This document provides an overview of a 15-week course on social media. The course covers topics like the histories of the Internet and World Wide Web, social media and social isolation, participation on social media platforms, political activism online, requirements for participating in social media, and emerging issues. Students are expected to complete four research blog posts, participate in class discussions, do one presentation, and write a final paper. The course will examine case studies of various social media platforms and readings are assigned for each weekly topic.

1. Social Media
Trebor Scholz | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

2. http://www.kwasizabantu.com/summary/sermons/2006/eastberlincros.jpeg

3. www.victorianweb.org/.../london/98b.jpg

4. What You Need To Know About This Course
week 1 Histories of the Internet
week 2 Histories of the Internet and World Wide Web
week 3
Social Media, Cyber Clustering, and Social Isolation
week 4 Participation: Benefits, Numbers, and Quality
week 5 Quality. The Wisdom or Ineptitude of the Crowd
The Web 2.0 Ideology
week 7
week 6 Art and Social Media
Spring Break
week 8
Political Net Activism
week 9
What Does It Take To Participate?
Why Participate?
week 10
Got Ethics? Labor, Work, What?
week 11 week 14
The Power of Users
week 13 Net Neutrality
week 12 Near Future Scenarios
week 15
Presentations
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

6. What You Need To Know About This Course
week 1
Jan 26, 28
Introduce yourself: What did you do in the past 48 hours?
What is the value of discussion? Think of the worst group discussion you have ever
been involved in. What happened that made these discussions so unpleasant?
Conversely, think of the best discussions you have ever been involved in. What
made these conversations so satisfying? How would you like to be spoken to by
your peers? Together we formulate ground rules for discussion for the weeks to
come.
Repeated after-class questionnaires.
What exactly is meant by participation?
Required Reading (Wednesday):
Adrienne Russell, Mizuko Ito, Todd Richmond, Marc Tuters, quot;Culture: Media
Convergence and Networked Participation,quot;Kazys Varnelis, Networked Publics
(Cambridge: MIT, 2008) 43-76.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

7. Referral
Dating Social Search Social News
Tagging
Mobile Social
Media Sharing
IM
Social Bookmarking
Social Networking
Shopping/Auction
eference
Games/Virtua
Worlds
Blogging
Social Mapping p2p

8. Social Media in Plain English common craft
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE

9. http://socialmedia09.ning.com/

11. https://addons.mozilla.org/en‐US/Oirefox/addon/3615

13. Requirements
Four Research Blog Posts on Ning 35%
Feb 16 Research Blog Post #1
March 2 Research Blog Post #2
March 23 Research Blog Post #3
In-class Participation 25%
April 6 Research Blog Post #4
May 6 Final Paper
15%
One Presentation
Presentations will take place
throughout the semester.
25%
One Final Paper
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

15. Histories of the Internet
week 2
Feb 2, 4
Required Readings:
Raymond Williams, “Technology and Society,” Television (London: Routledge, 1990), 2-25.
Allen, Christopher. quot;Life With Alacrity: Tracing the Evolution of Social Software.quot;
Life With Alacrity. 13 Oct 2004. 12 Jul 2007
<http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/10/tracing_the_evo.html>.
Suggested Reading:
quot;History of the Internet.quot; the history of computing project. 19 Mar 2001. 17 Jul 2007
<http://www.thocp.net/reference/internet/internet1.htm>.
Kelly, Kevin. quot;Wired 13.08: We Are the Web.quot; Wired News . 1 Jan 2005. 26 Aug 2007
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html>.
Film Excerpts:
Excerpts from The Net (2003), Berkeley in the Sixties (1990), Commune (2005),
American Experience: The Summer of Love (2007), Media: Sputnik: Declassified (2007)
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

16. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Girl_listenin

18. http://www.japanorama.com/images/BBN_team_1969.gif

19. ARPANET
http://echo.gmu.edu/usenet/images/usenet.gif
http://www.sri.com/about/timeline/images/map.gi

22. Histories of the Internet and World Wide Web
week 3
Feb 9, 11
Required Readings:
Turner, Fred. quot;Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy .quot; Stanford. 1 Jan 2007. 26 Aug 2007
<http://www.stanford.edu/~fturner/Turner%20Tech%20&%20Culture%2046%203.pdf>
Suggested Reading:
Donath, Judith. quot;Sociable Media.quot; Sociable Media Group - MIT Media Lab. 15 Apr 2004. 9 Jul 2007
<http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/SociableMedia.encyclopedia.pdf>.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

24. www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/03/images/mosaic.6beta.jpg
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

25. Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

26. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Internet
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

28. Social Media, Cyber Clustering, and Social Isolation
week 4
Feb 18
Required Reading:
Ray Oldenburg, quot;The Character of Third Places,quot; Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place
(New York: Marlowe, 1999) 21-42.
John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, quot;Overload,quot; John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Born Digital
(New York: Basic Books, 2008) 185-208.
Case Studies:
Happy News, I'm Too Young For This! : A Place For Young Adults Affected By Cancer, You Grow Girl™,
DailyStrength, Catster, Utopics.ca (find your inner animal), Sprite’s Yard, 23Me
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

29. Social Media, Cyber Clustering, and Social Isolation
week 4
Feb 18
Suggested Reading:
Vedantam, Shankar. quot;Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says.quot; Washington Post 23 June 2006. 3 Jan. 2009
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201763_pf.html>.
Kellner, Douglas. quot;Habermas, the Public Sphere, and Democracy: A Critical Intervention.quot;
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. 1 Aug 2007. 26 Aug 2007
<http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/habermas.htm>.
Boeder, Piter. quot;Habermas' heritage.quot; First Monday. 21 Aug 2005. 26 Aug 2007
<http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_9/boeder/>.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

30. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Brueghel‐tower‐of‐babel.jpg

31. Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Social Media LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

32. Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Social Media LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

33. http://www.hamsterster.com/
http://www.hamsterster.com/
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

35. Participation: Benefits, Numbers
Quality. The Wisdom or Ineptitude of
week 5
the Crowd
Feb 23, 25
Monday:
•Who Cares? Social Media in Numbers. The Benefits.
Required Reading:
Rosen, Jay. quot;PressThink: The People Formerly Known as the Audience.quot; Department of Journalism
at New York University. 27 Jun 2006. 16 Jul 2007
<http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html>.
Wednesday:
•Quality. The Wisdom or Ineptitude of Internet Users
Required Reading:
Lanier, Jaron. quot;Edge; DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism By Jaron Lanier.quot;
Edge. 30 May 2006. 31 Jul 2007 <http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html>.
quot;Reactions to Digital Maoism. Many-to-Many:.quot; Many-to-Many:. 3 Feb 2006. 27 Jun 2007
<http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/06/07/reactions_to_digital_maoism.php>.
Case Studies:
Wikipedia, Twitter (conversational search), SETI@Home, The Health Commons, BBC SpringWatch,
Howtopedia, OpenCongress (Track bills, votes, senators, and representatives in the U.S. Congress), Citizen Science

36. http://www.Olickr.com/photos/pmendogni/2513798221/sizes/o/
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Social Media LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

37. Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

38. Colbert Report
http://www.colbertnation.com/the‐colbert‐report‐videos/81454/january‐29‐2007/the‐word‐‐‐wikilobbying

39. Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

40. www.faz.net/m/{536AA892‐A2A2‐40A9‐8860‐6DC11EC44D9D}Picture.jpg
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

42. The Web 2.0 Ideology
week 6
March 2, 4
Required Reading:
Judith Williamson, Consuming Passions (New York: Marion Bryars, 1998). 10-44.
O'Reilly, Tim. quot;O'Reilly -- What Is Web 2.0.quot; O'Reilly Network -- Developers' Hub. 30 Sep 2005. 9 Jul 2007
<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html>.
Cases:
Amazon MechanicalTurk, Facebook, MySpace
Suggested Reading:
Scharmen, Fred (2006, May). quot;You Must Be Logged In To Do That!quot; Yale Arch 752b
<http://www.sevensixfive.net/myspace/myspacetwopointoh.html>
quot;Web 2.0 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.quot; Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
9 Jul 2007. 9 Jul 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0>.
Barnes, Susan. quot;A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States.quot; First Monday. 1 Jan 2006. 26
Aug 2007 <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_9/barnes/index.html>.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

43. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/07/24/turks/story.jpg
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

44. altered based on: http://www.internetnews.com/img/2008/07/microsoft_squeeze_facebook.jpg

46. Art and Social Media
week 7
March 9, 11
Required Reading (the instructor will hand this out) :
Bishop, Claire. Introduction. in Participation (Documents of Contemporary Art). Cambridge, Massachusetts:
The MIT Press, 2006.
Case Studies:
Firefox Add-ons, Learning to Love You More, Mashups, DeviantArt, LonelyGirl15, KateModern, Swarmsketch,
Google Will at Itself, Blogumentaries
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

48. when my boyfriend came back from the war
http://myboyfriendcamebackfromth.ewar.ru/

49. http://www.vimeo.com/2177573
http://www.vimeo.com/2177573

50. Zefrank at Ted Talks
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ze_frank_s_nerdcore_comedy.html
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

52. Spring Break

53. Political Net Activism
week 8
March 23, 25
Required Reading:
Mark Andrejevic, quot;iPolitics,quot; Mark Andrejevic, iSpy Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era (Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 2007) 187-210.
Michael Y. Dartnell, quot;Insurgency Online as Global Witnessing The Web Activism of RAWA,quot; Michael Y. Dartnell,
Insurgency Online Web Activism and Global Conflict (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006) 46-72.
Case Studies:
Video Your Vote, Citizen Media (IndyMedia, OhMyNews), Meetup.com (H. Dean), Hello Garci, social media components
of Barack Obama’s campaign, Wikileaks, The Daily Show, Tunisian Prison Map, Bahrain Google Earth, Myspace LA
protest, Games for Change, Activist bloggers
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

54. www.littlesis.org
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

55. Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

57. What Does It Take To Participate?
week 9
March 30, April 1
Required Reading:
”The Internet and Youth Political Participation”
Kann, M. First Monday. 27 Jul 2007. 31 Jul 2007
<http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1977/1852>
Suggested Reading:
Warschauer, Mark. quot;Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide.quot; School of Information - University of Michigan:
The iSchool at Michigan. 31 July 2002. 03 Jan. 2009
<http://www.si.umich.edu/~rfrost/courses/SI110/readings/DigiDivide/Rethinking_Digital_Divide.pdf>.
Case Study:
One Laptop Per Child
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Social Media LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

59. Why Participate?
week 10
April 6, 8
Required Reading:
Gefen, David, and Catherine M. Ridings. quot;Virtual Community Attraction: Why People Hang Out Online.quot;
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 1 Nov 2004. 31 Jul 2007
<http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/ridings_gefen.html#s2>.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Social Media LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

62. Got Ethics? Labor, Work, What?
week 11
April 13, 15
Questions:
What are ethical standards on both, the side of the users and the corporate platform providers? Does
ethical behavior mean that we can’t have any more fun? How do the manifold activities of users on the
Web qualify as labor or work?
Required Reading:
Mark Andrejevic, quot;iMonitoring,quot; Mark Andrejevic, iSpy Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2007) 212-240.
Tiziana Terranova, quot;Free Labour,quot; Tiziana Terranova, Network Culture (London: Pluto Press, 2004) 72-96.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Social Media LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

63. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Patent1
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

67. The Power of Users
week 12
April 20, 22
Questions:
What are some core characteristics of today’s social media? How can networked publics
succeed? Between adaptation, negotiation, and all-out opposition- what are useful critical
approaches to meaningful social change?
Required Reading:
Gao, Michelle, and Erin Hayes. quot;Facebook rebellion! | Online Gargoyle.quot; University of Illinois. 12
Sept. 2006. 25 Jan. 2009
<http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/gargoyle/2006/09/facebook_rebellion_1.htm>.
Jill Walker Rettberg, quot;The Future of Weblogs,quot; Jill Walker Rettberg, Blogging
(Cambridge: Polity, 2008) 154-168.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

70. Near Future Scenarios
week 13
April 27, 29
Required Reading:
Kazys Varnelis, Anne Friedberg quot;Place: The Networking of Public Space,quot;Kazys Varnelis, Networked Publics
(Cambridge: Boston, 2008) 15-42.
Ray Oldenburg, quot;Toward Better Times and Places,quot; Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place
(New York: Marlowe, 1999) 285-312.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Social Media LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

71. images.townnews.com/nctimes.com/content/articles/2007/04/

74. Net Neutrality
week 14
May 4, 6
Final Essay Due
Film:
The Net at Risk. Dir. Bill Moyers. Perf. Bill Moyers. Moyers on America.
The Net at Risk. PBS. 18 Mar. 2007. 21 Jan. 2008
<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/index.html>.
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

77. Presentations
week 15
May 12, 14
Presentations
Write letters to successors
Write letters to successors
Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang | LCST 2031 A | Spring 2009

79. Trebor Scholz
scholzt@newschool.edu
The New School University
Twitter: trebors
Blog: http://www.collectivate.net/journalisms
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