Section A25: Too Much Information? Knowledge and Cultural Citizenship on the Internet
TV networks called the election for Barack Obama at 11:00 pm EST. By 11:01, Internet traffic reached an historic high as a staggering 8.5 million new users signed on each minute. An indispensable aspect of politics, education, the economy and popular culture, the Internet changes how we participate in, interact with and understand the world. It's not just about information. It's about knowledge and knowing, which is really to say it's about cultural citizenship in the twenty-first century. Part of our everyday life, the Internet--from Google and Wikipedia to Facebook and Second Life--is changing what it means to 'know' something or someone. Along the way, it seems we may be living in a moment where what you know and how you feel matters more than that you think.
In this seminar, we will try to think our way through some complicated questions: How is the Internet reshaping cultural institutions like museums, libraries and universities? What does it mean to be an author, or to be an authority online? Can 'netroots' politics stop 'special interests'? Can Facebook overturn Prop 8 in California? Will online pornography be a death-blow to feminism or an opportunity for women to rewrite the rules of representation? Will the democratization of knowledge eradicate racial and class division, or is the 'digital divide' another way to maintain longstanding social hierarchies?