Speech Communication 496: Virtual Communities

12:30-1:50 MW, Armory, 431

Instructor: Dmitri Williams

Office Hours: Lincoln Hall 169, MW, 2-3 or by appointment (333-3617)

Email:

About the Course

This course is intended to give you a background in the theory and practice surrounding online “virtual” communities. Students will join and participate in online communities, and will learn to evaluate them. The assignments consist of traditional readings, plus hands-on experiences. Class sessions will be a mix of lectures and discussion.

Schedule

The midterm is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 13. There is no final exam, but we will probably use that time slot for student presentations: Wednesday, Dec. 15, 7-10 pm.

The Readings

I have been a student. As an undergraduate, I knew that when professors assigned me a lot of material, I could get by without reading all of it. I knew that I could give sneaky answers or avoid being called on if I hadn’t read. What I’m telling you is that I know the good tricks. Please don’t try them. If it’s obvious that you haven’t done the reading, I will simply mark you down. If it’s obvious you’re pretending to have read, it’s worse.

Instead, I make this up-front proposition: I assign less reading, and you actually read it all. Read everything, and come prepared to talk about it.

Grades

#1. If you have a question or dispute about a grade, wait 48 hours and then email me to set up an appointment to talk about it. #2. Vote on November 2. Bring me proof that you voted and I’ll give you a bit of extra credit.

Cheating

Don’t cheat. Don’t plagiarize, copy, or otherwise do things that you know you shouldn’t do. I will throw the book at you.

Assignments for Undergraduates

1)Term project (35%).

2)Reaction papers (20%)

3)Midterm (20%)

4)Attendance & Participation: In class & online (25%)

Term Project (35%)

We’ll talk a lot about the project, but here are the basics. You will pick an existing online community (not one you are a part of already) after a few weeks of class. You will observe it for a while, and then you will join it. At the end of the term, you will give a presentation about what you found (10% of your grade). Lastly, you will write a 10-15 page term paper about it (25% of your grade). Simply describing the community will not be a large part of your grade. Instead, you will be evaluated by how well you used the course concepts to understand the community.

Reaction papers (20%)

You will write eight weekly reaction papers over the course of the term. Check the calendar and you’ll see that we have 12 full weeks of classes. Thus, you don’t have to do one every week. You pick the weeks you want to write one. Do one a week for the first eight weeks and be done with them. Or, procrastinate and panic later. Just make sure you hand in eight.

What’s in these reaction papers? Your reactions and thoughts about the readings. This is different than a summary. Don’t tell me what you read (I’ve read it already), but tell me what you think (I don’t know that part). Does it lead you to any new ideas? Why is it important? Was it any good? Was it trash? Be thoughtful!

The format of the reaction papers: One page, in Times, 12 pt. with standard margins (i.e. don’t shrink or stretch with fonts and spaces.). And that’s one page—not a half page or three-quarters of a page, or a page and a few lines. One page.

Attendance, Being Late and Participation

Attendance matters. If you are missing, you will be marked absent. My approach is a bit unorthodox: Everyone may miss two classes for either good or bad reasons. The key is that I don’t want to know. Miss because you overslept. Miss because you hate the class. Miss because you would rather golf. Miss for whatever reason you like. Just don’t tell me. However, once you have missed two classes, there are no valid excuses (with the exception of a death or documented severe illness). Any missed class after your two freebies drops your overall grade by 3%.

Being on time matters. If you are late several times, I begin to get annoyed, and I count you as absent (see above policy). If you know you will be late because of some crucial matter, send me a courtesy email.

Participation matters. You may have noticed that the participation portion of the grade is unusually high. In fact, it is larger than your midterm score. This is my way of telling you that participation is important. I run a fairly relaxed class, so this should be easy. Still, you must be willing to talk about the material. You must do this in class, but may supplement it by participating on the class message board. Both are about quality, not quantity, although having both never hurts. Bottom line: if you do not speak in class or chime in online, you will not get a good grade.

For Graduate Students

Extra, extra

I will assign you extra reading. I’ll attempt to match readings with your interests as I learn more about you.

Reaction papers

You will write eight weekly one-page reaction papers over the course of the term. Check the calendar and you’ll see that we have 12 full weeks of classes. Thus, you don’t have to do one every week. You pick the weeks you want to write one. Use Times, 12 pt. with standard margins.

Participation

We will start the term by meeting once a week outside of class. In these meetings we will discuss the material assigned to the undergraduates, plus extra material that I will assign you over the course of the term. It is my hope that I can customize the experience for each of you as I learn your research interests.

Presentation and Term Paper

Like the undergraduates, you will give a presentation and a term paper. However, your topic will not be constrained to the basic observation and evaluation of a virtual community. It should be more analytical and may even include original data analysis. At minimum, it would be a research proposal. Although you will consult with me on it, your paper topic is open ended. This paper should be of conference quality, and your presentation in class will be a practice run. In other words, I want you to leave the class with a paper that will eventually add to your CV.

Midterm

You’re graduate students. No midterm for you. Instead, you get to help devise the undergraduates’ exam.
Course Themes

Theme 1: Foundations of communities

Readings

1)Tonnies, F. On Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.

2)Oldenburg, R. The Great, Good Place. Ch. 1: The Problem of Place in America.

Topics

1)What is a community?

2)Types of community: differences, classifications, etc.

3)The question of proximity

4)Functions of communities

5)Things that shape community.

6)State of American community

7)If time: Wenger’s Communities of Practice

Theme 2: Histories of media and social networks.

Readings

1)McLuhan, M. Understanding Media. Ch. 1: The Medium is the Message.

2)Czitrom, D. Media and the American Mind. Ch. 1: Lightning Lines

3)Picture “Terrors of the Telephone” from Neuman

Topics

1)Transportation vs. communication

2)Diffusion of technologies

3)Utopian/Dystopian frameworks.

4)Case studies of media and social networks:
a) Writing
b) Telegraph
c) Telephone (Fischer)

5)The Medium is the Message/The Global Village

Theme 3: Theories of Social Impact

Readings

1)Putnam, R. Bowling Alone. Ch. 13: Technology and Mass Media

2)Meyrowitz, J. No Sense of Place. Ch. 3 & 4: Media, Situations and Behavior & Why Roles Change When Media Change

3)“Wheels of Change” article

Topics

1)Social Capital

2)SocioTechnical Capital

3)Social Capital and displacement

4)Crossing barriers, place & space roles,

5)The changing, empowered audience

Theme 4: Becoming Digital

Readings

1)Negroponte, N. Being Digital. Ch. 1, 6, 7, 9-14 (Grad students, whole book)

Topics

1)VR/Cyberspace.

2)Bits are bits (Ch. 1)

3)Delivering bits (Ch. 6)

4)Interfaces, usability (Ch. 7, 10, 11)

5)VR (Ch. 9)

6)The Daily Me, customization (Ch. 12-14)

7)The dot.com boom and euphoria

Theme 5: Utopian: The Internet is the Best Thing Ever

Readings

1)Wellman, B. Computer Networks as Social Networks (short article in Science)

2)Rheingold, H. Virtual Communities: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Introduction.

Theme 6: Dystopian: The Internet is the Worst Thing Ever

Readings

1)Glassner, B. The Culture of Fear. 23-35, 58-61

2)Viega, A. (AP story) “California Cities Tackle Violence at Internet Gaming Parlors”

3)Lessig, L. Code. Ch. 3

Theme 7: Back to reality—Code is law

Readings

1)Lessig, L. Code and other laws of cyberspace. How much? Ch. 1, 2,

Topics

1)Code as law (Ch. 1)

2)Four puzzles and themes (Ch. 2)

3)Privacy (Ch. 11)

4)Regulating code (Ch. 5)

Theme 8: Evaluating Online Communities

Readings

1)Galston, W. Does the Internet Strengthen Community?

2)Kim, A. Community Building on the Web. Ch. 1, p. 27-50, 233-242, 299-308
(Grad students read Chs. 1, 2, 7 & 8)

Topics

1)Entry and Exit Costs

2)Purpose

3)Activities: Places (Kim, p. 27-50), events (233-242) and rituals (299-308)

4)Tie strength, bridging and bonding online vs. offline

Theme 9: Identifiers/Identity, Reputation Systems, Roles

Readings

1)Kim, p. 115-199 (Grad students read Ch. 4)

2)Dog cartoon

3)Lessig, Ch. 4

4)Resnick et al, Reputation Systems

Topics

1)Reputational systems/trust. eBay, MySimon & e-commerce

2)Identity/deception

3)Kim on roles

4)Identity and Authentication

Theme 10: Control, Norms and Etiquette: Managing the Commons

Readings

1)Lessig, Ch. 6

2)Kollock, P. & Smith, M. Managing the Virtual Commons: Cooperation and Conflict in Computer Communities

Topics

1)Governance. Use Lessig, Ch. 6 on architectures of control. It covers Dibbell essay.

2)Conflicts, Tragedy of the commons (Kollock & Smith)

Theme 11: Recap: Building a better sandbox/Design principles

Readings

1)Kollock, P. Design Principles for Online Communities

2)Godwin, M. Nine Principles for Making Virtual Communities Work

3)Optional: Kim’s Introduction, i-xvii.

Course pack contents

  1. Tonnies, F. On Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
  2. Oldenburg, R. The Great, Good Place. Ch. 1: The Problem of Place in America.
  3. McLuhan, M. Understanding Media. Ch. 1: The Medium is the Message.
  4. Czitrom, D. Media and the American Mind. Ch. 1: Lightning Lines
  5. Picture: “Terrors of the Telephone” from Neuman, R. The Future of the Mass Audience
  6. Putnam, R. Bowling Alone. Ch. 13: Technology and Mass Media
  7. Meyrowitz, J. No Sense of Place. Ch. 3 & 4: Media, Situations and Behavior & Why Roles Change When Media Change
  8. Srinivasan, S. (AP Story) “Wheels of Change”
  9. Wellman, B. “Computer Networks as Social Networks” (short article in Science)
  10. Rheingold, H. Virtual Communities: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Introduction.
  11. Glassner, B. The Culture of Fear. 23-35, 58-61
  12. Viega, A. (AP story) “California Cities Tackle Violence at Internet Gaming Parlors”
  13. Galston, W. Does the Internet Strengthen Community?
  14. Dog cartoon
  15. Resnick, P. et al. “Reputation Systems.” Communications of the ACM.
  16. Kollock, P. & Smith, M. Managing the Virtual Commons: Cooperation and Conflict in Computer Communities
  17. Kollock, P. Design Principles for Online Communities