Impact of New Information Resources: Multimedia and Networks

ILS 604, Winter 1996

Dr. Howard Besser
howardb@umich.edu
Office Hours: Fridays 11-12 and by appointment Note: No office hours on Feb 16

Readings
Assignments and Grading
Requirements
Working Groups

Examples from last year's class [W95] (taught at a distance)
Examples from other class versions (non-distance)
More details on assignments
Newspaper articles discussed in class

Follow up to discussion on cryptology

Information about HyperNews

As new technology makes the shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting more feasible, how will people get their news, culture, and other information? This course will examine past predictions (Goodbye Gutenberg), currently available services (Prodigy, America Online, San Francisco Chronicle's The Gate, Listservers and Newsgroups, Time Magazine, multimedia CD ROMs, etc.), and future delivery mechanisms (Media Lab's Newspaper of Future, movie delivery to the home, etc.).

Over the course of the semester we will try to track the shifting alliances between the networks, the telecommunications companies, newspapers, and the entertainment industry. We will focus our attention on a wide variety of aspects of the changing landscape: technological, public policy, indexing & access, marketing of services, social, cultural, etc.

We will examine the structure and interaction promoted by the various new information technologies. What kind of language and discourse are they composed of?

Though this course deals extensively with information technology, it is not a technical course. It is essentially a communications course that examines new multimedia and networking information systems from a variety of different social science perspectives: sociology, critical theory, public policy, communications theory, structuralism, political science, etc. Students will learn a lot about the new technologies and how they operate, but from the standpoint of a consumer, regulator, or social analyst rather than the standpoint of a technician.

In the past this course has been accompanied by a weekly lecture series where leading public figures and visionaries addressed the fundamental issues raised in class. We will have few guest lectures this term, but viewing of previous guest lectures may be assigned.

This is a graduate-level course that will present a wide range of material within the course of the semester. Because such a wide variety of perspectives will be presented, classroom time may not be devoted to delving deeply into all the perspectives offered. The insturctor expects that students will be motivated and self-directed, and will focus on and pursue the topics and perspectives that interest them the most. We will form working groups that will meet weekly to look at the material more intensively through a particular set of lenses (such as critical theory).

Readings

The closest thing we will have to a text will be Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information, edited by Jim Brook and Iain Boal, City Lights Books, 1995. In addition, readings will be selected from among the following. You will not be expected to read all of the following, but you will be exposed to ideas from all of these in class. In addition, the Working Groups will select readings appropriate to their focus and perspective.

• American Civil Liberties Union not yet online
• Anderson, Robert H. et. al. Universal Access to Email: Feasibility and Societal Implications (Rand study sponsored by Markle Foundation)
• Arbus, Steve. Free Expression, Copyright, and Democracy, links and talk given at UC Berkeley Ethics and the Internet 11/95 conference
• Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York : Noonday Press, c1972 (1990 printing).
• Benton Foundation. Communication Policy Project, (assorted public policy links)
• Besser, Howard. Assorted Papers
  • The Changing Role of Photographic Collections With the Advent of Digitization Discussion Paper for Working Group for Digital Image in Curatorial Practice, George Eastman House, June 4, 1994
  • The Information SuperHighway: Social and Cultural Impact Chapter from Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information, edited by Jim Brook and Iain Boal, City Lights Books, 1995
  • A Clash of Cultures on the Internet Op Ed piece appearing in San Francisco Chronicle August 25, 1994
  • Movies-on-demand May Significantly Change the Internet From the October 1994 ASIS Bulletin theme issue on Entertainment Technology and Information Services
  • The Information Highway must be a Two-Way Street: The Arts and Humanities Communities Cannot be merely Consumers Presentation to the Convergence Conference: Arts and Humanities and the NII
  • Elements of Consciousness, (unpublished excerpt from dissertation), Berkeley, 1988
• Besser, Howard. The Changing Museum, in Ching-chih Chen (ed), Information: The Transformation of Society (Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science), Medford, NJ: Learned Information, Inc, 1987, pages 14-19
• Besser, Howard. Poland: the making and unmaking of the news, Berkeley: Anti-Authoritarian Studies, 1983.
• Besser, Howard. Fast Forward: The Future of Moving Image Collections, in Gary Handman (ed), Video Collection Management and Development: A Multi-type Library Perspective, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994, pages 411-426
• Besser, Howard. Adding an Image Database to an Existing Library and Computer Environment: Design and Technical Considerations, in Susan Stone and Michael Buckland (eds.), Studies in Multimedia (Proceedings of the 1991 Mid-Year Meeting of the American Society for Information Science), Medford, NJ: Learned Information, Inc, 1992, pages 31-45
• Besser, Howard. Education as Marketplace, in Robert Muffoletto and Nancy Knupfer (eds), Computers in Education: Social, Political, and Historical Perspectives Cresskill, NY: Hampton Press, 1993, pages 37-69
• Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber, 1994.
• Brook, Jim and Iain Boal. Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995.
• Brand, Stewart. The Media Lab: inventing the future at MIT. New York: Penguin, 1988.
• Burnett, Ron. Critical Approaches to Cultural Studies
• Carlsson, Chris. Bad attitude: the Processed World anthology. New York : Verso, 1990.
• Copyright writings, assorted papers and pointers
• Coyle, Karen. assorted papers
• Debord, Guy. Society of the spectacle, Detroit : Black & Red, 1983.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation, various publications
• FC [Freedom Club?], Unabomber Manifesto (Time-Warner version) and other Unabomber information/writings
• Ethics and the Internet, readings from 11/95 conference
• Gibson, William. Neuromancer, New York: Ace Books, 1984.
• Intellectual Property
• New York Times online discussion of the future of newspapers.
• Poster, Mark. CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere, 1995
• Postman, Neil. Technopoly: the surrender of Culture to Technology, New York: Knopf, 1992.
• Kroker, Arthur and Michael A. Weinstein. Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class. New York: St. Martin's, 1994.
• Prichard, Peter. The making of McPaper: the inside story of USA today. Kansas City : Andrews, McMeel & Parker, 1987.
• Rezmierski, Virginia E. Ethics and Values Dilemmas in Use of Information Technology: Policy Implications for Institutions of Higher Learning, (class taught at University of Michigan)
• Ronell, Avital. The telephone book: technology--schizophrenia--electric speech, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
• Sclove, Richard E. Democracy and Technology, New York: Guilford Press, 1995.
• Sheff, David. Game Over: How Nintendo has enslaved your children, captured your dollars & zapped the competition & why it has Apple, Sony, & IBM running scared, New York: Random House,1993.
• Smith, Anthony. Goodbye, Gutenberg: the newspaper revolution of the 1980s, New York : Oxford University Press, 1980.
• Sterling, Bruce. Hacker Crackdown: Law and disorder on the electronic frontier, New York: Bantam, 1992.
• Twitchell, James B. Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture, New York: Columbia Univ Press, 1995. (publicity)
• Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
• Zerzan, John and Alice Carnes (eds). Questioning technology : tool, toy or tyrant?, Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1991.
• Economics of the New Information Infrastructure
  • Santos, Michael. The Internet and Privatization: A Critical Political Economy Perspective
  • Workshop on Internet Economics March 9-10, 1995 Research Program on Communications Policy; MIT Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development
  • Schickele, Sandra. The Economic Case for Public Subsidy of the Internet
• Additional readings from:
  • Important news articles to read for class
  • Howard's multimedia sites.
  • Index to multimedia resources.
  • Wired Magazine (you must submit personal demographic data in order to use the online version of this)
  • Mondo 2000 (magazine)
  • FringeWare Review Magazine

Assignments

Examine Multimedia Programs All students will examine at least one multimedia program. You may substitute a paper on another subject for your multimedia programs paper, but you must still examine a multimedia program and be prepared to discuss it in class. If interested in such a substitution, please discuss with instructor.

Viewings During the course of the semester, all students will watch at least two science fiction films and report back to the class (and/or discuss these within their focus groups):

• One film from the past (1950s or before) to examine whether past visions of future information technologies have come true:
  Metropolis (1927), *Things to Come (1936), Just Imagine (1930), *Wonderful World of Tomorrow (1939), Time Machine (1960), War of the Worlds (1953), Charleston (1927, Renoir), Transatlantic Tunnel (1935), *Woman in the Moon (Lang, 1929), Aelita (1924), *You Can't Get There From Here: Ephemeral Films 1946-60 (1987), To New Horizons: Ephemeral Films 1931-45 (1987), Fantastic Planet (1973)

• One modern film that contains visions of future information technologies:
  Emphasis on how collective memory/information will be handled, stored, destroyed: The Net (1995), Total Recall (1990), Rollerball (1975), *Farenheit 451 (1967), *1984 (1956, 1984), *Forbidden Planet (1956), Solaris (1972), Dreamscape (1984), Death Watch (1980), *Outer Limits (Robert Culp)

  Emphasis on how major aspects of society will change due to new information technologies: Johnny Mnemonic (1995), They Live (1988), Wild Palms (1993), Until the End of the World (1991), *Bladerunner (1982), Brazil (1985), Terminator (1984), *T-2 (1991)

  Examination of future societies and capabilities: The Jetsons (1990), *THX-1138 (1971), *Star Wars Trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983), *2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Born in Flames (1982), Tron (1982)

Course Requirements

• 10% Multimedia Programs (Short) Paper: Review a multimedia program and analyze it from at least one of the following perspectives: its language and structure, educational potential, user interface design, etc. Or you may design a multimedia program. Or you may plan for the set-up of a multimedia production center. With permission of instructor, you may substitute a paper on another topic.
  
• 40% Term Paper/Project: Do a term paper or project on some aspect covered in class. This may be a follow-up to one of your earlier exercises/papers/group discussions. Please check your proposed topic with the instructor before the middle of the semester.
  
• 50% Class and Working Group Participation: Includes class discussions, working groups, maintaining a group Web site, participation in online discussions, questions to outside speakers, interaction with other student presentations, short assignments, science fiction viewing reports, etc.

Working Groups

Students will divide into working groups to focus their studies during the course of the semester. The instructor expects that many individual and group projects will come out of these working groups. These groups will allow for more in-depth discussions from particular perspectives, and should be especially helpful in formulating ideas for the final projects. The groups will also periodically report back to the class as a whole to encourage a cross-fertilization of perspectives. Each group will consist of students from both campuses. Group members will hold weekly meetings, and will continue online discussions between meetings. From time to time, groups will be given class time for discussions.

Each group will start and manage its own Web site with summaries and pointers to relevant resources. The group will also manage an electronic communications forum to discuss relevant topics between face-to-face meetings. The group will choose thread names (subject headings) within the forum, periodically purge older messages, and perform all necessary management functions. Each forum will be open to students in other groups and (to a limited extent) to the general public.

The following is a sample list of groups likely to form, and the topics they are likely to discuss. Which of these are actually formed depends upon student interest, and some of these groups might be combined.

• Creative Arts -- Use of high technology and interactive media in the visual arts. Changing physical media (film to video to digital media) and distribution channels (theaters to the home) for media arts. The changing role of cultural institutions (such as museums) in an age of widespread digital distribution. Effects of a digital society on creativity (including writing).
• Virtual Communities -- How does one-way communication differ from two-way communication? Is there a difference in information produced for mass consumption from that produced as part of a helping community? How can computer networks be used to help bring people together who may not have met otherwise? What is the nature of new online communities which develop without any sense of "place"? How will commercialization of networked information affect virtual communities?
• Critical Theory -- Can information be a commodity? How can we extend an analysis of representation to computer-based communication? What is the changing nature of discourse in a mediated electronic environment? What is the relationship between communications, information, and technology? Is there an ideology to the information age? What is the likely result of the loss of community spaces (movie theaters, museums, and even department stores) that is likely to accompany the new "information age"? What is the likely impact of the disembodiment that will accompany virtual reality and its descendants? Is the attraction to cutting-edge technologies really a form of spectacle? How can we apply theories from Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Habermas, Debord, etc. to answer these and other questions arising from new information technology?
• Public Policy -- What is the government's role in relation to telecommunications and high technology? What kind of projects does (and should) the government fund? What are the effects of licensing the air waves as the distinction between television, telephones, and computers begins to blur? Can government regulation protect the public interest in the battles between newspapers, broadcasters, the cable companies, the telephone companies, computer companies and the entertainment industry? What are the issues around privacy raised by the new information technologies? What about the role of intellectual property? What issues are raised in the flow of information into developing countries? What are the pros and cons of privatizing the Internet? Should Internet access be free?
• Future of Publishing -- Will electronic books, online newspapers, and on-demand news (via phone, cable, or computer) become the major delivery systems for information? What are the technical, economic, social, and cultural issues involved in these coming into widespread use? How will these change the nature of publishing, and how will people use these published materials in new ways? What kind of legal and technical protections will be used for intellectual property and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? What are the ethical, preservation, and copyright issues around digital photography?
• Information Retrieval -- What are the issues in networked multimedia information retrieval? How can one find the desired information somewhere on the network? What does one need in order to find it (indexing, standards), retrieve it (coordinating stream data, bandwidth), find the correct portion of it (scene in a film or paragraph of text), play it (decompression, storage standards, user interface)? What are the issues involved in creating entities (such as knowbots) to search the networks for the information we need? How can we filter through large bodies of information, and what are the consequences of relying on filters?
• Media Views of New Technologies -- How does the contemporary mass media (television, newspapers, magazines) cover the Internet, electronic communication and related issues? What framing devices are used, and why do those frames shift between dist opian and utopian views? What is the interplay between the media and popular views (and which influences the other)? What spurs the development of magazines like Wired and Internet World?
• Digital Commerce -- What are the technical issues involved in buying and selling through electronic communication? Can online transactions be protected? What schemes will online vendors use to prevent reuse or misuse of the information they sell? Will these schemes pose onerous barriers to access to intellectual property? What are the advantages of giving some information away for free and charging for other information? Do online marketing schemes pose a threat to the culture and character of the Internet? How might online vendors capture data detailing what a user looks at and for how long? What kind of privacy issues are raised by the capture and use of this data?

Sample Class Subjects

Return to the Impact Fall 1996 Homepage