in social change?
We will kick off this topic with a guest speaker, Dr Rose Wagner, from Germany.
Rose will talk about talk on "Technology, State Control and Hacking Culture: Personal Computers in the Former German Democratic Republic". The former German Democratic Republic certainly understood the significance of computer technology but it had reservations about allowing personal computers to become part of everyday life. Computer enthusiasts in the GDR faced many restrictions; until the late 1980s individuals could hardly obtain personal computers, they were reserved for state agencies and industry and kept in settings where the socialist party could maintain control over their use; floppy disks were rationed, printers not available, and the telephone infrastructure was severely underdeveloped, as it was the case in all socialist countries.
Socialist leaders feared that ideas like Computer Liberation, Power to the People, Free Flow of Information, which were part of the American computer counterculture of the 1970s and also at the heart of the development of the personal computer, could be imported with the technology and would result in political and cultural ´contamination`. Personal computers were not as easy to control as mainframe computers and they could; given access to a printer; easily be turned into a printing machine for publishing forbidden and unwanted information. Socialist leaders were also afraid of the hacking culture which had evolved in the USA and which showed no respect for authorities and secrets but instead expressed a strong desire for the free flow of information and transparency.
The socialist leaders faced the dilemma of trying to keep up with the West technologically, while at the same time preserving their established modes of control of everyday-life and ruling out the formation of independent subcultural computer groups.
Required Readings:
Dutton (1999): 1-46.
Supplementary Reading:
Castells (2000): 1-76.
Miles, I., 'The Information Society' in Dutton (1996): 19-52.
3. Social Impacts: Reliance, Dependency, and Access (23 May)
Studies of the social impacts of ICTs have a long tradition, but are roundly criticized for not focusing attention on the social factors shaping the design and impact of technology. Notwithstanding this criticism, the case can be made that technologies, like ICTs, make a difference, such as by shaping patterns of reliance and dependency, globalization (Castells 1996), and tele-access (Dutton 1999). Are there biases to oral, written and electronic media of communication? Are electronic media inherently more democratic than older mass media of communication? We will look particularly at the biases attributed to ICTs.
These topics will be grounded in two topics to be discussed by our guest speaker, Koji Sato, from Japan. He will talk about tele-work and employment, as they are tied to the use of ICTs in the Japanese context.
Required Readings:
Dutton (1999): 47-78.
Castells (2001): pp. 1-9.
Recommended Readings:
Castells (2000): 77-162.
de Sola Pool, I. (1983), Technologies of Freedom (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press): 1-22.
McLuhan, M. (1964, 1994), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press): 3-21.
Winner, L., 'Do Artifacts Have Politics?', pp. 19-39 in Winner, L. (1986), The Whale and the Reactor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
4. The Social Shaping of Technology (SST) and the Study of ICTs (28 May)
To what degree are social and political outcomes designed into technology? Is policy embedded in technology? What factors shape their invention, design, development and diffusion? How can we study the shaping of technological change?
This discussion will be grounded in a case study of Internet connectivity, presented by Bill Dutton and Ildiko Kaposi from Hungary, possibly with help from Al Cooperband.
Required Readings:
Dutton (1999): 79-109.
Castells (2001): Chapter 1 and 2.
Supplementary Readings:
MacKenzie, D., and Wajcman, J. (1988) (eds), The Social Shaping of Technology. (Milton Keynes: Open Un. Press): 2-25.
Williams, and Edge, 'The Social Shaping of Technology' in Dutton (1996): 53-67.
Woolgar, S., 'Technologies as Cultural Artefacts' in Dutton (1996): 87-102.
6. a. Consumer Research b. Management (May 30)
Consumer Research: How do we know what consumers want?
I have invited an Annenberg alum, Dr. Jodi Gusek, a new media consultant, to speak with our class on this evening. Jodi has done research on Internet consumers, assessing their uses and interests in various types of content and tools, including: online games, local news and information, financial news and information, travel, e-commerce, the use of search engines, and online personal ads. Jodi is Executive Director for Research and Senior New Media Consultant for Frank N. Magid Associates. We will spend the first half of the class discussing this topic, and then turn to management.
Management: Productivity and Virtual Organizations
Are ICTs improving the productivity of organizations? Creating new kinds of organizations? Changing what organizations produce as well as how they do it?
Required Reading:
Dutton (1999): 113-40.
Castells (2001): Chapter 3.
Recommended Reading:
Castells, M. (2000): 163-215.
Freeman, C., 'Factory of the Future' in Dutton (1996): 123-41.
7. The Changing Nature of the Workplace: Who Does What and Where? (4 June)
As more interpersonal communication is mediated in networked organizations, how will the work, geography, and culture of the organization be reconfigured? Are particular cultures, genders, ages advantaged in the ICT intensive workplace?
Required Readings:
Dutton (1999): 141-69.
Castells (2001): Chapter 8.
Supplementary Readings:
Castells, M. (2000): 216-354.
Freeman, C., 'The Two-Edged Nature of Technological Change: Employment and Unemployment' in Dutton (1996): 19-36.
Goddard and Richardson, 'Why Geography Will Still Matter: What Jobs Go Where?' in Dutton (1996): 196-214.
Rochlin, G. 'Expert Operators and Critical Tasks' in Rochlin (1997), Trapped in the Net (Princeton Un. Press): 108-30.
8. E-Democracy: Digital Government and Cyberpolitics (6 June)
Visions of teledemocracy have been promoted since the 1960s, with each new media refreshing debate over the opportunities and threats posed by ICTs in the democratic process. What are the major developments of relevance to e-democracy in such areas as digital government, politics and elections, and the infrastructures of public access to information, public officials, services and technology?
Required Reading:
Dutton (1999): 173-202.
Castells (2001): Chapters 5 and 6.
Supplementary Reading:
Laudon, K. C. (1977), Communications Technology and Democratic Participation (New York and London: Praeger).
Becker, T. and Slaton, C. D. (2000), The Future of Teledemocracy (New York: Praeger Publishers).
Taylor et al., 'Innovation in Public Service Delivery' in Dutton (1999): 265-282.
9. Knowledge Access: Distance Education and Distributed Learning (11 June)
Education is perceived to be a key strategy for the development of an information society, as well as a major untapped market for the multimedia industry. Major initiatives to create digital libraries, wire schools for Internet access, and develop distance education and distributed learning opportunities in higher education could dramatically change who is educated where. What are the visions and realities in these arenas?
Required Reading:
Dutton (1999): 203-224.
Supplementary Reading:
Dutton, W. H., and Loader, B. D. (2000) (eds), 'New Media in Higher Education and Learning', a special issue of Information Communication and Society, Vol. 3, No. 4.
Gell and Cochrane, 'Learning and Education in an Information Society' in Dutton (1996): 249-263
NO CLASS SCHEDULED ON 13 JUNE
10. Everyday Life: Wiring Households, Communities, and Nations (18 June)
The diffusion and implications of ICTs in the household have become increasingly central with the explosion of interest in such new technologies as cable and satellite, cellular telephony, and the Internet. Retrospective looks at the telephone, videotex, and other innovations might be instructive for looking ahead at emerging ICTs. In light of many early failures, how can we explain the success of the Internet? Is the Internet isolating individuals or building communities?
Required Reading:
Dutton (1999): 225-256.
Castells (2001): Chapters 4 and 9.
Recommended for Further Reading:
Castells, M. (1996): 355-406.
de Sola Pool, I. (1977) (ed.), The Social Impact of the Telephone (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press): 1-9 and passim.
Hiltz, S. R., and Turoff, M. (1978), The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computers (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).
Silverstone, R., 'Future Imperfect: Information and Communication Technologies in Everyday Life' in Dutton (1996): 217-232.
11. The New Media: Competition, Concentration, Globalization? (20 June)
Institutional change within the communication industry is being widely forecast, usually with respect to its convergence around digital media that are inherently global in their reach. Will technical change bring made change to the communication industry? What has already occurred and what is on the horizon?
Required Readings:
Dutton (1999): 257-82.
Castells (2001): Chapter 7.
Recommended Readings:
Baer, W., 'Telecommunication Infrastructure Competition' in Dutton (1996): 353-370.
Castells, M. (2000): 407-509.
Dutton, W. H., Blumler, J. G., and Kraemer, K. L. (1987) (eds), Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications (Boston: G.K. Hall): 1-40.
Garnham, N., 'Constraints on Multimedia Convergence' in Dutton (1996): 103-119.
Noll, A. M. (1997), Highway of Dreams: A Critical View Along the Information Superhighway (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).
12. Governing ICTs: An Ecology of Policy Games (25 June)
ICT led industrial policy is being balanced with other policy goals in communication policy, and cultural policy. How to balance the push for economic development with other legitimate goals in an increasingly global context has become a central question for the policy community.
Required Reading:
Dutton (1999): 283-337.
Castells (2001): 275-282.
Recommended Readings:
Dutton, et al., 'The Politics of Information and Communication Policy' in Dutton (1996): 387-405.
Gillespie and Cornford, 'Telecommunication Infrastructures and Regional Development' in Dutton (1996): 335-351.
Gore, A., Jr. (1991), 'Infrastructure for the Global Village', Scientific American, 265 (Sept.): 108-11.
Kraemer and Dedrick, 'IT and Economic Development' in Dutton (1996):319-333.
12. Presentation of Papers (25 June)
TERM PAPERS DUE BY START OF CLASS SESSION ON 25 JUNE