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SOC3116

Lecture 1: A Critical Approach to Technology & Society

Learning Objectives:
1. To develop a better appreciation of how much we rely upon electronic technologies.
2. To implicate our actions today in the technology of the future.

ICT = Information and Communication Technology

Social Reality

What does social reality refer to?

 The way we perceive the world around us
 Something we can easily overlook, similar to overlooking our own culture
 Programmed to overlook what it is that makes us who we are
 We take our social reality for granted, as if it’s natural, normal, something that “We all share”
 We see the world in a different way based on our experiences and heritages.
 People have seen the world and their place in it differently over time.

How does technology shape our social reality?

- More independent
- Greater access to info
o But, less certainty about that info
- Greater homogeneity
- Global village (meaning small earth)
- Different perceptions of “friendship”
- Differing conceptions of community
- Greater global awareness
- Diminished privacy
- Linguistic dimensions regarding our use of language
- Expectations/speed
- Anonymity

Why do we use technology?

- Convenience
- Entertainment
- Debate: It allows for ease, more free time, it’s more efficient, it brings us closer, improves our
quality, entertainment purposes and moves us forward.
- We believe that new technology is better, but it’s not necessarily. Marketing and advertising
changes our perception; peer pressure and requirement isn’t always progress.

Why take a critical approach to technology and society? (4 Main Reasons)

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 - Challenge complacency
o Making us aware of the role of technology
- To improve its usefulness
o When we challenge technology we improve it. Leads to innovation
- Enhance awareness of how much we rely on technology
o What are the consequences
 Reliance on electricity – power outages show our dependence and how take take
it for granted.
- Gets our head outside of the box
o Tech is largely advertised as good progress

New (Traditional) Media: One-way communication (passive)

- Originates from a core and goes out to the masses
- Newspaper, radio, tv

Social Media: two-way communication (interactive)

- All internet based media
- A much more complex way of interaction than traditional media
- Cellphones, Facebook, email

The Sociology of Technology

- is the study of all things social.
- helps us understand the complexity of out behaviour and the role we have in society
o our social relations
- is how tech effects our lives interactions, society, and way of life in a way that’s different from
understanding how tech works or which is the best to use
o How tech shapes us as humans

Five things we need to know about technological change - Portman

1. There is always a trade off.

- This means that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding
disadvantage.
- This trade-off is not always obvious or immediate.
- For example: When the Internet had arisen. It looked all good but there was still a downfall.
Some people are out of jobs because of this technology. What will a new technology do? Or what
will a new technology undo?
2. Every new technology benefits some and harms others.
- There are always winners and losers in technological change.
- Digital Divide: Emergence of new technologies increases the divide between those who have
access to it and those who can’t afford it.
3. Embedded in all technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas.
- These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a somewhat abstract nature. But
this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical consequences.
- They are culturally contingent assumptions. Cultures perceive things differently, therefore change
is viewed differently.
- The more we become accustomed to technology, the more we see them as intuitive. Not everyone
relates to technology in the same way.
4. Technological change is not additive;

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 - it is ecological (accumulative). A new medium does not add something; it changes everything.
The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely
irreversible. Ex: Glass of water and a drop of red dye the water becomes pink, not water with a
drop of dye.

5. Media tends to be mythic. Technology is not god given, it is created. We adapt accordingly to the
weather and that is how we should respond to new technology.

Video – Are We Digital Dummies?

Tod Maffin – Technology consultant

- While it’s good, we are now left with the overload of it; Monday morning you have 200 emails to
answer and your day/week hasn’t even started, it becomes overwhelming.
- 3 billion cell users and 1 billion computer users.
- Marketing has us thinking that we need to use and check our phones and computers; the usage is
increasing and people are becoming addicted.
o Example: Bride and Groom in the ceremony pull out their phones to change their
relationship status on Facebook.
o Suppose to give more time but it’s taking time away from us
o Our brain is only capable of single taskinh
- We need to manage it or it will manage us. If it manages us them we are doomed to a life of
stress.
- We need to leave time for play, need time away from information for lives to get better.
Jack Grushcow – Software Inventor
- Vancouver Company and pioneered software that helped revolutionize the industry.
- Wasn’t easy convincing corporate world that it would be the next big thing.
o They thought messaging was useless and that if one needed to get incontact they would
stick a post it note on their desks.
Rod Bruinooge – Conservative MP
Kade O’Malley – Journalist

Susan Delacourt – Toronto Star

- Every MP office is supplied with 4 blackberries for instant access to email and internet in order to
stay on top of everything.
- Need to be as current as possible, cell phones gives advantage to receive all this information.
- Even unspoken rule that at a business dinner you are able to leave cell phone on the table and
give a 2 minute gap where both parties can check their phones.
- We in charge of our phones or are they in charge of us?

Linda Duxbury – Carleton University

- Studies: Stress, burnout, martial conflict etc.
- Decrease job satisfaction, life satisfaction
- Rick Merson commercial; ad with camera on blackberry so you can see if there something in
front of you – if youre going to bump into something
- The more you invest the less productive you are.
- People are addicted to their phones.

Kevin Michaluk – Crackberry.com

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 - People are on the site and continuously buying, including accessories which help one with easier
access to check and reply to emails, messages, etc.
- Etiquette is out the door, people send looking at their phone instead of having a conversation with
someone at dinner; people don’t think its rude because it’s the norm.
- Manage image by setting emails to send messages at 3am, afraid that they need to deliver
messages.
- More you invest in technology the less productive people are.
- People are texting in technology the less productive they are hurt.
- 12 step program to those admitting have a blackberry problem.

Ira Hyman – Western University

- Sent a clown to move through a courtyard and see who notices; the students were asked if they
saw anything usual.
- 60% of the music saw the clown, but cell phone users 25% saw it. They are oblivious to their
surroundings.

Andy Schaudt – Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

- Study to see how truck drives (who work from the truck for a living) drive when theyre on the
phone
- Usually took their eyes off for 4.6 seconds and weren’t always in the line.
- At the speed and time with their eyes off the road is like traveling a football field and not actually
looking at anything around you.
o Bus driver was texting and driving and caused a huge accident; cause for people to
realize that our multitasking abilities are not always the best.
o There’s no such thing as multitasking; people are just tasking switching at a quick rate.
Gary Small – Neurologist at University of California
- Middle age people who multitask make more errors.
- Perception that were getting more done but were sloppier.
- Stress shrinks the brain and contributes to memory loss.
- Our brain is on constant alert to things happening around us like our phone ringing.

Exercise – Passing the balls and us need to count. Witch passed by and we didn’t notice.
- The more you multitask the easier you are to distractions.
- Have more problems remembering and juggling tasks.

Eyal Ophir – Standford University

- Phones, ads, etc. are destroying our ability to focus.
- Media is suiting our attention and then we have no attention left.
- Professors are having trouble getting students not to text in their class – some will give a 5 min
texting brake.
- Inhibits creative thinking.
- Technology use rewires our brain and makes kids unable to interact in society.
o Pilots were on their laptops scheduling their hours and missed their intended landing.
o Theres a rehabilitation center near Microsoft for those addicated to their devices. $27,000
for 90 day stay. It’s not recognized as a media affliction but it is. People will stop
functioning, lose jobs and spend hours and days on their devices. 6%-10% that are online
meet their criteria for internet addiction. Son had leg amputated because of lack of
movement.

Yale Fox – DJ

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 - Younger generation can process information faster than the older generation.
- Toronto hottest dj – mashups
- Degree in sociology – research music attention deficit disorder.

Bob Brym – University of Toronto

- Less prepared and more exposed to media are less likely to concentrate and can only take things
in small chunks.
- Decline in reading skills, we say we are too busy but we watch 2hs of TV a day.
- When we reading we lose focus because we start deep thinking about other things.
- Were less interesting than other people

Cris Rowan – Occupational Therapist

- Difficulty paying attention.
- Problems begin at home if families are more connected to their technology than each other.
- Families are uncomfortable in social situations with each other.
- How much is too much? Under 2 – no technology what so ever; children older than 2 – no more
than 2hs a day and no longer than 20 min at a time.
- Our use will only increase as newer and faster devices become available

Store in Vancouver – Regional Assembly of Texts

- Writer club is free
- Only socialize and see how their grandparent grew up.
- See it as artistically – not something they want on a daily basis.

Jack Grushcow – Software Inventor

- People who think internet is evil are wrong.
- It’s a tool.
- Individuals make decisions for themselves to use them for good or bad
o Turning off and tuning out isn’t possible.
o It has become our main street and to be included you need to be connected.

Lecture #3

Learning Objectives

1. To highlight that the ICT of today are strictly roasted in these before them.
2. To create a linkage between the internet today and our past experiences with traditional media.

1440: Printing Press

- Created by Yohanas Guttenberg
- Guttenberg Press was the first form of mass media.
- Started in Germany and moved through Europe before becoming available globally.
- Prior to invention: If one wanted more copies they would have to hand write each copy.
- Invention allowed for one copy to be made and then a metal would press ink on the paper to
replicate multiple copies.
- Religious texts and bibles became the first ones to be reproduced.
- Innovation is transition from reproduction on ratio 1-1 or more.

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1605: First News Paper
- Impact of printing was so that people could always communicate information to each other.
- Cost of printing pages where high; started the first newspaper that was conveying information to
the public on a regular basis.
- Happened on the border of France and Germany.
- Scientists were able to communicate their discoveries and revolutions.

1760: Industrial Revolution

- Transition from relying on human, animals or water to move mechanical machinery; moved to
using steam.
- Beginning on contemporary newspaper with fonts, title pages, subtitles, etc.

1830: Telegraph
- First electronic ICT.
- It was an instantaneous way of communicating with someone
- Required decoding; sound waves looked like sound waves.
- It was the first 2-way communication.
- Partnered up with railways in order to save money; they were first to use invention to prevent
collisions and communicate about train schedules.

1838: Morse Code

- Samuel Morse, an American, brought the telegraph into popular use by inventing a coding
system.
- Consisted of dots and dashes which made up an alphabet.
- Later the encoding became automated by the teletype machine, which sped up the process.

Launched in the 1840s.

- Telegraph offices were built.
- Provided a new relatively immediate level of connectivity across the globe.

1850: Hundreds of Telegraph Companies

- Western Union bought out the telegraph companies and connected them all together.
- They were the origin of networking and networks.

MetĐalfe’s Law:
- Value of a network increases by the square value of that network.
- Ex: 4 networks consists of 16 connections.
- ϭ85Ϭ: There’s ϭϬϬ of sŵall telegraphs.

1861: All telegraph networks became connected.

1902: Global Telegraph Network

- World was overlaid by a network of wires and cables; on land and by sea.
- It promoted cooperation among global institutions for technical standards and payment transfers.
- Allowed for greater communication globally which impacted the newspaper industry in a positive
way.
- Served as a pivotal technology in terms of its ability to overcome limitations for moving
information.

Innovations: Newspapers were 1-way communication, it was instantaneous and would be

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transmitted over any distance was long as there was a wire; everyone wanted them for that.
Telegraph Scanning – Method of breaking a picture into discrete elements for encoding and
transmission to a remote location. Pioneered for telegraphs and repurposed for fax machines,
TVs and computers.

1876: Telephone
- First telephone was patented by Alexandre Graham Bell.
1900: Telephones Emerged
- It was a transmission of voice.
- There was no longer a need to decode messages which resulted in more privacy.

1920: Commercial Radio

- It presented wireless one-way communication.
- They were made to help setup relationships with media.
- Companies needed to make money and saw they could do that through advertisements.
- A customer would receive radio broadcasts (signals) for free in exchange for some
advertisements.

1930: Electronic Exchange Switch

- A person could phone someone else without the use of an operator.
- Telephone numbers were given.
- Pay to have a license to be able to broadcast on a frequency which would have to remain clear.

1932: Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission

- Established advertisements to program radios in Canada.
- Content was free with the exchange for advertisements.

1940 – 1950: Television

- One-way commercial communication.
1980: Cellphones
- Impacted countries where landline phones were not available.
- Same as the telephone; had to dial a number to speak with someone.

1995: Internet
2013: Social Media

Topic 3: Traditional Media and Contemporary Society

Learning Objectives:
1. To link the role of traditional media with democratic society through the concept of the “public
sphere.”
2. To affirm the importance of accurate, complete and timely information in supporting citizens in a
vibrant democracy.

Traditional Media

Categories of media:
- Commercial media
- State-run; public; alternative media; not-for-profit (Ex: CBC)

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Genres of media:
- News & Information
- Entertainment
*advertising (both)

Noam Chomsky
- Socialization: The process of social learning.
o Immersion in culture
o Typically starts with who raises us (parents)
 Early years have a huge impact on what happens of someone’s life.
 Monkey see money do
o Learn to communicate in specific social context using language.
o Language developed from culture
 Language is definitive of the particular that defines us
 Represents identity
 Hardwired to learn language but one in particular; although we have the ability.
 Basis of communication
 Over the past couple decades, we have increased our reliance on ICT’s
 Not only on how we communicate but what we communicate.
- Has looked at American policy and the role of media plays on society
What do all media have in common with respect to our communication?
- All forms necessarily mediate our communication
- Media plays an intermediary roll – its in the middle
- Its important to better understand what impacts all forms of media have on our communication.
- Traditional media have played a significant role in transforming society.
o Newspapers have shaped our relationship with
- Media is a space where citizens engage on another with the issues of the day.

Information Perception
- Information we know is 99% based on what we are exposed to through different media.
- Only a few people know the information through first-hand basis.
- Issue is that the information we know goes through a secondhand source.
- We skip the middle man and add it to our knowledge and assume its true.
- People draw conclusions based on the information they read on media, without questioning how
accurate the information is.

Public Sphere
- James Kern: A neutral zone where zone where access to information affecting the public good is
widely available, discussing is free from domination and all those participating do so on an equal
basis
- Jurgon Habernas: Neutral space where people can find and are exposed to information from all
sorts of media, they can then start a conversation and form opinions.
o Originated in 18th -19th century in European coffee houses where wealthy men would
meet and discuss issues.
o Makes people’s social reality more consumption oriented; government organizations took
over the sphere.
o In addition to bringing one perspective, the role of media in society. Many people
criticized.
- Many areas of our lives aren’t free from domination.

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 o Ex: Workplaces have hierarchies of bosses, families have different roles of power.
- We find ground in citizenship
- We find equal ground in citizenship.
- As citizens we are all equal and have the same rights but you can’t have that right without an
obligation.
- Must contribute to society, pay bills and taxes, etc. or order to have that right.
- Public good are the things that are good for citizens because they are all equal.
- Concept is to find the means to be in a democratic government, who is included in the sphere and
why there is one; to involve people of the public.
- People are influenced on political decisions.
- We need to have correct and accurate information but culture industries and capitalism is skewing
the information.
- Commercial mass culture took a rise in the industrial revolution.
o Cars started to shape our social reality.
o It shifted our values and behaviors.
o We have a lot of products and therefore companies need the Media to present a good
public sphere for them.
o Amusement culture became about a want than a need; which shaped us.

- Spectacle: Way in which citizens become distracted and disengaged.

o When we fall for the spectacles we don’t pay attention to things around us.
- False Consciousness: We do and act upon things we think is good when its actually not.
o (Passion vs. Reason vs. Being Misinformed).
- State Capitalism: Transition for the role of the state in our economy.
o The state plays a role in the value of currency
o Culture industries
 Commercial mass culture
 Cars started to shape our social reality.
 It shifted our values and behaviors.
 We have a lot of products and therefore companies need the Media to
present a good public sphere for them.
 Amusement culture became about a want than a need; which shaped us.

o Emergence of mass production – the production of consumer goods on a mass scale

 Marks a shift that related to how consumers make purchases
 Larger presence of consumer goods due to increase in rate of production thereby
lowering costs and prices; increasing accessibility
 People can see the stuff other people purchase which changes culture
o 1908: Model T Introduced
 the first mass production (assembly line) of the automobile.
 Resulting in seeing more people driving cars on the roads
o Adorno and Horkheimer
 Concerns about people ability to think
 People are loosing sight of their social reality and buying into the wealth, leisure
and fun they see in the media.
 They say there is a more subtle form of domination
 Standardized leisure commodities: all there and available just need the
expendable cash.
 Amusement Culture:

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Citizens vs Consumers
- Citizen is age of majority and has right to vote.
o Every citizen has the right to vote
o Right to education, health care, due process
- Consumer- rights vary dramatically; very based on your wealth
o Those living on the street are basically invisible as consumers
- Most institutions are commercial media therefor for profit corporations
- ADD

Where do we get our information?

- So much we know from second hand

Habernas
- Criticizes governments and large organizations for taking over the public sphere, making the
public distracted vs. engaged.
- Was focusing on critiquing the role of media
o How effectively media was a substitute of the public sphere (says it was a poot
substitute).
- Private interests manipulate the media and state.
- Neutral and open spaces for the public are now influenced by private organizations that focus on
their concerns and not the public good.
- Public opinion is transformed from a rational dialogue that merged from open debate, discussion
and reflection to the manufactured opinions of media experts.
- Early 1950-1960 citizens were viewed more as consumers.
o They wealthier you were the more power you had.
- Research is now based on questions of interest.
o If a company paid for the survey and didn’t like the result then they don’t have to post it;
only results we see are those in favour of corporations and governments.
- Public opinion is now derived by corporations and not citizens.
- Traditional media is our only antidote.

Democratic Functions of Media

1. Source of public information
o As population grows the need to communicate effectively grew and media was relied
upon as a mean to do so.
o Citizens need to have accurate and timely information so they can exercise their right as a
citizen in a democracy.
o Citizens need information about whats going on in their country.
2. Media as a public watch dog
o Media and journalists are looking out for their stories, tracking issues, watching on our
behalf and informing us because we cant be at everplace all at once.
o Feeds the information function.
3. Public representative
o Institutions of media, journalists and reporters are there asking questions for us that we’d
ask if we were there.
o We can’t be everywhere
o They represent our interests of the “publics” interest.
o Metaphor of Mirror: What we see on the news if reflected back to us; if we don’t like
what we see its not their fault.

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 o Metaphor of Window: Consumers are able to look at media and they show use
everything of importance, a window that facilitates our access of what is going on in the
world.
o Metaphors imply traditional media is transparent; they don’t change or shape the news
we get.

Constraints in Media (3 Constraints)

- Media isn’t transparent; not value based
1. Format
- Recognize news due to the format; arose in newspapers.
- Maintained through radio and TV.
- Has a familiar structure and trusted sources where we believe in them.
- Favour the representation of some views and not others
- 2 aspects:
o Timelines
 Recorded regularly with a deadline.
 Shorter the timeline the greater the impact on the story.
 Less time means less questions, research and analysis.
 Deadlines are created because news must be available as soon as possible
o Concision
 Developed from Chomsky
 Says the need for concision imposes a constraint on who and what is
seen on TV
 You can’t say anything new on TV
 Argued the only thing you can say on TV are things people already know
o IF u want to say something new people will expect evidence
o However don’t have enough time in a TV segment to prove it.
o Has to be said between two commericals
 Needs to be concise.
 Limits who and what is seen on TV.
 Cant report on “new” things because there’s 2 minute intervals between
commercials, and to have credibility you need to show evidence
2. Routines
- Heavy reliance on official sources, tied to deadlines.
- Publish “official stories”
- If you want to find out something, you’ll have to speak to an official spokesperson
(communication department)
- News conferences; those that know will go up and speak
o Footage is taken so that media looks like they’re presenting information truthfully; yet its
fed to them from an official source.
o Media experts talk to one another.
3. Impartiality (not biased)
- Lead to look impartial based on how information is presented; not necessarily to be impartial.
- Not bringing a particular bias to a news conference
- The use of particular narrative techniques restrains rather than help it
- Probably no such thing as impartiality
- The idea of impartiality should tell us that we all have beliefs and values
- Based on facts with meaningful analysis in order to draw conclusions.
- Conclusions may favour some people vs. others; either pro or negative.
- Less refined state of analysis to appear impartial; whos where talking to whom.

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 o Rather than analysis that may go one way.

- Reaffirm why it’s problematic to watch news as its transparent.

o They go through filters and must read uncritically.

Narrative Cues
- Speaks to the manner in which we make sense of a story
- Framing is about narrative cues that make use understand the story.
- It’s embedded in stories based on stereotypes.
o Ex: Alcoholism  Homesless person vs. Cocktail party  Business Person
o Shooting in Las Vegas: didn’t know the shooter and questioned if it’s a terrorist attack
and a white man who is “mentally ill”; our perception changed someone we knew who
the shooter was.
- Preferred Reading: 80% of people will draw the same conclusion while only 20% will have
different opinions based on their real life experience.
o People may draw different opinions because misunderstanding, background.
o Ex: In class given an exercise that left us with the letter D for a place (Denmark), second
letter of that place (E) animal beginning with it (Elephant) and colour of the animal
(Grey).
- Our opinions are formed externally; what we think are our own opinions are actually the same as
everyone else’s
- General knowledge is derived from media, yet we see it as our own.

Commercial Media
- Seems to be operating on public interest
- Primary Interest: Profit
- There’s a law that says board of directors must act in favour of their shareholders; if they reduce
profit they are held accountable
- If public interest and shareholder interest don’t align then board is forced to act in shareholder’s
favour.

What Does Media Create

- Relationship between media, advertisers, and consumers of media.
- The product it sells is consumers of medias’ attention.
o Ex: Super Bowl ads are very expensive because its guaranteed attention.
- Media sells audiences (attention)
- They paid people to hand it out, the more people that receive it, the more they can charge
advertisers

Privacy
- There’s always another layer of information that is gathered while we do things online

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 - There’s information auctions where they collect information on users and sell it to companies.
- Everything we do online is tracked
o Ex: Google cross-references information; they track our emails and everything we search.
The information is then sold to companies who can target us with their ads.
- Duck Duck Go is an alternative search engine similar to Google; they don’t track you.

Reading: Nicolas Carr

- How the use of the internet may not only affect how we read but how we think as awell.
- Internet may affect our ability to stay focused
- Tells us we are learning to read in a different way
- Metaphor he uses jet skiing on a lake and going diving
- The invention of the mechanical clock transformed how we look at time.
- How the technologies we use can have a profound impact on us

Technological Determinism
- Sees social change as driven by technological change and is a view that research and development
have been assumed as self-generating
- Describes relationship between technology and society
- Says technology is the driver of social change
- Reflects the predominant paradigm of the mainstream

Social Shaping
- The opposite of technological determinism model
- Suggests that social interactions shape the technologies we use.
- Seeks social, economic and cultural influences that shape how we use technology and make
choices.
- Cultural Studies
o See’s new technologies and institutions of media
o Views technology as outcome of culture
o More optimistic
o Embedded potential for social interaction, for disrupting traditional media and corporate
domination
o New technology results as an outcome from assembling technological, social, cultural
and economic power relations.
- Political Economy
o Technology as a development where behind it are corporate interests.
o Some technologies are developed and pushed further to benefit corporate interests.
o Ex: Laptops and mobile phones were originally made for the military and then brought to
consumers.
o Not optimistic.
o Perspective stresses the continuities and its predecessors.

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Lecture 5: Wednesday May 23rd, 2018

Learning Objectives
1. Complete topic #3
2. Midterm prep

Lecture 4: In Google We Trust

- ANPR: License plate recognition system using IR blasters to document license plates and look
for potential threats, stolen cars.
o Your data can be search without a warrant and is stored for 5 years
o There is an average of 37 images per car in the United States
- MetaData: Tells who, when, where, and what data was transmitted.
- KOHL’s Flyby – Allows them to track data based on a customer shopping experience, which
allows KOHL’s to provide increased value to their customers.
o 7 million users (Australia)
- Quantiam – tracks customers habits, de-identified data
- The data you put on websites (usually ran through US) is not in your control.

Westfield Labs
- Discover and develop and build application services
- Park assist: tracks where your car is parked in a parking garage by a camera which can be
accessed through your phone. Can be update in real-time.

In-store tracking
- Takes e-commerce abilities and brings them to brick and mortar stores.
- Tells how many shoppers, what they’re buying
- Uses in-store cameras and heat mapping to track information.

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Apple
- License to own and operate their technology
- When you’re living you own the data but when you die the company owns it.

Questions:

1. How concerned are you about your privacy (data) online?

2. What data might be available about you online if someone wanted to find things out (inferred
data)?
3. To what extent does ‘trust’ play as a factor when doing things online? Should we concerned about
this?

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Artificial Intelligence & the Knowledge Economy

1. To problematize the notion of artificial intelligence as something that rivals human intelligence
2. To re-assess the extent to which knowledge is at the core of our society and the implications of
this.

Impact of Artificial Intelligence

- The idea of artificial intelligence has a big impact on people’s imagination.
- Become popular from the book and movie, 2001 space odyssey
- We were introduced to AI quite some time ago and powerfully
- We were introduced to a computer deep blue, in 1997, which was a robot that played chess
o Played in a tournament with the world’s leading chess player, deepblue won.
- The big question is if computers are smarter than humans.
o If they aren’t smarter than humans now, they will be in the future.

2011
- A computer was introduced to the market called the Watson
o Was setup to play on Jeopardy
o Watson is not dealing with structured databases, it deals with language
o Airport question based on American Airport and World War II, put “what is Toronto”
o Watson doesn’t understand that he won, doesn’t recognize he was playing a game.
o We recognize the capacity of that computer is very different from our capacity.

What do we mean by intelligence/ What tools do we have to measure people’s intelligence?

- IQ test
- GPA  exams
- Income
- Aptitude test
- Job

Framework for Intelligence: Aspects of AI

Capacity for:
o Capacity, something we are capable of doing
1. Communication
o Capacity to communicate with others that is rich in meaning and comprehensive
2. Self Reflection
o Ability to think of oneself based on the stock of knowledge and experience that one has
accumulated
o Take that knowledge and experience and draw new conclusions
3. Abstraction
o Seen in the arts ( artistic expression, creativity, poetry, writing)
4. Analysis
o Could be referred to as capacity to reason, think, wonder.
o Ability to link different ideas and information and draw meaningful conclusions based on
these associations.
- Watson does not have ability for self-reflection
- Watson would not have a capacity for abstraction

How we are dealing with intelligence today

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Commodification of Knowledge
- Tendency to continue think computers can do things better than humans can
- Tendency to reduce knowledge to an endless stream of facts
o Falsely assumes human knowledge is based on a line of facts
- Ignores conceptual anchors
o One way to refer to something we do to understand something new
o It’s not just about answers, we learn more with questions
o Without conceptual anchors you wont know what questions to ask
- Human intelligence serves to promote technological determinism
o Tells us we should respond to technology
o It diminishes our technological capacity

Knowledge Economy
- Were living in a time in where were smarter than we’ve ever been
- We can have access to information but if we don’t know how to apply it were no better
- Questions are we accessing this information and what are we doing with it
- Knowledge economy is the product of three factors, according to flew and smith
o Emerges as a result of ICT’s, globalization (linking economies), and value of
information.
- The defining feature of a knowledge economy is an economy where the most value commodity is
information
- Commodity
o Tend to thing of stuff (gold, iron)
o But in a knowledge economy, information is as well.
- What’s an example of valuable information?
o Information is more valuable than traditional commodities
- We don’t mean were smarter than we were in the past, or knowledgeable
o Social media make it easier to communicate with each other
- Never before we were able to acquire or deploy information
o We have never been better positioned than today

Three Challenges in today’s knowledge economy (Flew and Smith)

- Misinformation
o Information that’s wrong
- Disinformation
o Information that’s intentionally wrong
- Excess information
o Too much information

Reading: Misplaced Metaphor

- We respond to having so munch information at our disposal, we don’t respond like were
swimming in it but we respond in aversion (trying to get away from it)
- We don’t know how to sort through it

Information economy is defined as the most important commodity.

- Meaning that information is bought and sold
o It is a proprietary, meaning it is owned.
o Intellectual Property
 Non tangible commodity that can me bought and sold in a marketplace
- So what happens to the free flow of information

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 - When people own information, by definition you don’t get it for free
- We think of this period as free access to information
- If you want the best information you’re going to have to pay for it

Nicolas Carr
- The internet makes things in its own images
- Meaning to appear online in a appear in a particular way

Chaos- Wisdom Continuum

- Y-axis: Utilities of information
- X-axis: amount of process
o Meaning the more the information is processed the more valuable that information
becomes
o Chaos
 When information hasn’t been processed we call it chaos
 Such as a phonebook
 No value from an informational standpoint
o Data
 Snippets of paper
o Information
 Data that is organized and has utility
 What is bought and sold
o Knowledge
 Information + experience
 Very different to package
 Its difficult to sell creativity / knowledge
 We can purchase knowledge in the form of a service
o Wisdom
 Experience / Time
 Associated with elderly people
 Difficult to sell
- Shows us different ways of seeing information
- The further out you go the more utility it has (increasing usefulness)
- Our knowledge society is not focused on the most useful information we have
- Our society is actually privileging a fairly mediocre form of information

Information vs information

Intellectual Property
- Traditional commodities: steel, gold
- Intellectual property is a different commodity because its not a physical object
- As a commodity information has to be controlled / restricted, it cannot flow freely like water
- Copyright is an example of a legal instrument to safeguard information
o Libraries set a price for photocopies to safeguard it
o Patent, Trademarks, Licensing are legal instruments
- Relevant because this period is marked by the not free flow of information
- Knowledge economy is about not allowing information to flow freely, information is owned
- Why is it the internet filled with free information
o Chances are you’ll have to pay to receive the best information
o We can pay with our personal information. i.e Facebook using our information

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4 Aspects that make Information different
1. Inconsumable
o Not consumed by its use
o Can reuse it forever
2. Untransferrable
o You don’t lose it when you send it to someone
3. Indivisible
o Information must be transferred as a whole entity to have meaning
4. Accumulative
o The addition of more information is more valuable than the sum of its parts

Topic 7: Internet Law, Policy and Governance

1. To emphasize the role of media regulation in relation to the public interest.

2. To highlight the manner in which state regulation can vary with respect to the operation of media

Regulation of Carriage
- How
- Relates to how ICT’s operate and are accessed

CRTC – Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

- Regulation of telephone services
- Regulation is in the public interest
o Allowing people all across Canada to communicate

Regulation of Content
- What
- What type of content you get
- The regulation on content in traditional media has focused on: Canadian content, language issues
(require content to be French too), standards of decency
o For protecting culture, and Canadian industries
 Everything would come from the U.S if there was no regulation
o Standards of decency
 The suitability of content (nudity, vulgarity, drugs)

Regulation of Advertising
- Controlled substances (showing someone drinking beer, not allowed)
- Pharmaceuticals (list the side effects)
- Viagra (you can’t say what the drug does)
o You can either say what the drug is but not what is does, ro say what it does but not what
the drug is.
- Once weren’t allowed to advertise hard liquor
- Regulation is in the public interest

In the 1990’s:
- A decision was made not to regulate content
o Decision of forbearance
- Decision to not regulate content has recently changed under the trump administration
o It was to allow prodaling
 Free flow of information

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Laws of General Application
- Child pornography – apart of the Canadian criminal code

In France
- You’re not allowed to sell Nazi merchandise
- Yahoo was forced to make these sites not accessible

Final Exam
- 3 essay questions
- 25 multiple choice
- No multiple questions from readings and films before midterm
- Example Essay Question: What does it mean to be intelligent in a knowledge economy
- ?

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