COMM 7640-001 – Graduate Seminar in New Media – Syllabus

Spring 2009
Wednesdays, 6-9PM
LNCO 2630

Instructor: Sean Lawson

sean.lawson@utah.edu
801-585-7127

Overview and Objectives

In this seminar, we will explore the literature of the interdisciplinary field of technology studies.
While the scholarly study of technology and its relationship to society and culture is a relatively
recent phenomenon―e.g. the Society for the History of Technology was only founded in the
late 1950s―to the 1970s, the advent of technology studies is even more recent. Nonetheless,
since that time, by adding sociological, anthropological, and other perspectives to the historical
study of technology, technology studies has made valuable contributions to our understanding
of the way technological change shapes and is shaped by society, culture, politics, and
economics.

Surprisingly, there has not been as much traffic as one might expect between the literatures of
technology studies more generally and new media, information, and communication
technologies (NMICTs) more particularly. Therefore, the goal in this seminar will be to
explore the ways in which the concepts and theoretical frameworks related to technological
change and development found in the technology studies literature might benefit us in our study
of NMICTs more specifically, as well as vice versa. Thus, we will read examples of
sociological, historical, and ethnographic approaches to the study of technology. We will also
explore a number of theories of technological change and the relationship between technology
and society.

Some of the fundamental, recurring questions that will underly our reading, thinking, research,
and discussion in this seminar will include

● How might the study of NMICTs benefit from the concepts and theoretical frameworks
found in technology studies? Which of those concepts and theories are most
appropriate to the study of NMICTs?
● What are the strengths/limitations of the current literature on NMICTs?
● What (if anything) is distinct about NMICTs as technological artifacts?
● Do/should those differences (again, if any) make a difference for our study of them?
● Do those differences (if any), or the study of NMICTs in general, point to any
limitations in the technology studies literature?
● How might the study of NMICTs in particular help us to understand better the
relationship between technology and society more generally―i.e. how might the study
 of NMICTs contribute to technology studies?

The main objective of this course might be described in Kierkegaardian terms. That is, the goal
is to gain a better understanding of NMICTs and related literature by leaving and then returning
to them with “fresh eyes,” with a perspective, concepts, and theories not typically found in the
study of NMICTs.

Assignments

Written

Weekly Source Briefs (10%) - Choose one source each week and write a "brief" that follows
the format provided to you. Each students will contribute one brief each week. Briefs will be
pasted into andattached to discussion forum posts in WebCT. In this way, each student will
have access to the briefs of the others, meaning that by the end of the semester, each student
will have a set of standardized briefs for all course readings. The forum will also facilitate out-
of-class discussion about the sources, briefs, or topic of the week. We will coordinate one
week in advance to make sure that all sources will be covered.

Short Literature Review (25%) - Choose one theoretical/methodological approach discussed

in the course, or a crucial controversy/theme in the course literature, and write a 10 to 15 page
critical literature review based on relevant course readings. Summarize the literature and
provide a critical evaluation.

Final Project (40%) - Choose one of two options:

1. Literature-focused project: Identify and then examine a sampling of important literature

on new media and ICTs. Using the literature from the course, critically evaluate the
new media/ICTs literature. Write a paper in the style of Pinch and Bijker's "The Social
Construction of Facts and Artifacts." How can the tech studies literature inform and
improve our study of new media and ICTs? What shortcomings do you find in the new
media/ICTs literature from a tech studies perspective? Finally, how might a study of
new media/ICTs inform tech studies more generally? Does a study of these particular
technologies point to shortcomings in the tech studies literature? How could tech
studies benefit from the study of new media/ICTs?
2. Artifact/Empirically-focused project: Choose a new media, information, or
communication technology and analyze it using appropriate concepts, theories, and
methodologies from the tech studies literature. You may still draw conclusions relevant
to answering the questions in option one, but the primary focus should be on using
what you have gained from the tech studies literature to provide a descriptive, critical
account of the development and use of a particular new media, information, or
communication technology.

Oral
Discussion Leader for a Week (10%) - Each student will sign up to be the discussion leader
for a week of his/her choosing. While it is notexpected that you will lecture or give a formal
presentation, it is expected that you will be well prepared with a series of questions and/or
issues, based on the week's readings, which will serve to provide focus and direction for in-
class discussion.

Presentation of Final Project (15%) - Each student will choose a date in the last four weeks
of class on which he/she will present the findings of his/her final project. The format will be
similar to a conference or colloquium, in which each student will give a short (roughly 20 min)
presentation, followed by questions, answers, and general discussion. To facilitate this
process, each student will provide a copy of his/her final paper to the instructor and the entire
class one week prior to his/her chosen presentation date. It is expected that all other students
will have read the presenters' papers by the beginning of class and will be prepared to critically
and constructively discuss the work of their colleagues.

Weekly Schedule

Defining Technology (Week 2 - Jan. 21)

Chpts 1-2, and 4 in Volti, Rudi. Society and Technological Change. 5th ed ed. New York:
Worth Publishers, 2006. [WebCT]

Eric Schatzberg, “Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology before

1930,” Technology and Culture 47, no. 3 (2006): 486-512. [WebCT]

Melvin Kranzberg, "At the Start," Technology and Culture 1 (1960): 1–10. [WebCT]

Peter Drucker, "Work and Tools," Technology and Culture 1 (1960): 28–37. [WebCT]

Leo Marx, "The Idea of 'Technology' and Postmodern Pessimism," in Does Technology Drive
History? ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), 238–57. [WebCT]

Leo Marx, "Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept," Social Research 64 (1997):
965–88. [WebCT]

Ronald Kline, "Construing 'Technology' as 'Applied Science': Public Rhetoric of Scientists and
Engineers in the United States, 1880–1945," Isis 86 (1995): 194–221. [WebCT]

Additional/Recommended

Hughes, Thomas Parke. Human-Built World : How to Think About Technology and Culture.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Techological Determinism (Week 3 - Jan. 28)

"Introduction," "Technological Determinism in American Culture," and "Technological
Momentum," in Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, Does Technology Drive History?: The
Dilemma of Technological Determinism (MIT Press, 1994). [WebCT]

"Do Artifacts Have Politics?" in L. Winner, The whale and the reactor: a search for limits in an
age of high technology (University of Chicago Press, 1986). [WebCT]

B. Joerges, “Do Politics Have Artefacts?,” Social Studies of Science 29, no. 3 (1999): 411.
[WebCT]

"Code is Law" (pgs 3-8) in Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic
Books, 2000).[e-reserve]

SCOT (Week 4 - Feb. 4)

Chpt 3 in in Volti, Rudi. Society and Technological Change. 5th ed ed. New York: Worth
Publishers, 2006. [WebCT]

Callon, Michel. "Society in the Making: The Study of Technology as a Tool for Sociological
Analysis," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the
Sociology and History of Technology, edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas Parke Hughes, and
T. J. Pinch, 83-106. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1987. [WebCT]

Pinch and Bijker, "The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of
Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other," in Wiebe Bijker, Thomas
P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch, The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New
Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (The MIT Press, 1989). [WebCT]

Pinch, Trevor. “The Social Construction of Technology: A Review.” In Technological

Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology, edited by Robert Fox, 17-35.
Australia: Harwood Academic, 1996. [WebCT]

Backstory - Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Week 5 - Feb. 11)

"Introduction" (pgs 1-12) and Chpt 1, "An Outline of Constructivism" (pgs 13-46) in Jan
Golinski, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. 1998. [e-reserve]

Chpt 1, "The Strong Programme in the Sociology of Knowledge" (pgs 3-23) in David Bloor,
Knowledge and Social Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1991. [e-reserve]

Bloor, David. “Anti-Latour.” Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A1 (1999):
81-112. [WebCT]
Latour, Bruno. “For David Bloor...And Beyond: A Reply to David Bloor's 'Anti-Latour'.”
Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A 1 (1999): 113-29. [WebCT]

Bloor, David. “Reply to Bruno Latour.” Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A 1
(1999): 131-36. [WebCT]

Cetina, Karin Knorr. “Strong Constructivism -- from a Sociologist's Point of View: A Personal
Addendum to Sismondo's Paper.” Social Studies of Science 23, no. 3 (August 1, 1993):
555-563. [WebCT]

Sismondo, Sergio. “Some Social Constructions.” Social Studies of Science 23, no. 3 (August
1, 1993): 515-553. [WebCT]

Sismondo, Sergio. “Response to Knorr Cetina.” Social Studies of Science 23, no. 3 (August 1,
1993): 563-569. [WebCT]

Battle over SCOT (Week 6 - Feb. 18)

Akera, Atsushi. “What is 'Social' About Social Construction? Understanding Internal Fissures
in Constructivist Accounts of Technology.” Social Epistemology forthcoming (2005) [WebCT]

Elam, Mark. “Anti Anticonstructivism Or Laying the Fears of a Langdon Winner to

Rest.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 19, no. 1 (1994): 101-06. [WebCT]

Winner, Langdon. “Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty: Social Constructivism
and Philosophy of Technology.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 18 (1993): 362-78.
[WebCT]

Winner, Langdon. “Reply to Mark Elam.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 19, no. 1
(1994): 107-09. [WebCT]

Woolgar, Steve. “The Turn to Technology in Social Studies of Science.” Science, Technology,
and Human Values 16, no. 1 (1991): 20-50. [WebCT]

Hacking, Ian. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1999. Chs 1-2 (pgs 1-62)

Mutual Shaping, LTS, Heterogeneous Engineering (Week 7 - Feb. 25)

Wiebe Bijker and John Law, "General Introduction" (pgs 1-16) and "Postscript: Technology,
Stability, and Social Theory" (pgs 290-308) in Wiebe Bijker and John Law, Shaping
Technology / Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change(Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 1994). [WebCT]

Hughes, Thomas Parke. “The Evolution of Large Technological Systems.” In The Social
Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of
Technology, edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas Parke Hughes, and T. J. Pinch, 51-82.
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1987. [WebCT]

Law, John. “Technology and Heterogenous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion.”
In The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and
History of Technology, edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas Parke Hughes, and T. J. Pinch,
111-34. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1987. [WebCT]

Hughes, "Technological Momentum," in Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, Does Technology
Drive History?: The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (MIT Press, 1994). [WebCT]

Mackenzie, Donald A. Inventing Accuracy: An Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile

Guidance. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990; Chs 1-2 (pgs 1-95), 7-8 (pgs 340-424).
[WebCT]

Actor-Network Theory (Week 8 - Mar. 4)

Bruno Latour, "On Using ANT for Studying Information Systems" A (somewhat) Socratic
Dialogue," in C. Avgerou, C. Ciborra, and F. Land, eds., The Social Study of Information and
Communication Technology: Innovation, Actors, and Contexts, ed. C. Avgerou, C. Ciborra,
and F. Land (Oxford University Press, 2004). [e-reserve]

Latour, Bruno. “"On Recalling Ant".” In Actor Network Theory and After, edited by John Law,
and John Hassard, 15-25. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. [e-reserve]

Law, John. “After ANT: Complexity, Naming and Topology.” In Actor Network Theory and
After, edited by John Law, and John Hassard, 1-14. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. [e-reserve]

John Law and Michel Callon, "The Life and Death of an Aircraft: A Network Analysis of
Technical Change" (pgs 21-52) in Wiebe Bijker and John Law, Shaping Technology / Building
Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994). [WebCT]

Madeleine Akrich, "The De-Scription of Technical Objects" (pgs 205-224); Bruno Latour,
"Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts" (pgs 225-258);
and Madeleine Akrich and Bruno Latour, "A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the
Semiotics of Human and Nonhuman Assemblies" (pgs 259-264) in Wiebe Bijker and John
Law, Shaping Technology / Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change(Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press, 1994). [WebCT]

Additional/Recommended Readings:

Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (London:

Oxford University Press, USA, 2007).
Appropriation & Use (Week 9 - Mar. 11)

Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor Pinch, "Introduction: How Users and Non-Users Matter" (pgs
1-28); Ronald Kline, "Resisting Consumer Technology in Rural America: The Telephone and
Electrification" (pgs 51-66); Sally Wyatt, "Non-Users Also Matter: The Construction of Users
and Non-Users of the Internet" (pgs 67-80); and Anne Sofie Laegran, "Escape Vehicles? The
Internet and the Automobile in a Local-Global Intersection" (pgs 81-100) in Nelly Oudshoorn
and Trevor Pinch, How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and
Technology(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005). [WebCT]

Ron Eglash, "Appropriating Technology: An Introduction," David Goldberg, "The Scratch is

Hip-Hop: Appropriating the Phonographic Medium," and [any other selections that sound
interesting] in R. Eglash, Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social
Power(University of Minnesota Press, 2004). [e-reserve]

Ronald Kline and Trevor Pinch, "Users as Agents of Technological Change: The Social
Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States," Technology and Culture, Vol. 37,
No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 763-795. [WebCT]

Recommended/additional reading (Particularly interesting for org. comm. folks.):

Thomas, Robert Joseph. What Machines Can't Do: Politics and Technology in the Industrial
Enterprise. Vol. xviii, 314 p, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

***SPRING BREAK*** (Week 10 - Mar. 18)

Post-X, Language- , and Rhetoric-focused Approaches (Week 11 - Mar. 25)

Ch 8, "A Cyborg Manifesto" (pgs 149-182) and Ch 10, "The Biopolitics of Postmodern
Bodies." (pgs 203-230) in Haraway, Donna Jeanne. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The
Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. [e-reserve]

Mindell, David A. “'The Clangor of the Blacksmith's Fray': Technology, War, and Experience
Aboard the Uss Monitor.” Technology and Culture 36, no. 2 (1995): 242-70. [WebCT]

Kay, Lily E. Chpt 15, “How a Genetic Code Became an Information System.” (pgs 462-492)
In Systems, Experts, and Computers: The Systems Approach in Management and
Engineering, World War II and and After, edited by Thomas P. Hughes, and Agatha C.
Hughes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. [WebCT]

Chpt 3, "The Body of a New Machine: Situating the Organism Between Telegraphs and
Computers," in Evelyn Fox Keller, Refiguring Life, 0th ed. (Columbia University Press,
1996). [WebCT]

Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of
Western Dominance. Vol. xii, 430 p, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Intro to Ch 1 (pgs
1-69); chs 3-4 (pgs 129-271); ch 6- epilogue (pgs 343-419). [WebCT]

Additional/Recommended (Both particularly relevant to ICTs and "network society.")

Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature,

and Informatics. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1999; Chs 3, 4, 6, 10, 11.

Rotman, Brian. “Going Parallel.” SubStance 91 (2000).

Tech Studies Approaches to New Media & ICTs (Week 12 - Apr. 1)

Peter Galison, "The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision,"
Critical Inquiry 21, no. 1 (Autumn 1994): 228-266. [WebCT]

Chpt 2, "MIT as System Builder: SAGE," in Thomas P. Hughes, Rescuing Prometheus: Four
Monumental Projects That Changed the Modern World, Reprint. (Vintage, 2000). [WebCT]

Postigo, H. “Of Mods and Modders: Chasing Down the Value of Fan-Based Digital Game
Modifications.” Games and Culture2 (2007): 300. [WebCT]

Postigo, H. “Video Game Appropriation Through Modifications: Attitudes Concerning

Intellectual Property Among Modders and Fans.” Convergence14 (2008): 59. [WebCT]

Postigo, Hector. “Emerging Sources of Labor on the Internet: The Case of America Online
Volunteers.” International Review of Social History48 (2003): 205-23. [WebCT]

Postigo, Hector. “From Pong to Plante Quake: Post-Industrial Transitions From Leisure to
Work.” Information, Communication and Society6, no. 4 (2003): 593-607. [WebCT]

Gillespie, T. “Designed To 'Effectively Frustrate': Copyright, Technology and the Agency of

Users.” New Media & Society8 (2006): 651. [WebCT]

O'Donnell, Casey. “The Work/Play of the Interactive New Economy: Video Game
Development in the United States and India." Doctoral Dissertation. Department of Science
and Technology Studies. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 2008. [WebCT]

Student Presentations (Weeks 13-16)

The last 4 weeks will be devoted to student presentations and discussion of final projects.

Policies and Procedures

Disability Accommodation

The University of Utah seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services and activities for
people with disabilities. If you will need accommodations in the class, reasonable prior notice
needs to be given to the Center for Disability Services, 162 Olpin Union Building, 581-5020
(V/TDD). CDS will work with you and the instructor to make arrangements for
accommodations.

All written information in this course can be made available in alternative format with prior
notification to the Center for Disability Services.

Attendance

Attendance is required and expected. If you need to be absent from a class meeting, please
email the instructor in advance. While there is some wiggle room in terms of absences, more
than two will be considered excessive and will negatively impact your course grade.

Readings

It is expected that you will have read all the week's readings and will be prepared to discuss
them in depth by the beginning of that week's class session. Consistent lack of preparation will
negatively impact your course grade. All readings are available in PDF format either from
WebCT or course E-reserves. The download location is indicated next to each reading in the
weekly schedule.