The Internet as Paradigm

 

In this class session we will look at some of the ways in which the Internet is viewed as a paradigm of organization, change, knowledge and structure.

 

Assigned Readings

 

Lawrence Lessig, Code, version 2.0, chapters 1-6

 

Esther Dyson, George Gilder, Alvin Toffler, et. al., "Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age" at http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/futureinsights/fi1.2magnacarta.html.

 

"The Network Paradigm: Social Formations in the Age of Information," by Felix Stalder, The Information Society (a summary of Manuel Castell's trilogy, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (1996, 1997 and 1998).) At http://www.indiana.edu/~tisj/readers/full-text/14-4%20Stalder.html.

 

"Cyberspace is a Parallel World: A Metaphor Analysis," by James Q. Jacobs, 1999, at http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/metaphor.html.

 

"The Age of Social Transformation," by Peter Drucker, The Atlantic Monthly, November 1994. On E-res in PDF format.

 

Watch the "Read-It-For-Me" video summary and review of Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody:

 

 

Further, Optional Reading

 

 

Richard E. Sclove, Democracy and Technology, Guilford Press, 1995

 

Manual Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. I, 1996

 

Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. II, 1997

 

Manuel Castells, The End of the Millennium, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. III, 1998.

 

Doug Schuler and Peter Day, eds., Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civil Society in Cyberspace, MIT Press, 2004.

 

Cass Sunstein, republic.com, Princeton University Press, 2001.

 

Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Portfolio, 2006.

 

Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, 2008.