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Concepts: The basic unit of social structure is the social interaction. Repeated patterns of social interaction build larger elements of social structure: roles, groups, organizations, communities, and social institutions.
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Northeastern University, Spring 2012, CRN 30695
Professor: Judith A. Perrolle (perrolle@ccs.neu.edu)
Office: 541 Holmes
Phone: (617) 373-3861
Office Hours: W 1:30-3:30 and by appointment
Teaching Assistant: Ms. Firuzeh Shokooh Valle
email: shokooh-valle.f@husky.neu.edu
Office: 570 Holmes
Phone: (617) 373-8177
Office Hours: M 2:30-4:00 and Tu 1:00 - 2:30
Class meets sequence 5: M, W, Th 4:35-5:40 in room 110 West Village H
| Essay 1 - Computer Mediated Communication | due W Jan 25 | 20% of grade |
| Essay 2 - Social Media | due W Feb 22 | 20% of grade |
| Essay 3 - Intellectual Property | due M Mar 12 | 20% of grade |
| Group Assignment 1 - Privacy and Autonomy in Social Media | In-class exercise Jan 26 & 30 with very short oral
presentations of your group's findings. Brief written answers to questions due Th Feb 2. |
5% of grade |
| Group Assignment 2 - Current Issues | Class presentations to be scheduled at the end the semester.
There will be no group paper but group slides or handouts and your list of sources must be turned in. |
15% of grade |
| Takehome Final Exam | due by time of scheduled final | 20% of grade |
Essays are based on the assigned readings and class discussions. They will also require additional online sources found through the class bookmarks or by searching. You must cite your sources (including the urls and date retrieved for information found online). Grades will also be based on your ability to write a logically organized essay supporting your own ideas with facts and analysis. The ability to recognize the positions of major stakeholders, present multiple points of view and show that you understand the key points of arguments other than your own are also necessary for a good grade. Each essay should be between four and eight double spaced pages. Students are expected to exercise some judgment about the probable accuracy of sources on the web. If in doubt, ask. Some recommended sources have been bookmarked. When using slashdot, Wikipedia, blogs, or other online sources try to find out where the original information came from. When giving the definitions of sociological terms try the class glossary, not an online dictionary of English. Northeastern University expects students to abide by the NU Academic Integrity Policy and to participate in the TRACE course evaluation survey at the end of the semester.
Assigned readings are available online. Temporary backup copies (often at lower resolutions or missing images and other parts) will be available in the class cache in case the webserver for the reading becomes unavailable. These files are viewable only by members of the class and require your myNEU username and password. The Communications of the ACM and other online journals are available to the Northeastern University community through the Library's NUCat portal.
You can subscribe to the RSS feed for the class bookmarks. Bookmarks will generally refer to information on topics that will be used in lectures. You can access subsets of bookmarks with specific tags to use as sources for essays and group presentations. The twitter link is for cancellations and other class spam. It is rarely used.
M Jan 9 Topic: Overview of the Course and Introduction to Social Structure
( bookmarks)
Concepts: The basic unit of
social structure is the
social interaction.
Repeated patterns of social interaction build larger elements of social structure:
roles,
groups,
organizations,
communities, and
social institutions.
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W Jan 11 Topic: Computer-Mediated Social Interaction
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Th Jan 12 Topic: Power
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Concepts: The social theorist Max Weber defined
power
as the ability to get someone else to do what you
want them to, even against their will. Power is exercised in society through social interaction. When
that interaction is mediated by technology, the way in which power is exercised may change as well. Weber distinguished among
normative,
economic,
coercive forms of power.
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W Jan 18 Topic: Social Control
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Concepts:
Social control
works best when the application of power is seen as
legitimate.
Although "illegal operations" are not really against the law, the embedding of
rules, regulations, norms,
values, and
laws into software tends
to blur the distinctions among them.
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Th Jan 19 Topic: Identity
( bookmarks)
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Concepts: identity, frontstage,
backstage, openID
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M Jan 23 Topic: Privacy
( bookmarks)
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Concepts: privacy
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W Jan 25 Topic: Social Networks
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Essay 1 due today.
Concepts:
Although some people believe that people were isolated from one another before the internet, the human species is
linked into a dense social interaction network that spans our planet in a way that makes each of us no more that 6
social interactions away from any other person. Social networks are characterized by
weak ties and
strong ties. They are able to mobilize
social capital, the collective resources of
their members.
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| Th Jan 26 Topic: Social Media
In class group exercise; attendance required. Bring a laptop (or arrange to borrow one from professor). |
|
M Jan 30 Topic: Social Media, continued
Presentation and discussion of groups' findings; attendance required.
W Feb 1 Topic: Information
( bookmarks)
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Concepts:
We will be using the mathematician Norbert Weiner's
cybernetics theory of information.
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bookmarks)
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bookmarks)
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W Feb 8 Topic: Formal and Informal Knowledge in Bureaucratic and Informal Organizations
( bookmarks)
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Concepts: bureaucracy,
organization,
knowledge,
open source,
rationalization
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Th Feb 9 Topic: Standards
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Concepts: standard,
vendor lock-in
(( bookmarks)
Read:
bookmarks)
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bookmarks)
( subscribe), Treaties,
( bookmarks)
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and Licenses
( bookmarks)
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Monday February 20 is Presidents' Day.
W Feb 22 Topic: Censoring the Web with Trademarks
( bookmarks)
( subscribe) and Trade Secrets
( bookmarks)
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Concepts: trademark, trade secret, censorship
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bookmarks)
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bookmarks)
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subscribe)
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Th Mar 1
Topic: Fair Use
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Concept: fair use
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Monday March 5 through Friday March 9 is Spring Break.
Computerized stock markets, automobiles, airplanes, and medical equipment malfunction. The development of adaptive technologies to permit disabled individuals (and people with slow internet connections) to use the web has not kept pace with the development of high bandwidth multimedia applications. A "Digital Divide" has developed in the access to online information and services. In the United States rural people, ethnic and racial minorities, women, the disabled, and lower income people are at a disadvantage. Internationally there is a great discrepancy among regions, especially among the non-English speaking people of African, Asian, and Latin America.
M Mar 12 Topic: Professional Ethics
( ethics bookmarks)
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Essay 3 due today
Professional codes of ethics are more context specific than moral philosophies. Besides being an expression of the moral views of their members, professional codes of ethics can serve as a statement about a profession's responsibility to the wider society,
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design bookmarks)
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bookmarks)
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|
M Mar 19 Topic: Designing for Democracy
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Browse: |
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W Mar 21 Topic: Designing for Safety
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| Th Mar 22 Topic: The balance Between Civil Liberties and
Secure Flight
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Monday April 16 is Patriots' Day.
