Malala vs. Miley

It seems that everywhere I go on the internet, every time I turn on the radio or walk past a television, someone, somewhere, is ranting about Miley Cyrus. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen my friends post pictures of Ms. Cyrus as a little girl on their Instagram...#whathappened. I see this and I laugh...don't people feel weird being nostalgic for someone else's childhood? Don't they realize that everyone grows, changes, and makes mistakes? But then, amidst the "open letters to Miley Cyrus" that seem to be surfacing left and right, some questioning, some humorous (see Sufjan Stevens, one of my favorite musicians, correct Miley's grammar in a blog post here), some majorly offensive and body-shaming, I wonder: is it better to pretend not to care, or more important to realize what a huge role celebrities, especially female celebrities, play in today's media? When so much air time is devoted to a single female-identified person, whether deliberately or not, it affects the way the public perceives women and how we talk about this person's actions reflects society's opinions as a whole. I think that the conversations circulating Miley Cyrus' recent personal revolution has stimulated some extremely important discourse about body politics, racism within the music industry, and how we react to women putting themselves in the public arena. During such a phenomenon, it would be easy to brush it aside as trivial banter about a pop star when there are more important things going on in the world...but I can't help but think that these so-called "important issues" are inherently connected to larger topics that can be brought up outside of the realm of E! News. For example, Malala Yousafzai, the 16 year old Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban because of her support for education for young women in her country, was recently interviewed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Malala's words are inspiring, intelligent, and full of hope for the future of women in Pakistan. Malala's words of fearlessness in the face of the violent, misogynistic world in which she lives definitely were heard around the world-her interview has nearly a million views on YouTube. It would be silly to say that people don't care about what Malala is saying to the people of America, Pakistan, and the rest of the world. Yet it should be noted that the video of Miley Cyrus' controversial performance at the 2013 Video Music Awards has reached over 3 million views. Should we be worried that an amazing, 16 year old Nobel Peace Prize nominee has gotten less airtime than a girl dancing on a stage to a song she probably didn't write herself? Or should the collective discourse that arises from both of these viral media sources be considered important, no matter what the focus is, because at least people are interacting, voicing their opinions, and showing that strong female figures are influential in our society? I think it is a tricky situation to be in, and though I don't think we should be concerning ourselves with pop music as much as we should human rights violations, everything in the information society is connected, and as consumers and citizens we need to recognize our duty to discern what is important, and to spread messages that will positively affect our society.


Jon Stewart interviews Malala: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f506lCk6Tos

On Miley Cyrus, slut-shaming, and cultural appropriation: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/08/26/miley-cyrus-sluttiness-is-the-least-of-our-problems/

Shutting Down the Internet

           When Achmed Maher started the revolution in Cairo through the Internet he exceeded the boundaries of what had already seemed possible on the Internet. Everyone knew that the Internet was beginning to allow for any individual to get his ideas out there, but did anyone ever imagine that it would so quickly allow for an individual, just your average citizen, to start a nation wide revolution? I believe that while people may have seen this as a possibility, not many people actually thought it would ever happen – but then it did, and the government shut down the Internet.

            This is what got to me, not the fact that a government could control their citizens Internet use, but the fact that someone out there, some technician, has the ability to just turn the internet off. Should individuals out there have this power? Should governments or businesses have this power? And if so, when could they and/or should they use it?

            After a quick Google News search of ‘internet’ I found a few articles to help explore these questions. The first article that popped up was Keep Your Mitts Off the Internet by Robert Miraldi which brought up the question of, ‘if someone is going to control the Internet who should it be? Big government or big business?’ At first glance I said government (and even after reading the article I still stick to this opinion) but to counter this idea Miraldi brings up the first amendment case. The Internet, like a newspaper or magazine, is a private equity “And the First Amendment guarantees that the government can't tell private people how they can speak…So, the government does not have the right to rule the Internet” (Miraldi). And so, at least in America, this is a clear cut answer that really cant be debated but it can still be questioned because while we may not like the idea of government ruling our Internet access, having a private company rule it is just as scary, if not more, because they have no restrictions at all on what they can take off and do to the Internet.

            The title of the next article began with Is Chine Spying on us through Broadband?... by Hugo Gye, and while the majority of the article was on a business deal between the Chinese company Huawei and Britain, part of it brings up the security issues currently surrounding the Internet. With this particular business transaction, accusations arose that if the deal went through then Huawei could monitor all British Citizens Internet use. Last year the US Congress even issued a report asking companies not to do business with Huawei because of the security problems. But what if one day a company does do business with them and something goes wrong, or just if any hacker took over control of the internet within the US – at that point who should be the one that makes the call on shutting down the internet to protect ourselves?

            These concerns of how the Internet should be run and who should control it are topics that need to be discussed and answered. The Internet is still relatively new and it is only going to get more and more powerful. While I believe it is good to have such a thing as net neutrality and allowing everyone to have an equal say, there are going to come points in the future where for whatever reason, be it people’s safety or a leak of important information, someone is going to need to have the power to take control over the internet and if need be shut it down in order to fix the problem – we just need to decide who that will be and how they should go about it.

Works Cited.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-miraldi/keep-your-mitts-off-the-internet_b_4100442.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2462881/George-Osborne-welcomes-Chinese-internet-giant-Huawei-UK-despite-security-fears.html

The Unsettled American Dream

After over two weeks of government shutdown, the U.S. Senate is still debating and working on forging a bipartisan deal to avoid treasury default and resume the depressed economy for hundreds of thousands blue-collar workers hired within the country (and also overseas by American corporations). Ironically, the lack of swift and effective moves from the federal government has generated many critiques and concerns among people who once came and stepped onto this land with their high hope of the glorious American dream. With all the debts and financial pressure build upon the nation’s administrative plan, it seems that the dream has been fading and replaced bit by bit by the uncertainty and fear of a malfunctioned and destructive economy swirling across the world. 

In the recent New York Times article, “Viewing U.S. in Fear and Dismay”, several reporters took a serious and certainly cautious view of the trembling Americanized world economy from through different locations including Mexico City, Moscow, Athens, Buenos Aires and Cairo. For people from other countries, their either voluntary or involuntary involvement in this international economic development seems to take them down hopelessly and follow the depressing path that the Greeks and many other Europeans once were and are still suffering with. Despite the serious economic situation and possible default it might causes, the fact that such a democratic bipartisan government fails to address the urgent need of its national and global responsibility is even more disturbing and disappointing to its people and trading and political partners. At this moment, the goal of achieving the American dream of equality, democracy and material prosperity is just far beyond reality for most investors who anxiously awaiting actions to be made.

 

This week in LIS 201 (week 7)

Week 7: Cyberspace and hypermedia

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15

• Films:  The Machine is (Changing) Us (Michael Wesch; 2009) and Revolution in Cairo (Frontline; 2011). 

READINGS TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• Martin Campbell-Kelly et al., "The Internet," in Computer: A History of the Information Machine, third edition (2014).
• Rebecca MacKinnon, "Networked authoritarianism," in Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (2012).

HOMEWORK TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• If it's your week to write a 500-word article critique, you must post this to your section blog before your section meets.
• If it's your week to give a speech, prepare and practice!  Otherwise, prepare for a possible extemporaneous speech response.

DISCUSSION MEETING

• First five minutes: Pop quiz? Maybe!
• Two student presentations (#9 and #10) on the readings (and two student extemporaneous responses).
• Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.
• Discuss tasks and strategies for writing assignment #2. (Rough draft due on wiki by start of next week's discussion.)
• Graded paper #1 handed back.
• Graded midterm #1 handed back.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This week you are going to explore some historical news databases.

• Pick a term relating to the modern information society — "world wide web" or "computer" or "cell phone" or "digital divide" or ... well, use your imagination. The only constraint is that you can't pick a term that one of your fellow sectionmates has used (so it is in your interest to do this assignment early!)
• Try to find the earliest journalistic use of this term in three different historical newspaper databases provided by ProQuest: the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times.
• Now take the same term and try to find its earliest use in three different scholarly article databases: ProQuest, Project Muse, andJStor.
• Write a brief post on your section blog about the ways in which your term was first used, and whether it still has the same meaning today.
• Visit another student's post and comment on what they found out about the term that they explored.
• You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Steve Coll, "The Internet: For better or for worse," New York Review of Books (2011-04-07). 
• Cory Doctorow, "When sysadmins ruled the earth," Baen's Universe (2006).
• Greg Downey, “Jumping contexts of space and time,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (April-June 2004). 
• Paul N. Edwards, "Y2K: Millennial reflections on computers as infrastructure," History and Technology 15 (1998). 
• Nathan L. Ensmenger, "Making programming masculine" (2008). 
• Gordon Graham, "The radically new and the merely novel: How transformative is the Internet?" in The Internet: A philosophical inquiry (1999). 
• Ed Krol, "How the Internet works" in The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog (1992).
• Jennifer Light, "When computers were women," Technology and Culture (1999). 
• Steven Lubar, "Before computers," in Infoculture (1993). 
• Roy Rosenzweig, "Wizards, bureaucrats, warriors, and hackers: Writing the history of the Internet," American Historical Review(1998). 
• Lee Sproull, "Computers in US households since 1997" (2000). 
• Fred Turner, "Where the counterculture met the new economy: The WELL and the origins of virtual community," Technology and Culture (2005). 
• Alex Wright, "The Web that wasn't," in Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages (2007).

This week in LIS 201 (week 6)

Week 6: FIRST MIDTERM EXAM

EXAM ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 08

Our in-class midterm exam will be held in the normal lecture hall. Please arrive a bit early so we can start on time.

READINGS TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

This week's reading relates to your software training session and your multimedia assignment, not your exam.

• Garr Reynolds, "Presentation tips," http://www.garrreynolds.com (2013). 

HOMEWORK TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

None.

DISCUSSION MEETING

Attend software training sessions, not your regular discussion. Rather than hold your normal discussion section, all students will attend software training sessions scheduled in various computer labs around campus, during your normal discussion section time. You will receive customized training on PowerPoint presentation software that you may use for your multimedia project. This training is offered courtesy of the DoITSoftware Training for Students program.

For sections meeting Wednesday, October 9th:Location: 150 Animal Sciences (CALS lab)
Time: During your regularly-scheduled section time

For sections meeting Thursday, October 10th:Location: 150 Animal Sciences (CALS lab)
Time: During your regularly-scheduled section time

For sections meeting Friday, October 11th:Location: DMC-A, (lower level of the Biochemistry building)
Time: During your regularly-scheduled section time

You should feel free to bring your own laptops if you have your own copy of PowerPoint.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This week your online activity will involve the selection of the book that you are going to read and review.  Each student in your discussion section must choose a different book to read, so if you fear someone else will pick the same book as you, finish this assignment early!  And as a final challenge, the book must have been published in the last two years — which narrows the field of candidates considerably!

• Think about some search terms or phrases which might quickly and effectively lead you to interesting books on "the information society." Will using the term "information" suffice? What will using the search term "information society" leave out? Be creative.
• Using an online bookstore like Amazon.com, do a search for a book related to the information society that you would like to read. (We are starting in an online book store in order to make sure that the book is still in print.) Narrow your choice down to three candidates that have been published within the last two years. Which book has the most pages? Which costs the most? Which has the best reviews?
• Once you have found three possible books, look each of them up through the public web interface of WorldCat. This is a meta-catalog of all US public and university library catalogs. Which book is held by more libraries? What are the subject classifications of each book? Do they differ? Do they suggest further, more interesting search terms? (You may want to go back to step #2 with these terms.)
• Look each book up on Google Books. Which book seems to have generated the most chatter on the Web? Which has more reviews available through Google? Are any of them in the public domain?
• Finally, look up each book on Library Thing. (You may have to create a free account on this service in order to search, but it's worth it.) Which book has been read by more users of this social networking service? Which book seems to match best with other books that you think you might like?
• Decide which book you want to read at this point.
• Now do a search of your chosen book on two academic journal databases: ProQuest and Project Muse. What journals have reviewed your book? Who are the reviewers? What books have the reviewers themselves written? Read and then print out or otherwise save these book reviews (you will use them in your final paper).
• Create a new post on your discussion section blog that describes the candidate books you considered, the book you ended up choosing, and the process you took to choose it. Include an image of the cover (from Amazon.com) and a citation to any academic reviews you found.
• Comment on another student's chosen book. (Has anyone chosen the same book as you? If they posted their choice to the blog before you did, then you need to start over and pick a different book!)
• You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Edward Tufte, "The cognitive style of PowerPoint" (2003).

Terms for exam #1

Here you go.  All of the terms come from the articles in your reader.

Bonus hint: Three terms drawn from each article!


automation
Booklist
bureaucracy
COBOL
conspicuous consumption
Copyright Clearance Center
crisis of control
cyber-utopianism
decentralization
deindustrialization
digital convergence
digital divide
drummers
e-books
Fordism
industrial society
information economy
infrastructure technologies
internal improvements
literacy learning
management information system
McCormick reaper
Melvil Dewey
Montgomery Ward and Company
net neutrality
post-industrial society
rationalization
service sector
software crisis
Spanish-English biliteracy
spatial fix
Standard Oil Trust
Sun Belt
technological systems
telework
the "fiction debate"
theoretical knowledge
time-space distantiation
Wael Ghonim

Grassroots Activism and the Network Society

Today’s society moves faster than ever before. Technological innovations allow economies, people, and ideas to move and change in new ways with ever-increasing speed. Naturally political theories must change to accommodate changes in society, and those whose campaigns can adapt faster have an obvious advantage. In this competitive environment emerged the very modern idea of “grassroots activism.” This philosophy refers to the ideal of campaigns originating among the people, as opposed to by some faceless elites in a far away meeting.

This model for campaigns became the new standard for the Democratic Party in the 2010 and 2012 election years. It required organizers to redraw hierarchies of campaign leadership. The new model looked more like a web of individuals, a fabric woven by the personal relationships of every voter in America. The network mentality entered politics for the first time.

This network was created with the same dreams as all networks. One was that grassroots activism would reform the political process and give everyone an opportunity to become involved. To a great extent, this became so. Regional organizers were given more responsibility to gather and train volunteers, and volunteering happened at a more local, spread out level. But this network did not reform electoral politics completely, nor did it bring political involvement to people and places it did not already go. The same limits of every network – online or otherwise – apply to grassroots activism as well.

Networks are natural and inevitable systems to form as communication becomes easier and the world of information continues to shrink. But they seem to all have the same limits.  Evidently barriers of geography and class will always prevent people connecting with each other to some extent. 

So about that Government Shutdown...

While you may have thought the biggest closing this week was that of the beloved series Breaking Bad, it turns out the United States Government closing takes the cake. Most Breaking Bad fans would argue that the series finale crossed every t, dotted every i, and left no questions unanswered. The government closing on the other hand, only leaves us with more questions. So what exactly is going on and why? 

In March of 2010, President Obama passed the Patent Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, into law. Without getting into too much detail about what exactly Obamacare is, (although you can read up on it here) it is clear that there is a huge debate about whether this law will help or hurt American citizens. In very broadly generalized terms- Democrats like it, and Republicans don't like it. 

The current spending bill proposed by House Speaker, John Boehner included many anti-Obamacare amendments, which passed in our mostly-Republican House. The bill then moved to the Senate, which is mostly Democrat, and refuses to pass anything anti-Obamacare. It did not pass. Government programs need money to operate, and if congress can't agree on how to fund those programs, they choose to shut down [1]. The last time we had a government shut down was in 1996, when President Bill Clinton, and the Republican Congress couldn't compromise over spending. This shutdown lasted for 28 days. 

Because lawmakers cannot compromise over Obamacare, at the beginning of the fiscal year, on October 1, the government shut down. During a shutdown, government programs are split between "essential" and "non-essential" groups. For example- social security, medicare, law enforcement, and military are examples of essential groups that will continue operation. National parks, federally owned museums, and many federally regulated agencies (such as the IRS) will all close [2]. The shutdown will last until lawmakers can reach an agreement.

In situations such as this, where one news story completely encompasses every media outlet, it's important to be informed about what's going on. In this case, it's not only important to understand what a shutdown is, but also what exactly Obamacare is, and why it is causing such a huge debate among our federal government. While as college students, we may fall under our parent's health care, this will not always be the case, and it's important to educate ourselves on an issue that seriously impacts our future. 

Works Cited
https://www.healthcare.gov/where-can-i-read-the-affordable-care-act/

http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/29/explaining-the-shutdown-to-your-kids/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/30/politics/government-shutdown-up-to-speed/index.html

This week in LIS 201 (week 5)

Week 5: The global network society

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 01

• Networks of cities

This week I will distribute a list of terms and essay questions to study which will help you prepare for our first in-class exam next week. (I will probably distribute these on our course news feed.)

READINGS TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• Jan A.G.M. van Dijk,"Social structure" in The Network Society (2006).
• Steve Coll, "The Internet: For better or for worse," New York Review of Books (April 07, 2011).
• Richard Florida, "How the crash will reshape America," The Atlantic (March 2009).

HOMEWORK TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• If it's your week to write a 500-word article critique, you must post this to your section blog before your section meets.
• If it's your week to give a speech, prepare and practice!  Otherwise, prepare for a possible extemporaneous speech response.
• Finish the final draft of paper #1.

DISCUSSION MEETING

• First five minutes: Pop quiz? Maybe!
• Two student presentations (#7 and #8) on the readings (and two student extemporaneous responses).
• Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.
• Turn in a printed final version of paper #1.
• Review for first midterm exam.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

No online activity this weekend. Study for your exam next week.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Manuel Castells, "The space of flows," in The rise of the network society (1996). 
• Manuel Castells, "An introduction to the information age," City 2:7 (1997). 
• Andrew Chadwick, "Access, inclusion, and the digital divide," inInternet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communication Technologies (2006).
• Paul Edwards et al., "Understanding infrastructure: Dynamics, tensions, and design" (2007).
• Nicholas Gane and David Beer, "Network," in New Media: The Key Concepts (2008).
• Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, "Introduction" inTelecommunications and the city: Electronic spaces, urban places(1996). 
• Stephen Graham, "Introduction," in The cybercities reader (2004). 
• Tim O'Reilly, "What is Web 2.0? Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software" (2005). 
• Felix Stalder, "Flows and places," in Manuel Castells: The Theory of the Network Society (2006).

For all the Apple fanatics out there...

Last week, Apple released their newest operating system for the iPhone: the iOS7.  This update completely redesigned the visual aspects of the phone to create a more simplistic feel.  There are new features, including more efficient multitasking options and the Control Center to quickly access frequently used functions like the music, flashlight, photos, and timer.  (This is a very abbreviated overview of the new iOS7 features.)

When I was working on one of my peer editing assignments this week, I made a connection between this new operation system and the debate between print versus digital.  In the operating systems preceding iOS7, iPhone apps and features were based on “skeuomorphism”.  This concept dates back to the late 19^th century when it was defined as “an ornamental design derived from the structure of an earlier form of a particular object.”[1]  In connection to the iPhone, this means that features, like the address book, were designed so that they look like the actual object would: a spiral booklet of lined paper.  Another definition from economist.com explains that “skeuomorphism refers only to those vestigial elements in nature or artifact that survive from an original form, even though they are no longer required.”[2]  So the address book on the iPhone clearly does not require spirals and actual paper, but it was designed in this way in order to connect with the original printed version of this technology.

        

The iOS7 update trashes the skeuomorphic approach, striving for ease and efficiency.  My question is this: is the eradication of skeuomorphism another step towards the absolute domination of the digital world over the print world?  Although I do not think this is possible…what is the meaning of these technological developments that continuously break from the past?  Are they solely for ease-of-access purposes or can these advances somehow be categorized as control technologies?  How will consumers react to simplicity over skeuomorphic design?

Let me know what you think!     

---

[1] “What is skeuomorphism?” The Economist, accessed September 26, 2013, http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/06/economist-explains-15.

[2] The Economist, “What is skeuomorphism?”

"Detroit Is Now a Charity Case for Carmakers"

The New York Times ran a piece a few days ago that is quite topical for LIS 201 this week. As Detroit is buried deep within the tangles of the "largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history," (the city is currently running a budget deficit of around 1 million dollars a day), Chrysler, G.M. and Ford are pouring millions into charity efforts to revive the city.  

"But the likelihood that any of the automakers will build a new factory in Detroit is slim. The companies are increasingly global in scope, and are pouring resources into plants in China and other growing markets.

And after going through drastic restructurings to reduce overcapacity in the United States, the companies are loath to build new factories. Instead, they are increasing production by adding shifts of workers to existing facilities across the country."

Sound familiar?

And watch for the quote from Professor Thomas J. Sugrue, the author of one of our readings this week!

Read the whole article here.

Not college professors, surely ...

An interesting article crossed my news feed today, with a clear connection to our lecture: a claim that "47% of US jobs under threat from computerization according to Oxford study":

Almost 47 percent of US jobs could be computerized within one or two decades according to a recent study that attempts to gauge the growing impact of computers on the job market. It isn't only manual labor jobs that could be affected: The study reveals a trend of computers taking over many cognitive tasks thanks to the availability of big data. It suggests two waves of computerization, with the first substituting computers for people in logistics, transportation, administrative and office support and the second affecting jobs depending on how well engineers crack computing problems associated with human perception, creative and social intelligence.

Read the rest here.  Are you worried?  (Should _I_ be worried?)

This week in LIS 201 (week 4)

Week 4: The postindustrial service economy

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

• Depression to deindustrialization

READINGS TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• Daniel Bell, "Notes on the post-industrial society (I)," The Public Interest (1967).
• Nathan Ensmenger, "The Cosa Nostra of the data processing industry," in The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise (2010).
• Thomas J. Sugrue, "'The damning mark of false prosperities': The deindustrialization of Detroit," in The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (1996).

HOMEWORK TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• If it's your week to write a 500-word article critique, you must post this to your section blog before your section meets.
• If it's your week to give a speech, prepare and practice!  Otherwise, prepare for a possible extemporaneous speech response.
• Complete your peer reviews of your fellow students' paper #1 drafts, posted as comments on their pages of the discussion section wiki.

DISCUSSION MEETING

• First five minutes: Pop quiz? Maybe!
• Two student presentations (#5 and #6) on the readings (and two student extemporaneous responses).
• Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This week, you will discover how much information you can find out about yourself online.

• First, do a geodemographic marketing analysis on yourself, by searching online for data about the place where you live which someone might ascribe to you. Here are some sites to start with:
• http://www.whitepages.com/reverse_phone (enter your phone)
• http://factfinder.census.gov/ (enter your zip code)
• http://accessdane.co.dane.wi.us/ (enter your address)
• Next, do a social networking analysis on yourself, by searching for online data specifically about you on various social networking services that you might use — Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. Make sure you are not logged in to those services in order to see what an outisde visitor would see (you might want to try searching your Facebook identity from a public computer, for example).
• Now do a general Google search, first using your name in different combinations ("Greg Downey," "Downey, Greg," "G Downey," etc.), then using your email address, and finally usingyour telephone number.
• Can you think of any other sites to search for which might provide either individual or aggregate data to help flesh out your "digital puppet"?
• When you are finished searching these sites, create a new post on your discusion section blog describing the person that a geodemographic firm would see when they look for "you". What do you think about this representation of your existence?
• Comment on at least one other student's posting for this assignment.
• You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Benjamin Barber, "From soft goods to service," in Jihad vs. McWorld (2001). 
• Daniel Bell, "Post-industrial society," in The coming of post-industrial society (1973).
• Jefferson Cowie, "Introduction" and "The distances in between" inCapital Moves: RCA's 70-year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999).
• Nick Dyer-Witheford, "Revolutions," in Cyber-Marx: Cycles and circuits of struggle in high-technology capitalism (1999). 
• Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler, "Cyberspace and the American dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age," The Information Society 12 (1996). 
• Ronald R. Kline, "Cybernetics, management science, and technology policy: The emergence of 'information technology' as a keyword, 1948-1985," Technology and Culture (2006). 
• Robert Reich, "The three jobs of the future," in The work of nations: Preparing ourselves for 21st century capitalism (1992). 
• Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano [chapters 1-3] (1952).