FRS 127: Sex, Money and Rock and Roll: Information
Technology and Society
Paul DiMaggio
David Dobkin
Sociology Department
dimaggio@princeton.edu
Dean of the Faculty and
Computer Science Department
dpd@cs.princeton.edu
Princeton University
Fall Semester 2005/2006
The aim of this seminar is to combine the perspectives of computer science and the social sciences
to equip students with the expertise necessary to participate in the critical policy debates with
which the U.S. and other societies are faced by the rise of the Internet as a major medium of
communications and information. Through a combination of readings, discussion, and hands-on
activity, you will be encouraged, for each of the policy dilemmas that we confront, to a) identify
the values that are at stake; b) clarify your own positions on these values; c) understand the range
of technological solutions that constrain or facilitate different policy approaches; and d) understand
the social and value implications of different policy prescriptions. What makes this course very
different from all but a handful of courses on the Internet offered at universities throughout the
world, is that we are committed to providing both kinds of tools one needs to address such questions: the computer science that lies behind the policy issues and the social science required to
understand the technology’s human impact.
Assignments, class lists, and other course-related paraphernalia will be available at the course web
page, which you can reach through www.frs127.org. To distribute materials, use the class e-list:
everyone@frs127.org. You are required to purchase only one book: Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
by Lawrence Lessig. This is available at Micawber Books (at 110-14 Nassau Street, across from the
University). (Please note: Ask for this book from behind the counter. It is NOT with the other course
books in the basement.) Other readings will be available on line or will be distributed.
Evaluation will be on the basis of: (a) Participation in seminar meetings (attendance is required); (b)
timely completion of assignments; and (c) Completion of a research paper of at least 15 pages on a
public policy issue related to the Internet. There will be no mid-term or final examination (but we
will meet during the exam period to share the results of the research projects).
Syllabus for FRS127 ---2---
Session 1 (Sept. 20): Technology in Historical Perspective
Readings to finish before class:
1. Manuel Castells. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. New York:
Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. Pp. 9-35: “Lessons from the History of the Internet.”
2. Paul Starr. The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications. Pp. 83-111,
“America’s First Information Revolution.”
3. Claude S. Fischer. American Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1992. Pp. 60-85: “Educating the Public” and pp. 175-92: “Becoming
Commonplace.”
4. “Ten Years that Changed the World.” Wired Magazine’s recap of the history of the Internet,
from Netscape to Wonkette (August 2005).
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html
5. William Shaw. 2001. “In Helsinki Virtual Village.” Wired 9.03 (March 2001).
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.03/helsinki.html
In class:
Pt. 1: Orientation and introductions
Pt. 2: The history of technology – 3 points and a few examples
Pt. 3: Computers and Internet technology in particular – 3 more points.
Pt. 4: Changing technology: News and Telephones in the 21st Century
Pt. 5: Show Museum of Media History, history of the media through 2014 program:
http://www.lightover.com/epic/ols-master.html
Pt. 6: Technologies and human values: What should we ask of the Internet?
Pt. 7: What is inside of a computer box?
Pt. 8: How to set up a blog. Visit http://daviddobkin.blogspot.com and read the entry from
September 9.
Paul’s lecture notes on Technology
Notes on the class discussion of values
For next time: Set up blogs and write first entry (on readings for Sept. 27).
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Session 2 (Sept. 27). The Internet, Public Policy, and Social Choice
Readings to finish before classs:
1. Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Pp. 1-108.
2. Marcia Smith et al. “Internet: An Overview of Key Technology Policy Issues Affecting its Use
and Growth.” (41 pp.) Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Updated April 13,
2005. http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/98-67.pdf
3. Here are web sites from several organizations that are concerned with public policies that
concern or affect the Internet. Browse a few of these sites and note some differences in what
different organizations view as the most important issues.
American Civil Liberties Union: http://www.aclu.org/Cyber-Liberties/Cyber-Libertieslist.cfm?c=59
Syllabus for FRS127 ---3--Center for Democracy and Technology: http://www.cdt.org/
Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/tech/
Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://action.eff.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ADV_homepage
Public Knowledge: http://www.publicknowledge.org/
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. http://www.uschamber.com/issues/index/technology/default
In class:
Pt. 1 -- Discusson of Lessig – How people build values into technology
Pt. 2 -- Policy issues: Introduction to the policy agenda: (Dimaggio's Lecture notes)
Common carriage vs. selectivity (Brand X case)
Is file-sharing inherently illegal? (Grokster Case)
Laws regarding blogging
Pt. 3 – Introduction to code (Dobkin’s Lecture notes)
Pt. 4 – Politics and social choice (Dimaggio's Lecture notes)
Pt. 5 – Discussion of blogging
For next time: Write 2 page prospectus for term project (what question you will answer and what
you will do to answer it, with a concrete list of tasks and a schedule for completing them). (Both
instructors will be available for meetings throughout the week.) If you aren’t sure what you want
to write on, spend some time with collection of policy-related materials (news articles, reports,
etc.) available at the course web site. (Put your draft on your blog.)
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Session 3 (Oct. 4 ) : Code – Open and Closed (NB this class will have to be
rescheduled)
Readings to finish before class:
1. Eric Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, pp. 1-65 (“The Cathedral and the Bazaar”) and
pp. 113-66 (“The Magic Cauldron”). Or read online at:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ and
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/magic-cauldron/
2. Yochai Benkler, “The Battle over the Institutional Ecosystem in the Digital Environment.”
Communications of the ACM 44 (2), pp. 84-90 (February 2001).
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359235&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=1297399&CFTO
KEN=49580941#FullTexthttp://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359235&coll=portal&dl=AC
M&CFID=1297399&CFTOKEN=49580941#FullText
3. Visit http://www.scipionus.com/ -- Hurrican Katrina emergency wiki, enables people to pool
information by putting pins on a regional map…
4. Daniel Pink, “The Book Starts Here.” Wired 12:3 (March 2005). About Wikipedia.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html
Visit the Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/
Syllabus for FRS127 ---4---
5. Julian Dibbell, “We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin.” Wired 12:11 (November 2004) – on
Brazil’s embrace of open source.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/linux.html?pg=2&topic=linux&topic_set=
6. “The Power of Us: Mass Collaboration on the Internet is Shaking up Business.” Business Week.
(June 20, 2005). http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938601.htm
In class:
Pt. 1 – Recap on last week’s meeting and discussion of Raymond and open code reading
Pt. 2 – Technical aspects of open code software development
Pt. 3 – Where and how Internet policy gets made
Pt. 4 – Discussion of term project ideas
For next time:
1. Technology b/log --- Make a log of your use of information and communication technologies
during any weekday. Each time you use an information or communication technology (other than
your body and voice in f-to-f communication), write down what you did, when and how long you
did it, and why you did it. Put the list on your blog.
2. Visit at least three highly interactive web sites (e.g. Facebook, Friendster, moveon.com,
match.com, computer gaming networks, E-Bay, Neopets, or websites of your choice) and think
about how each one operates – What is the incentive to participate? What mechanisms increase
commitment? What, if any, business plan keeps the website going? Be prepared to talk about these
in class.
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Session 4: Networks and Network Technologies (Oct. 11)
Readings to finish before class:
1. Mark Buchanan. 2002. Nexus: Small World and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks. (New York:
Norton). Pp. 23-60 and 73-89.
2. Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian. 1999. Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy,
pp. 3-17.
3. Paul Resnick, Richard Zeckhauser, Ric Friedman and Ko Kuwabara. “Reputation Systems.”
Communications of the ACM 43 (December 2000)): 45-48.
4. Howard Rheingold. 2005. “Technologies of Cooperation.” Report to the Institute for the
Future. http://www.rheingold.com/cooperation/Technology_of_cooperation.pdf
In class:
Pt. 1. The art and science of networks: small worlds, network externalities, reputation and
insurance effects.
Pt. 2. Varieties of physical networks: How the Internet moves information.
Pt. 3. How you manage your networks (discussion of tech logs).
Pt. 4. How design choices influence how technology helps you manage your networks.
Pt. 5. Network effects on the Internet (discussion of networking site visits).
Pt. 6. Presentation of search engine assignment for next week (distribute materials & search terms)
Syllabus for FRS127 ---5---
For next time: Web business model exercise. 4. Read business plan/annual report/press reports for
your search engine. Be prepared to report in class on the following: Within what universe of web
pages does your search engine search and how does it identify those web pages? On what basis does
it rank hits? Who owns the company? What is the company’s business strategy? Is it working? For
each of three search terms (distributed in seminar last week) report on number of hits and print out
the top 20.
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Session 5: The Business of Cyberspace: (Oct. 18)
Readings to finish before class:
Eszter Hargittai. 2000. “Open portals or closed gates? Channeling content on the World
Wide Web.” Poetics. 27: 233-253. Download .pdf version from
http://www.princeton.edu/~eszter/portals.html
“The Complete Guide to Googlemania.” Various authors. Wired 12: 3 (March 2004).
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/google.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
Gary Wolf, “The Great Library of Amazonia.” Wired December 2003: 216-20.
Josh McHugh, 13:09 (November 2005). “The Supernetwork. Why Yahoo will be the
Center of the Million-Channel Universe.”
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/yahoo.html?pg=2&topic=yahoo&topic_set=
Ly Fie Sugianto and Sen Sendjaya. “Business Models in the Digital Economy.” 7th
International Conference on Global Business and Economic Development. Bangkok, Thailand,
2003.
http://blake.montclair.edu/~cibconf/conference/DATA/Theme7/Australia.pdf
Ju-Yong Ha, Steven Dick and Seung Kwan Ryu. “Broadcast via the Internet: Technology,
Market, and the Future.” Trends in Communications 11(2):155-68.
http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15427439TC1102_06
Rodney Rothman. “My Fake Job.” New Yorker, November 27, 2000. Account of life in a NY
Internet startup by comedy writer who walked in and announced that he was a project manager
from the Chicago office. Life in the fastlane of the Internet boom. (The firm was Luminant.
Rothman apparently engaged in some embroidery.) http://www.abdot.net/dle/nytnov2000.html
In class:
Pt. 1: A brief history of the Internet bubble, with some web pages from the era (courtesy the
Wayback Machine – www.archive.org).
Pt. 2: Aspects of business plans: Intellectual property/DMCA; Disintermediation; Tracking,
cookies and privacy; Attracting and keeping eyeballs; Advertising and business plans; common
carriage vs. cable convergence; Failed plans: Owning people (AOL) and Pets.com, webvan.com
Pt. 3: What are the values that public policy should seek to nurture in dealing with commercialization of the Web?
Pt. 4: Search engines: In-class demonstration and discussion of results of search-engine/portal
research OR discussion of big four business plans…
For next time: Just do the readings and blog on them.
Syllabus for FRS127 ---6---
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Session 6: Intellectual Property on the Internet (Oct. 25)
Visit from Clayton Marsh of Princeton University General Counsel’s Office
Readings to finish before class:
Lawrence Lessig, Code, Chapter 10.
Dan Hunter and F. Gregory Lastowka. “Amateur-to-Amateur.”46 William and Mary Law Review 951
(Forthcoming, December 2005). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601808
Read summary of Digital Millenium Copyright Act provided by the U.S. Copyright Office.
www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf
You may also want to read or skim the legislation itself, which you can find at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/t2GPO/http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgibin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=105_cong_bills&docid=f:h2281enr.txt.pdf
or at http://anti-dmca.org/index.html, an anti-DMCA site which provides one-stop center for
downloading the legislation, court cases about the legislation and related materials. Also see
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/unintended_consequences.php (“Unintended Consequences: 5
Years Under the DMCA” – list of actions and cases).
Atlantic Recording Corporation et al. v. Daniel Peng (U>S. District Ct. for New Jersey, Civil No. 031441 (SRC), “Complaint for Direct and Contributory Copyright Infringement”
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/riaa/arcopeng40303njcmp.pdf
John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace.”
http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html
Edward W. Felton, “Googleocracy in Action,” http://www.freedom-totinker.com/archives/000509.html.
Ben Greenman, “The Mouse that Remixed.” The New Yorker Feb. 9, 2004, p. 24ff.
www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040209ta_talk_greenman
Lauren Gitlin, “Jay-Z Meets the Beatlers: DJ Mixes Two Albums into One Clasic,” Rolling Stone
2/19/04 p. 18 http://www.rollingstone.com/mews/story?id=5937152
Clive Thompson, “The Bittorrent Effect,” Wired 14:1 (January 2005: 151-53, 178-79);
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html?pg=4
Jeff Howe, “The Shadow Internet,” Wired 13: 1 (January 2005: 155-59). Inside film pirating
networks. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/topsite.html?pg=3
Read Creative Commons license – copyleft (noncommercial version) -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Syllabus for FRS127 ---7---
Here are two important cases, which you may want to look at at some point.
MGM v. Grokster. The case in which the Supreme Court declared technologies that permit
incidental sharing of copyrighted materials liable for damages.
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/MGM_v_Grokster.pdf
Eldred v. Ashcroft 537 U.S. 186 (2003). Lessig and a cast of thousands argued that the extent to
which Congress had extended copyright was a violation of constitutional principles. The S.C.
agreed that Congress was unwise, but didn’t agree that they had violated the Constitution.
http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/display.html?terms=ashcroft&url=/supct/html/
01-618.ZS.html
In class:
Pt. 1: Technical issues – Napster v. KaZaa and beyond – MP3s, protocols, client servers vs. peer to
peer, broadband, and technical issues bearing on convergence.
Pt. 2: A brief history of sampling: Dali’s Mona Lisa; William Burroughs and cut-up prose; Warhol
and pop art; DJ Cool Herc and refashioning tunes for dancing through sampling and remixes; fan
sites; the Death of the Author: Art as Process
Pt. 3: With Clayton Marsh: DMCA – what does it do and does it do the right things? Does it
embody the right values? What are its unanticipated consequences (for public goods? for free
expression? etc.). Will the Internet turn into cable TV? Would that be a bad thing?
For next time: Prepare final version of research-paper proposal and post on blog.
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Week 7: Digital Divide (Nov. 8)
1. Readings:
Eszter Hargittai, “Informed Web Surfing,” Pp. 257-74 in Society Online: The Internet in Context, ed.
Philip N. Howard and Steve Jones (Sage Publications, 2004).
Jan A.G.M. Van Dijk. 2005. The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society, pp. 181-217
(“Policy Perspectives”).
Sonia Arrison, “What Digital Divide?” C/Net News.Com, March 13, 2002, 4pm.
http://news.com.com/2010-1078-858537.html
Andrew Leigh and Robert D. Atkinson. 2001. “Clear Thinking on the Digital Divide.” PPI Policy
Report, June 2001. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-88591&safe=off&q=%22clear+thinking+on+the+digital+divide%22
Community Wireless – Read About the Ongoing Effort to Wire Philadelphia
See articles archived at Wireless Philadelphia (the project web site):
http://www.phila.gov/wireless/press.html
Larry Lessig, “Why Your Wireless Sucks.” Wired 13:03 (March 2005).
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/view.html?pg=5 (read it or listen to the podcast
of Lessig reading it to you)
Syllabus for FRS127 ---8---
2. Write down two empirical questions suggested by the readings (for example, things you wonder
about what kinds of people do what kinds of things on the Internet), to try to answer in the last part
of class.
In class:
Pt. 1 – Presentation and discussion of digital divide issues
Pt. 2 – Technological solutions to digital inequality – Large-scale wireless
Pt. 3 – Play with data on digital inequality
Pt. 4 – Set up team assignment on cyber-communities
Next time: Teams will study cyber-communities and report back on their blogs and in class next
week. How many web sites did you find? What kind? What are the patterns of interlinkages? Is
there a single community or a set of subcommunities? How commercial are the sites? How up to
date are the linkages? Is there a list-serve? f you enter the list-serve do you get responses? Are there
interactive spaces? What sites are easiest to find on search engines?
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Week 8 – Internet and Community (Nov. 15) (NOTE: This class will meet from 2:305:30)
Visit from Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup.Com.
1. Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman. 2003. “Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports
Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb.” City && Community 2:4 (Dec. 2003): 277-311.
2. Cass Sunstein, “The Daily Me,” from Republic.Com. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press (on-line at
http://pup.princeton.edu/chapters/s7014.html).
3. Review Lessig, Code, ch. 6 (“Cyberspace”), pp. 63-84.
4. Chen, Y.-C., Chen, P., Song, R., and Korba, L. “Online Gaming Crime and Security Issue Cases and Countermeasures from Taiwan.” Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference on
Privacy, Security and Trust. Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. October 13-15, 2004.
NRC 47401. http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/iit-publications-iti/docs/NRC-47401.pdf.
5. Johannes Hummel and Ulrike Lechner. “Social Profiles of Virtual Communities.” Proceedings
of the 35th Hawaii Annual Conference on System Sciences, 2002.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/7798/21442/00994154.pdf
6. Visit and explore the Meetup.Com site to see a successful model for using on-line tools to
reinforce face-to-face community: http://www.meetup.com/
In class:
1. Report results of team projects. Assignments are available here
Syllabus for FRS127 ---9---
2. Introduction to technologies for building communities – e-mail, list serves, chat rooms,
Amazon-type feedback systems, Web circles, other commercially induced communities
3. Discussion of Wellman and presentation of other research on whether Internet is building or
corroding community, trust, and social capital.
4. Discussion with Scott Heiferman about Meetup.Com
Next time: Break into teams to develop policy proposals that (a) define problem and desirable goals
(b) describe values and tradeoffs among them and (c) put forward a policy solution, considering its
impact on values.
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Week 9 – The Dark Side of the Internet (Defending Children and Ourselves) (Nov.
22)
Visit from Leslie Burger, President-Elect of the American Library Association and Director of the Princeton Public
Library.
Readings to finish before class.
Re Defending Children:
1. Pro: Jack Balkin et al. Filtering the Internet: A Best Practices Model
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/isp/filtering/papers.html
2. Con: Marjorie Heins, Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report.
http://www.ncac.org/issues/internetfilters.html
Re: Defending Ourselves:
3. R. Oscar Boykin and Vwani P. Roychowdhury, “Leveraging Social Networks to Fight Spam.”
Computer 38 (April 2005) : 61-68.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/2/30759/01432647.pdf?isnumber=30759&prod=JNL&arnu
mber=1432647&arSt=+61&ared=+68&arAuthor=Boykin%2C+P.O.%3B+Roychowdhury
%2C+V.P.
4. Neal Leavitt. “Mobile Phones: The Next Frontier for Hackers?” Computers 38 (April 2005): 2023.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/2/30759/01432639.pdf?tp=&arnumber=1432639&isnumbe
r=30759
5. Visit and browse Fraudwatch International for descriptions of leading Internet scams.
http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/internet/
Syllabus for FRS127 ---10---
In class:
Part 1. Technical issues in phishing, viruses, worms, malware, adware etc. and methods for
controlling them.
Part 2. Presentation on library filtering policies.
Part 3. Students present policy proposals on filtering. Discussion.
Next time: Go to Google Earth and find a picture of your home. Then pick three people you know
personally – a contemporary, someone in your parents’ generation, and someone about your
grandparents’ age – and see how much you can learn about them on-line (without spending
money). Blog about what you learned, and about what might determine the extent of the on-line
info that is available about someone.
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Week 10 – Privacy and Encryption (Nov. 29)
Readings to finish before class:
1. Lessig, Code, ch. 11 (“Privacy”), pp. 142-63.
2. The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. U.S. Government Policy Report, February 2003. 76pp.
(skim) http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/cyberspace_strategy.pdf
3. Agenda for the Next Administration: Proposals by the National Cybersecurity Industry Alliance. December
2004. The cybersecurity industry doesn’t think that our government has gone far enough. Here is
what they recommend. (9pp.)
https://www.csialliance.org/resources/pdfs/Agenda_for_Next_Administration.pdf
4. National Infrastructure Advisory Council. 2004. Hardening the Internet: Final Report and
Recommendations by the Council. Department of Homeland Security, 28 pp. So the administration
tries again.
http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NIAC_HardeningInternetPaper_Jan05.pdf
5. U.S. General Accounting Office. 2004. Data Mining: Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04548.pdf. 12 pages + appendices. (The GAO is a nonpartisan
Congressional staff agency that produces reports in response to requests from congressional
committees. It tells us what the feds are already doing.)
6. Marcia S. Smith, “Internet Privacy: Overview and Pending Legislation,” Updated May 16, 2005.
Congressional Research Service. (What Congress is thinking of doing.)
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/35133.pdf.
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7. What’s good for the goose, makes the gander mad…
Elinor Mills, “Google Balances Privacy, Reach.” C/Net News.com. July 14, 2005.
http://news.com.com/Google+balances+privacy%2C+reach/2100-1032_35787483.html
Saul Hansell, “Google Gets `Googled,’ and Irritated.” E-Commerce Times. August 9, 2005.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/45333.html
Syllabus for FRS127 ---11---
Optional reading:
8. K.A. Taipele. “Technology, Security and Privacy: The Fear of Frankenstein, the Mythology of
Privacy and the Lesson of King Ludd.” International Journal of Communications Law and Policy, Issue 9
(Winter 2004-05):4-102.
http://www.digital-law.net/IJCLP/Cy_2004/pdf/Taipale_ijclp-paper.pdf
In class:
Part 1: Presentation on technical issues in encryption, data mining, and “hardening” the Internet
infrastructure.
Part 2: Visit with Professor Ed Felton (invitation pending) of Computer Science Department, who
will lead discussion on the capacity of governments to spy on their citizens, drawing on blogging as
well.
Part 3: Discussion: How should we balance privacy vs. security? What are the relative dangers
involved in public vs. private “spying”. How might these be regulated?
For next time: Blog on (a) desirable qualities for a democratic polity and (b) how the Internet might
enhance or degrade these qualities (or both).
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Week 11: The Internet, Politics, and Government (Dec. 6)
Visit with Amy Sullivan, Editor of the Washington Monthly and political blogger.
Readings to finish before class:
1. Readings: Bruce Bimber. 2001. "Information Technology and the New Politics: Brief Remarks
on Political Change.”
http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/faculty/bimber/research/infotech&newpolitics.html
Jane E. Fountain. 2001. “Paradoxes of Public Sector Customer Service.” Governance: An International
Journal of Policy and Administration 14: 55-73. This paper is available at the Princeton University
Library website, through the digital journal collection (under Governance).
Phil Howard and T.J. Milstein 2003 “Spiders, Spam and Spyware: New Media and the Market for
Political Information. Internet Studies 1.0 ed M. Consalvo NY Peter Lang.
http://faculty.washington.edu/pnhoward/publishing/articles/howardmilstein.pdf
California Secretary of State Task Force on Internet Voting. 2000. Final Report and Technical
Appendix A. http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/ivote/appendix_a.htm and
http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/ivote/appendix_a.htm
Jeffrey S. Juris, 2005. “The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti-Corporate
Globalization Movements.” Pp. 189-208 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
special issue on Cultural Production in a Digital Age, ed. Eric Klinenberg. 597: 189-208.
In class:
Part 1. Student Presentation and discussion of memos.
Syllabus for FRS127 ---12---
Part 2. Presentation on how people are using the Internet to organize social movements; inform
and persuade voters; and take part in elections.
Part 3. Distinguished visitor and political bloggers.
Part 4. Set up next week’s activity.
For next time: Break into teams to design an Internet policy that enhances social values and is
reasonably practical, with suggestions for building these values into the design of the technology
and into laws and regulations of public policy.
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Week 12: Recap (Dec. 13)
Visitors: Professor Kim Scheppele, Director of Princeton’s Program on Law and Public Affairs, and Professor Stanley
Katz, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School.
Readings to finish before class. Marjorie Blumenthal and David Clark, “Rethinking the Design of the
Internet.” http://www.ana.lcs.mit.edu/anaweb/PDF/Rethinking_2001.pdf
Chapter 6: “Conclusions and Recommendation,” Pp. 199-240 in National Research Council, The
Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age. Washington, D.C.: National Academy
Press, 2000. http://www.nap.edu/html/digital_dilemma/ch6.html
In class:
Our modest goal for this week is to take stock of the semester and to design an Internet policy.
Teams will present proposal, and distinguished visitors will respond.
Next time: In lieu of exam, we will meet in January over pizza for project
presentations.
Syllabus for FRS127 ---13---
RESOURCES
Business Issues
“What is the Best Global Strategy for the Internet?” by Mauro Guillen. Business Horizons
2002. Excellent overview of issues business face in conducting e-commerce business globally.
“Realizing Digital Life in Korea: CoreTechnology and Promotion Policy.”
By Jungmann Lee, Kiyong Om, Myung-Hwan Rim and Yeong-Wha Sawng. Korea has
the highest level of Internet (and broadband) penetration in the world. This is how folks
there are thinking people will use all this bandwidth flowing into their homes.
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~jmueller/its/conf/helsinki03/papers/Lee_Om_Rim_Sawng.pdf
Tech Buzz Game -- http://buzz.research.yahoo.com/dm/info/help.html. On-line virtual
fantasy stock market for competing technologies. See if you can win more money than the other
players. See if the results of the fantasy game predict outcomes in the real technology market.
General Policy: Multiple Issues
Cato Institute. Conservative think tank that publishes working papers and other pieces on
Internet policy issues. http://www.cato.org/tech/intproperty.html
Center for Creative Voices in Media. Media writers and other artists who oppose policies
that foster concentration of power in the media. http://www.creativevoices.us/
Center for Digital Democracy. Anti-media-concentration, pro-common-carriage web site.
http://www.democraticmedia.org/
Electronic Frontier Foundation. www.eff.org. Libertarian and techy, EFF is the brainchild of
former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, and is devoted to the proposition that
“information wants to be free.”
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Leading business organization.
http://www.uschamber.com/issues/index/technology/default
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/bdquery -- Type “Internet” into the box and get a list of
bills before Congress that refer to the Internet in their title or keywords.
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The Progress and Freedom Foundation. www.pff.org. The Progress & Freedom Foundation
is a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public
policy.
Government Agencies
Federal Communications Commission – regulatory body for the media:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/SilverStream/Pages/edocs.html
Department of Homeland Security - Research Page has section on Research and
Infrastructure. http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=26
National Telecommunications and Information Agency – During Clinton administration,
took lead in efforts to foster the commercialization of the Internet and then to identify and
overcome limits to access to the Internet. Published several important reports, including Falling
Through the Web. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports.html
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Advises President on Science and
Technology issues, including those related to the Internet. http://www.ostp.gov/
National Journal Insider’s Update. http://www.njtelecomupdate.com. The National
Journal Insider’s Update offers news and updates on telecom and government actions and
publications about telecom.
Cybercrime
FBI Cybercrime Unit – A wealth of useful info. http://www.cybercrime.gov/
Fraudwatch International - http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/internet/
Privacy International Cybercrime Page – Lots of info on and links to international topics,
from organization concerned with privacy as well as cybercrime.
http://www.privacyinternational.org/index.shtml?cmd[342][]=c-1CC+Home+Page&als[theme]=CC%20Home%20Page&conds[1][category........]=CC%20Home
%20Page&als[_parent_]=Cyber%20Crime
Intellectual Property
Consumer Electronics Association. They make the things you use to rip, burn, and download. So
they favor broadly permissive policies. http://www.ce.org/public_policy/default.asp
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Creative Commons. Site started by Lawrence Lessig to promote creative solutions to intellectual
property issues, including “copylefts” and licensing schemes. http://creativecommons.org/
Freedom to Tinker. Princeton Computer Science Professor Ed Felten’s blog, dedicated to “your
freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices you own.”
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/
Future of Music Coalition. Represents interests of indy music community; generally favorable
to exchange of music on the Web. http://www.futureofmusic.org/
Motion Picture Association of America. On the front-lines of the anti-piracy campaign.
http://www.mpaa.org/home.htm
Public Knowledge. www.publicknowledge.org, Monitors and opposes bills extending IP rights
and criminalizing distribution and use of copyrighted material.
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Trade association of major record
companies and primary advocate of industry position in debates about intellectual property and
recordings.
http://www.riaa.com/issues/default.asp
“RIAA will serve new subpoenas” By Chanakya Sethi – good Prince story on RIAA suits against
students using intranet in spring 2005.
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/03/29/news/12469.shtml
Digital Divide
Digital Divide Network. http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/
Created by Benton Foundation and lodged at Educational Development Corporation, a nonprofit
education think tank, its concerns are primarily but not exclusively international.
Open Source
SSRC Open Source Wiki – lots of good essays and discussions on open source, in the U.S. and
around the world http://www.ssrc.org/wiki/POSA/index.php?title=Main_Page
Politics on-line
Daniel W. Drezner, Univ. Chicago, “The Power and Politics of Blogs”
Security & Privacy
Cybersecurity Industry Alliance. https://www.csialliance.org/home
Markle Foundation Task Force. 2003. Creating a Trusted Network for Homeland Security. Thoughtful
and detailed report on technological, organizational, and legal issues involved in homeland security.
www.matrix-at.org
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American Civil Liberties Union. www.aclu.org/privacy
Electronic Privacy Information Center. Nonprofit group dedicated to cultivating awareness
of and opposition to government data-mining efforts.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
Online Privacy Alliance. Coalition of businesses devoted to making consumers feel that their
private information is secure online. http://www.privacyalliance.org/
National Plan for Information Systems Protection: An Invitation to a Dialogue. 2000. Clinton
administration pre-9/11 plan for cybersecurity. 199 pages.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd/CIP-plan.pdf
News
BoingBoing. News at the intersection of technology and culture. http://www.boingboing.net/
CNet. Sidestep the consumer dreck by typing in www.news.com.com (yes, 2 “com”s).
Internetnews.com. You guessed it: www.internetnews.com
Slashdot.com. “News for nerds” – what can we add? http://slashdot.org/
Wired Magazine. For the fashionable nerd. Terrific archive. www.wired.com
ZdNet. Zipf-Davis web presence. Consumer-oriented, but some good news and blog links.
www.cdnet.com
Research Publications: Journals and Reports
(All of these can be accessed on-line or through Firestone Library’s site.)
Computer. Flagship publication of the IEEE Computer Society. Sort of Scientific American, but just
for computing and information science.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isYear=2005&isnumber=30759&Submit32=Go+T
o+Issue
First Monday. Peer-reviewed web-based journal of research on the Internet. Good mix of
technical and policy/social-science material. http://www.firstmonday.org/
Imagining the Internet. http://www.elon.edu/predictions/ Elon University and Pew
Internet and American Life Project. Perhaps should be called the “Is my face red!” Project – a
compendium of predictions that well-known people made about the Internet during the 1990s.
Also contains some useful materials on the history of the web.
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The Information Society. Social-science research, mostly from communications scholars.
http://www.indiana.edu/~tisj/
IT & Society. Edited by John Robinson, an on-line journal of social science research, primarily
on the Internet. http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/itandsociety/index.html
Pew Internet and American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/ Nonpartisan think
tank that generates a steady stream of valuable survey-research-based reports on which Americans
are on-line and how they are using the Internet.
Proceedings of the ACM. Academy of Computing Machinery – computer science professional
society, publishes some good papers at the interface of technology and policy.
http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm?coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=53650001&CFTOKEN=80120162
Social Science Computer Review. Interesting mix of papers – newest issue is on information
technology and the war on terror. http://hcl.chass.ncsu.edu/sscore/info.htm
Academic Web Sites
Phil Agre. Interesting, eclectic, and prolific information science professor at UCLA.
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/
Yochai Benkler, Yale Law School. Lots of good papers on a range of internet-related topics.
http://www.benkler.org/
Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/
Erik Brynjolfsson, economist, M.I.T. Good stuff on economics of e-business.
http://ebusiness.mit.edu/erik/
Center for Information Technology and Society, University of California at Santa Barbara.
Directed by Bruce Bimber, who has done excellent work on the political impact of the new
information technologies. http://www.cits.ucsb.edu/
Center for Internet and Society, Stanford University. Wide range of papers, blogs, etc.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/
Nosh Contractor – communications, University of Illinois. Expert on communications
networks, self-organizing systems, and many other interesting things. http://www.benkler.org/
Mark Cooper – legal scholar, Stanford University.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/cooper/archives/mediabooke.pdf
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Jon Kleinberg – computer scientist, Cornell University. Studies the architecture of the web,
including creative use of data-mining to study social trends.
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/
Eszter Hargittai - sociologist, Northwestern University. Lots of terrific papers, and links to her
blog. http://www.eszter.com/research/
Information Society Project – Democracy and Civil Liberties for a New Age. Yale
University Law School. http://islandia.law.yale.edu/isp/ - includes papers by Jack Balkin and
other Yale legal scholars. Also check out Balkin’s own page:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/
Sara Kiesler – computer science and psychology, Carnegie Mellon University. Tons of great
work on impact of computer and internet use on personal psychology, organizational interaction,
and other aspects of everyday life, including reports from the HomeNet Project.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kiesler/
Lawrence Lessig – legal scholar and activist, Stanford University. Books, articles, media
interviews, and more. http://www.lessig.org/
W. Russell Neuman. Communications, Sociology and Politics, University of Michigan. Much
good work on communications policy. http://wwwpersonal.umich.edu/~rneuman/nav_pub.html
Howard Rheingold. Well, more journalist than academic (tho he is teaching at Stanford this
semester), but an interesting person nonetheless. http://www.rheingold.com/
Hal Varian. Economics, U.C. Berkeley. Leading figure in information economics.
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/
Barry Wellman – sociologist, University of Toronto -- research on Internet and community,
including University of Toronto Netlab and the Netville wired community study.
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/