October 21, 2008

Today’s Agenda

1)      Get out your questions for today, and ask your questions to your partner. Your partner is going to provide you with a short written critique that focuses on the following issues:

a.       Will the questions help your partner see the job from their interviewee’s point of view?

b.      What kind of insights do you think the interviewer can hope to gain from this interview?

c.       What level of insight will these questions illicit from the interviewee?

2)      For today I had you think about the term “Digital Culture.” Today, we are going to ask ourselves what would happen if we look at our “Digitial Culture” as as closely as Scudder and Shaler learned to observe fish?

Get into groups of four. In the next half hour, I want you to generate the most detailed account possible of modern on-line behavior, especially Facebook. What do people actually do on-line? What do we know about things like Facebook, and how do we know it?

We will then take the second half of class to compose jointly a summary of what the groups know and believe about digital culture. We will develop a list of questions about what you are curious about, in regards to culture.

For homework: Read, take notes, and respond in a 2-page journal entry to “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” from the New York Times, September 7, 2008.

Questions to keep in mind, and write about:

What has Clive Thompson himself observed? Where does he go beyond observation?

What use does Clive Thompson make of social science and scientists?

How do he and the social scientists come to know the things they know, that he reports?

How do his observations and ideas fit with what our class generated about Facebook and digital media in general during its discussion?

Where do you see evidence of what you would call “critical thinking” among Thompson and the various participants in this situation?

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