This week in LIS 201 (week 1)

(Each week I'll copy the relevant section out of our syllabus as a reminder, OK?)

Week 1: Introduction to four information societies

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 03

Lecture meets this week at 11am in Humanities 2650 for 75 minutes.   Students are expected to attend all lectures and to take notes. Within 24 hours of each in-person lecture, I'll link a PDF version of any slides I showed in lecture to the lecture title. We may also experiment with lecture-capture technology to record the live lecture experience; if this works, I will provide links to those videos as well. Any student seen Facebooking, shopping, chatting, gaming, or otherwise multitasking with a distracting non-class activity in lecture will be asked to close their laptop — even if you are typing notes at the same time.

• Introduction to the course

READINGS TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

Buy your course reader from Student Print and read the articles below. Each week, you need to have your readings completed by the time you get to discussion section, in order to be able to discuss them with your TA and fellow students. We may quiz you on the readings as well. (Unsure how closely you should be reading these? The professor has posted twoannotated examples of readings, to show what he highlights when he reads through them.)

• Greg Downey, "Introduction: Communication meanings and social purposes," in Technology and Communication in American History (2011).

HOMEWORK TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

Just make sure to read through this web syllabus.

DISCUSSION SECTION MEETING

All discussion sections meet this week; consult your schedule.  Students are expected to attend all in-person discussion sections. If you are absent from section, you must email your TA within 24 hours of the missed section. If you are absent from two discussion sections in a row, you will receive a concerned email from the professor. After that we will refer your absence to the Office of the Dean of Students!

• Meet your TA and your fellow students in person! (Your TA may have you create a "table tent" to help everybody learn names.)
• Discuss the syllabus and grading.
• Your TA will assign you to specific weeks and readings for your prepared oral presentation and your written article critique. (You won't know when you'll be called upon to do your extemporaneous oral presentation.) These will all be listed on your section wiki (which you'll join next week).
• Discuss techniques for effective oral presentations.
• Discuss the oral presentation grading metric.
• Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

Nearly every weekend you will have online homework and writing.  This weekend, after your first section meeting, you'll learn how to use your discussion section weblog. 

• Please click here for a detailed weblog tutorial.
• You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• David Auerbach, "The stupidity of computers," n+1 (2012). 
• Andrew Chadwick, "Some conceptual tools," in Internet politics: States, citizens, and new communication technologies (2006). 
• Alfred D. Chandler jr., "The information age in historical perspective," in Alfred D. Chandler jr. and James W. Cortada, eds.,A nation transformed by information: How information has shaped the United States from colonial times to the present (2000). 
• Susan J. Douglas, "The turn within: The irony of technology in a globalized world," American Quarterly (2006). 
• Paul Edwards, "Infrastructure and modernity: Force, time, and social organization in the history of sociotechnical systems," in Thomas J. Misa et al. eds., Modernity and technology (2003). 
• Paul Edwards, "Thinking globally," A vast machine: Computer models, climate data, and the politics of global warming (2010), 1-25. 
• James Gleick, "After the flood," in The Information: A history, a theory, a flood (2011). 
• Adam Gopnik, "The Information: How the Internet gets inside us,"The New Yorker (2011-02-14). 
• Stephen Lubar, "Introduction," in Infoculture: The Smithsonian book of information age inventions (1993). 
• Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, "Introductory essay," inThe social shaping of technology, 2nd ed. (1999). 
• David E. Nye, "Critics of technology," in Carroll Pursell, ed.,A companion to American technology (2005). 
• Merritt Roe Smith, "Technological determinism in American culture," in Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, eds., Does technology drive history? The dilemma of technological determinism (1994). 
• Frank Webster, "What information society?" The Information Society (1994).
• Langdon Winner, "Do artifacts have politics?" (1986) in Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, eds., The social shaping of technology, 2nd ed. (1999).