Information Studies 30 -- Internet and Society

Fall 2006

Course Web page:
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/is30.html

The lectures, discussions, and readings in this course will include a large number of ideas. The purpose of the writing assignments is to apply these ideas to a particular example. Therefore, choose a particular profession and write about how the Internet and related technologies are used in that profession. It will be important to understand the profession and its uses of the Internet and related technologies in some detail, and in a lot of social context, and so it will probably be necessary for you to conduct some research on your own about the matter. Do this week by week, using the ideas from the lectures, discussions, and readings to identify significant issues from your profession and analyze them. For each of the three assignments, then, write an essay of 3000 words about how the Internet and related technologies are used in your profession. Each essay should do two things. It should apply many ideas from the class to analyzing the profession, including its uses of Internet and related technologies and the social settings in which these uses happen. And it should be organized around some new idea of your own that you have articulated in the course of your analysis. All three essays can be written about the same profession, but they should otherwise be quite different from one another, and in particular should be organized around different ideas. The first two essays are due on paper in class; the final essay is due on paper in Phil's mailbox, which is just inside the front door of the GSE&IS building, located just to the west of the Research Library. I can return your final essay if you include a stamped self-addressed envelope with it.