This course focuses on the social and cultural aspects of networked life through internet-related technologies (including computers, mobile devices, entertainment technologies, and emerging media forms). Theories and readings focus on the cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of internet use and design. Students taking the graduate version complete additional readings and assignments.

In this course you will do a great deal of reading, writing, and class discussion, perhaps more than you have done in most of your other courses at MIT. One challenge of the courses, and the structure of the deliverables, that you will practice mapping patterns between complex ideas, both within any given class and throughout the course of the term. Your writing may often be not only expository or analytical but also exploratory: you will begin to make sense of ideas through the process of trying to write them down. The same goes for the more conventionally 'technical' work done in the class which force you to grapple with the specifics of particular media forms.

The general thesis of the class can be stated as follows: there is often a tendency to see technical systems as 'purely' technical, designed and built by technical people for technical reasons. But technical systems are always in fact sociotechnical systems, i.e. mixed up with cultural, legal, economic, and political forces that shape the technical, even as the technical shapes them. The internet, in particular, is an artifact shaped not only by technical standards, but by the aspirations of its architects, and by the local and global communities that have adopted and reshaped it. In doing so, we will come to understand the Internet as a social artifact, the technical residue of human politics: a built thing that, like all built things, could have had alternative pasts, and still may have alternative futures.

Learning Outcomes

After taking this course you should:

be able to read, compare, analyze, synthesize, and discuss complex historical and contemporary readings (and other materials) from this domain
have developed a more nuanced understanding of how to think about 'culture' in the context of the Internet (as well as more generally)
feel capable of conducting meaningful, ethical, illuminating research into the social/cultural/historical aspects of past and present technologies

Exercises & Grading

15% weekly synthesis

all students must post a short (~500 words) response to discussion questions based on the week's readings to the private subreddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/NetworkCultures16/
these responses must be posted by 4:59PM ET on the Monday prior to the class for which they were assigned
the purpose of this exercise is to give you a space to process ideas; to engage your classmates in asynchronous discussion about those ideas; and to give your instructors a sense of what you're getting from the readings and how to make the most of the class discussion

15% midyear paper

you must write a short (8-10 page, precise specifications forthcoming) paper that will allow you to try out topics, theories, and methods
the purpose of this exercise is to give you practice with drafting a paper and making certain kinds of academic arguments; your instructors will work with you and give you careful, comprehensive feedback to make clear our expectations for the final paper

15% bot project

you must program a bot (Twitter or otherwise) that performs some social function, and write/present about it to the class (precise specifications forthcoming)
the purpose of this exercise is to give you hands-on experience in making a cultural artifact that both is a network and is also part of a network

35% final paper and presentation

you must write a final research paper exploring a question, topic, theme, or controversy within the domain of 'Network Cultures,' and present it to the class

10% class participation

we expect you to be thoughtful, engaged participants in class overall
the purpose of this exercise is probably obvious

10% attendance

we expect you to show up for every class. exceptions granted only for extenuating circumstances, and only in advance.
the purpose of this exercise is probably obvious

Information & Policies

Attendance

Attendance is mandatory; it is very important for both yourself and your classmates that you are present and participating. If you must miss the class, you must email us ahead of time so we can excuse the absence. Unexcused absences will have a significant negative impact on your participation grade.

Office Hours

It is very important to us that you do well in this class. We will do whatever is necessary to help make that happen.

In the year of our Harambe 2016, it has proven inefficient, and somewhat frustrating for all involved we think, to try and maintain standing office hours at MIT. However, should you ever want to meet, about anything, just email Chris and/or Alyssa (as appropriate) and we will do whatever we need to do to make the time to meet with you.

Use of Electronic Devices

We used to have a much more flexible approach to this. We thought it was foolish to ban computers in a class about the Internet. You are adults, you are investing a lot of money - and a lot of time - in this course. We're not into paternalism. But honestly, a lot of the web is addiction by design, and science suggests you can't multitask nearly as well as you think (as you're sure) you can.

So: to help you help yourselves, we're going to request that you keep your laptop lids mostly closed, most of the time (i.e., if you are not referencing something for the readings right then), and that you are only on your phones in an emergency. In return, we're going to do everything we can to make this class worth your full and undivided attention.

Accessibility

MIT values an inclusive environment. If you need a disability accommodation to access this course, please communicate with us early in the semester. If you have your accommodation letter, please meet with the faculty so that we can understand your needs and implement your approved accommodations. If you have not yet been approved for accommodations, please contact Student Disability Services at to learn about their procedures. We encourage you to do so early in the term to allow sufficient time for implementation of services/accommodations that you may need.

Academic Integrity & Group Work

You are allowed (and encouraged!) to discuss all aspects of the course with your fellow students, to get editorial feedback on your responses, and to get help on your research projects. However, we expect you to credit those who helped you by name, and that the work should still be substantively your own, even as it necessarily is inspired by and draws upon work done by people. Remember, the way that you research, construct, and cite your work is never neutral; you are always participating in to a tradition broader, and the question is how you do (or don't) understand and acknowledge it.

If you have any questions, you should review the Academic Integrity handbook at http://integrity.mit.edu or talk to the instructors.

Writing Assistance

The WCC at MIT (Writing and Communication Center) offers free one-on-one professional advice from experts in communication and rhetorical theory (MIT lecturers who all have advanced degrees and who are all are published scholars and writers). The WCC works with undergraduate students, graduate students, post-docs, faculty and staff members.

The WCC helps you strategize about all types of academic, creative, job-related, and professional writing as well as about all aspects of oral presentations (including practicing your presentations & designing slides). No matter what department or discipline you are in, we help you think your way more deeply into your topic, help you see new implications in your data, research and ideas. The WCC also helps with all English as Second Language issues, from writing and grammar to pronunciation and conversation practice, from understanding genre conventions to analyzing what particular journals require.

The WCC is located in Kendall Square (E39-115, 55 Hayward Street, around the corner from Cosi). To register with our online scheduler and to make appointments, go to https://mit.mywconline.com/. To access the WCC’s many pages of advice about writing and oral presentations, go to http://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/. The Center’s core hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.; evening hours vary by semester–check the online scheduler for up-to-date hours.

Legal Assistance

The BU/MIT Technology & Cyberlaw Clinic is a new legal service that helps MIT students confronting legal issues with their innovation-related academic and extracurricular activities. The clinic does not charge a fee for these services, and is staffed by law students at the Boston University School of Law. If you are engaging in research, experimentation, academic writing, or public discussion of work that you think may present a legal issue, please feel free to contact the clinic's director, Andy Sellars, at sellars@bu.edu or 617-358-7377. Walk-in office hours for the clinic will also be held throughout the year at locations across the MIT campus.

Course Schedule

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

Eisenhower

September 7th: Introduction to Network Cultures

Class will meet to meet each other. We (your instructors) will discuss the basics of the course: what you'll learn and how you'll learn it, overall pedagogy and teaching style, expectations, etc. We will also solicit advance information from you about things you think you especially want to get out of the course.

The only reading for today is the syllabus (this document, the one you are reading right now). We've put a lot of thought and effort into trying to make the outline, content, and format of the course as clear and useful as possible, so please tell us if anything isn't.

September 14th: Cultures of Networks, Networks of Culture

Donna Haraway observed that "Technology is not neutral. We're inside of what we make, and it's inside of us." In this class, which frames many of the topics we will discuss subsequently, we'll talk a bit about what the human aspects and values inside technology might be, how they are (or are not) inscribed, and how we can begin to see, trace, and describe the impact.

Readings:

Eveleth, "How Self-Tracking Apps Exclude Women," The Atlantic (2014)

Optional, for theoretical background: Situated Knowers, Stanford PLATO

Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?," Daedalus (1980)
Star, "The Ethnography of Infrastructure," American Behavioral Scientist (1999)
Seaver, "Knowing Algorithms," Media in Transition 8 (2013)
boyd & Crawford, "Critical Questions for Big Data," Information, Communication & Society (2012)

September 21st: Law and Borders in Cyberspace

Twenty years ago, John Perry Barlow, one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, declared the independence of cyberspace, as a separate place beholden to its own rules, laws, and norms. In this class, we'll discuss what has happened in the two decades since to complicate and/or contradict this utopian vision, and to understand how the Internet has been 'brought back to Earth' and subjected to a more terrestrial legality (even as it resists it).

Readings:

Garfinkel, "Welcome to Sealand. Now bugger off," WIRED (2000)
McLaughlin & Zuckerman, "Internet Architecture," Harvard BOLD (2003).
Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” EFF (1996)
Goldsmith & Wu, Who Controls the Internet? pp. 1-10; 10-27; 65-85 (2006)
Peterson, "Can a Facebook poster be punished if a friend finds it threatening?," in Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Legal Issues, ed. Katsh (2015).

September 28th: The Network Is Made Of People!

It is hard, when using the Internet, to see the other people using it with you. The 'user' (itself an awkward and dehumanizing term) is much harder to see and understand than the various technical agents that can be programmed, registered, and traced. Yet these systems interweave with the lives of humans in complex ways that resist simple narratives of cause and effect. In this class, we will discuss (some of the) uses to which everyday people put digital technologies.

Reading:

Schmidle, "Ten Borders," The New Yorker (2015)
boyd, It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens (2014), p. ix-xi, 25-28, 29-53, 77-99, 153-175

Optional, for methodological guidance: boyd, "Making Sense of Teen Life: Strategies for Capturing Ethnographic Data in a Networked Era," in Digital Research Confidential: The Secrets of Studying Behavior Online, forthcoming from MIT Press.

Gray, "Negotiating Identities/Queering Desires: Coming Out Online and the Remediation of the Coming-Out Story," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (2009)

October 5th: The Network Is Made By People!

Just as the experience of 'using' the Internet often obscures the people 'on the other end,' so too can it obscure the labor performed by humans to make everything work. Some of the behaviors that seem the most human are performed by algorithms, some of those that seem the most algorithmic are performed by humans. In this class, we'll review some of the labor that makes the Internet go, and how it can be seen or hidden.

You will also receive the specifications for the midterm paper project. Update: Here they are!

Readings:

Chen, "The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed," Wired (2014)
Irani, "Justice for Data Janitors," Public Books (2015)

Optional, for scholarly version of same: Irani, "The Cultural Work of Microwork," New Media & Society (2015)

Cheng, "Is Sharing Really Caring? A nuanced introduction to the peer economy" (2014)
Light, "When Computers Were Women," Technology and Culture (1999)
Latour, "The Sociology of a Door Closer," Social Problems (1988)

October 12th: Organizing Networks of Knowledge

"Even so, there’s enough information coming at us from all sides to leave us feeling overwhelmed, just as people in earlier ages felt smothered by what Leibniz called “that horrible mass of books that keeps on growing.” (NYT)

Changes to the means of publication doesn't only destabilize old ways of spreading information, but old ways of knowing what is true, too. Anxieties regarding a 'flood' of information are not new, but the specific challenges shift with the times and the media forms. In this class, we'll review some old ways that information was organized and verified, as well as some of our contemporary modes and challenges.

You will also be asked to provide midyear feedback on how you feel the class is going.

Readings:

Chen, "The Agency," New York Times (2015)
Blair & Stallybrass, "Mediating Information, 1450-1800," This Is Enlightenment
Gillespie, "Algorithmically recognizable: Santorum’s Google problem, and Google’s Santorum problem," Information, Communication, and Society (2016)
Grimmelmann, "Some Skepticism About Search Neutrality," in The Next Digital Decade (2010)

Optional, for literary analogue: Grimmelmann, "Information Policy for the Library of Babel," Journal of Business and Technology Law (2008)

Geiger, "Does Habermas Understand the Internet? The Algorithmic Construction of the Blogo/Public Sphere," gnovis (2009)

October 19th: Midyear Paper Presentations

Present on your midyear papers to the class.

October 26th: Algorithmic Cartographies (Guest Lecture by Nick Seaver)

Algorithms are often space machines. They produce, map, and navigate spaces with data—they find neighbors and trace paths, measure distances and identify clusters, whether or not the data their work on is geographical in origin. The production, mapping, and navigation of data spaces is consequential: for algorithms, maps are territories, providing the ground on which the epistemic edifices of big data are built, from which “insights” are drawn, and personalizations justified. Yet these spaces are malleable, constantly shifting with new data or design decisions. In this session, we’ll use the case of music recommendation to investigate the production of algorithmic space.

Recommender systems are typically built around a “similarity space,” in which items that are similar to each other are near each other. This makes recommendation a navigational task, locating users and items and then directing them to nearby items that they might enjoy. The word “like” in the familiar recommender syntax—“users like you liked items like this”—is understood as a spatial statement. Our task in this session is to investigate how these spaces are imagined and constructed. Are they parks minded by park rangers? Gardens or farms tended by gardeners and farmers? Or perhaps cities organized by urban planners? How might they be imagined differently?

Readings:

Pasick, "The magic that makes Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists so damn good," Quartz (2015)
McDonald, "How We Understand Music Genres.” The Echo Nest Blog (2013)

Also, try playing around with this

Ingold, "Up, Across, and Along," in Lines: A Brief History (2008)
de Certeau, "Spatial Stories," from The Practice of Everyday Life: (1984)
Gupta & Ferguson, "Beyond 'Culture': Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference," Cultural Anthropology (1992)
Modell, "Mapping the Music Genome," Media Fields Journal (2015)

November 2nd: The Social Role of Bots

'Bots,' broadly defined, are technical agents that do human-like work. But bots are also networks unto themselves: aggregate artifacts of dreams, resources, goals, visions, bugs, and other shaping influences. In this class, we will review the social role of bots, before sending you off to create a bot or bots of your own, with some guidance from your instructors.

Readings:

Strauss, "Congress Is Still Editing Wikipedia a Lot -- Here's How We Know," (2014); cf @congressedits and @MITEdits
Sinders, "Microsoft’s Tay is an Example of Bad Design," (2016)
Truitt, "Preternatural Machines," Aeon (2015)
Peterson, "I Like My Bots Like I Like My People: Weird, Mixed, Always Acting," in Production Cultures The Sequel!: Cultural Studies of Global Media Industries (2015)
Geiger, "The Lives of Bots," in Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader (2011)
Geiger, "Bots, bespoke code, and the materiality of software platforms," Information, Communication, and Society (2014)

More select Twitter bots to consider for their artistic/aesthetic/intellectual contributions:

Resources:

Darius Kazemi's guides to building Metaphor-a-Minute and SortingBot
My guides to making _ebooks style Markov bots: for ruby and iron.io
Joel McCoy's guides to making an _ebooks style bot and deploying it on heroku; see also his botomatic library for node-based bots
Dalton Hubble's guide to authenticating Twitter bots to your account

November 9th: Making & Sharing Social Bots

In this class, you will present the bot that you made over the course of the prior week. Since there are no readings for this week, please write a ~500 word response that describes what your bot does, what resources it relies upon, and what surprised you as you made it /as it operated. You should also link to your bot (if it operates online) or to some kind of documentation of what it does if it runs locally.

You will also receive the specifications for the final project and instructions for next week's pitches.

November 16th: Final Project Paper Pitches

If there is something you wish to know...my advice to you, my ingenious old friend, is: speak about it with the first acquaintance you encounter...[It is not] by skilful questioning she brings me to the crux of the matter, though that might often be the way to do it, I daresay. But because I do have some dim conception at the outset, one distantly related to what I’m looking for, if I boldly make a start with that, my mind, even as my speech proceeds, under the necessity of finding an end for that beginning, will shape my first confused idea into complete clarity so that, to my amazement, understanding is arrived at as the sentence ends.

Heinrich von Kleist, On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking (1805)

You will "pitch" your final paper idea to the class for feedback from your classmates. You should be prepared to present the thesis/hypothesis that you will be arguing/investigating in your final project, what you're thinking of drawing on for your literature, and to take constructive critique that will help shape your final paper. Expect ~5 minutes of pitch and 1-2 minutes of feedback.

The project deliverable is here.

November 23rd: No Class

No class on account of the holiday. Take some time to relax and recharge with your families, friends, and also your couch.

November 30th: Alyssa Talks Tumblr

Your teaching assistant Alyssa will discuss her ongoing CMS/W thesis research on tumblr. Readings TBA.

December 7th: A Network Cultures Cinema Spectacular

We will watch and discuss Tickled (spoilers!), a recent documentary nominally about online competitive endurance tickling videos and substantively about much more than that.

December 14th: Final Project Paper Presentations

Present your final projects to the class.