Readings

Books and Articles

We will be reading the following books. Please make sure to secure a copy well in advance of the assigned weeks.

  • [GC] = Coleman, Gabriella. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. Verso, 2014. ISBN: 9781781685839.
  • [WP] = Buy at MIT Press Phillips, Whitney. This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. MIT Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780262028943. [Preview with Google Books]
  • Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780691168340. [Preview with Google Books]
  • [DB] = Boyd, Danah. It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. Yale University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780300166316. [Preview with Google Books]
  • [JB] = Buy at MIT Press Burrell, Jenna. Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafés of Urban Ghana. MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780262017367. [Preview with Google Books]
SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction

Collins, Randall, and Michael Makowsky. "Society and Illusion." In The Discovery of Society. 8th edition. McGraw-Hill, 2009. ISBN: 9780073404196.

Edwards, Paul N. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader."How to Read a Book, v5.0 (PDF)." University of Michigan School of Information.
2 Technology & the Social

Winner, Langdon. "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" In The Social Shaping of Technology. 2nd edition. McGraw Hill Education / Open University, 1999. ISBN: 9780335199136.

Fisher, Claude S. "Technology and Modern Life." In America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. University of California Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780520079335.

Gillespie, Tarleton. "The Politics of 'Platforms'." New Media & Society 12, no. 3 (2010): 347–64.
3 Anonymous I [GC] Chapter 5: Introduction.
4 Anonymous II

[GC] Chapter 6: Conclusion.

Recommended Films

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists. Directed by Brian Knappenberger. Color, 93 min. 2012.

Citizenfour. Directed by Laura Poitras. Color, 114 min. 2014.
5 Trolling I [WP] Chapter 4: Introduction.
6 Prep Week for Book Review No new readings assigned
7 Trolling II [WP] Chapters 5–9.
8 Algorithms and Big Data I No new readings assigned
9 Algorithms and Big Data II

Buy at MIT Press Gillespie, Tarleton, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot. "The Relevance of Algorithms." In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society. MIT Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780262525374. [Preview with Google Books]

Boyd, Danah, and Kate Crawford. "Critical Questions for Big Data: Provocations for a Cultural, Technological, and Scholarly Phenomenon." Information, Communication & Society 15, no. 5 (2012): 662–79.

Karppi, Tero, and Kate Crawford. "Social Media, Financial Algorithms and the Hack Crash." Theory, Culture & Society 33, no. 1 (2015): 73–92.
10 Youth and Social Media I [DB] Chapter 3: Introduction.
11 Youth and Social Media II [DB] Chapters 4–8.
12 Invisible Users I [JB] Chapters 1–4.
13 Invisible Users II [JB] Chapters 5–8.