Assignment Overview

It is a truism in the study of human technology that any tool that gets the public’s attention will eventually be used for purposes entirely unforeseen by its inventor(s) and probably contrary to the general public interest. This has certainly been the case with information technologies and the Internet. E-mail is great, but spam is not. Online video of the grandkids is wonderful; online pornography accessible to little Johnny, not so much. Despite much breast beating, it is difficult to have the good without the bad—and even differentiating the good from the bad is often a matter of opinion. As Miles’ Law says, “Where you stand depends upon where you sit.”

Recently, we have become so saturated with and dependent upon social media such as Facebook and Twitter that we have not always noticed the potential “dark side”—most specifically, the ability to use these tools not only to connect individuals in cyberspace but also to mobilize groups for action in the real world. One example is the “flash mob”—defined most generally as a group of people voluntarily assembled at a particular place and time for a particular purpose, coordinated through shared access to social media. This is not altogether a new invention—the telephone and, before that, the telegraph or even a good strong voice have been tools for assembling flash mobs in the past. But what has been recently discovered is how easy it is using modern social media, and how effective such mobs can be.

As we said, whether or not you consider this to be a good development or a bad development depends a lot on how you evaluate the purpose of the mob. Public assemblies to install democracy in an authoritarian state sound pretty good; assembling gang members to break windows and burn cars would not strike most of us as all that great. Here is a sampling of different points of view on this general subject:

Tavoulareas, E. (2011, August 22). Social media: The Jekyll & Hyde of media? Changemakers. Retrieved from http://www.changemakers.com/blog/social-media-jekyll-hyde-media

Goodman, J. (2011, August 17). Debate over social media incitement as flash mobs strike. The Lede: Blogging the News. New York Times. Retrieved from http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/debate-over-social-media-incitement-as-flash-mobs-strike/

Brennan, E. (2011, August 19). Flash Mobs – The dark side of social media revealed. Retrieved from http://www.i-policy.org/2011/08/flash-mobs-the-dark-side-of-social-media-revealed.html

Lum, R. (2011) Spreading the happiness one flash mob at a time. CreativeGuerillaMarketing. Retrieved from http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/guerrilla-marketing/spreading-happiness-flash-mob-time/

Optional Reading

Kelly, L. (2011, March 22). Advertising with flash mobs. JSNCafe. Retrieved from http://www.jsncafe.com/advertising-with-flash-mobs/

Heaney, F. (n.d.) The short life of flash mobs. Stay Free!. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/26807/the_short_life_of_flash_mobs

The Economist. (2006, August 29). Shop affronts: Chinese consumers are ganging up on their retailers. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/7121669/print?story_id=7121669

The Brennan article is notable for a comment reaching new levels of cluelessness, to wit:

“This is not what social media was designed to accomplish,” states Ken Wisnefski, who was recently interviewed on FOX News discussing cyber security. “At WebiMax, we build social media campaigns for our clients to increase their brand awareness and develop additional revenue streams. The organizing of ‘flash mobs’ in Philadelphia demonstrates the capabilities of the misuse of one of the most powerful mass-communications tools in the 21st century.”

In other words, “It’s perfectly all right for us to use this tool to sell you stuff, but how dare you think of using it for any other purpose?” Mr. Wisnefski has obviously missed the entire point of Web 2.0—that is, user participation, user generation of content, and interactivity. There is no stuffing that particular genie back in the bottle.

Case Assignment

Once you have read the suggested short articles on flash mobs, you will probably want to do some additional Internet research of your own looking into other aspects of this phenomenon and other areas where they have occurred. When you feel you have a good handle on the information, write a 3- to 4-page paper on the topic:

What ought to be done about flash mobs? By whom? Why?

Assignment Expectations

Your paper should be 3–4 pages long. Take a definite stand on the issues, and develop your supporting argument carefully. Using material from the background information and any other sources you can find to support specific points in your argument is highly recommended; try to avoid making assertions for which you can find no support other than your own opinion.

Provide proper citations for any material you reference from other sources. Follow the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper for help in structuring and developing your paper.

You will be particularly assessed on:

• Your ability to see what the module is all about and to structure your paper accordingly.
• Your informed commentary and analysis; simply repeating what your sources say does not constitute an adequate paper.
• Your ability to draw on a range of sources and to establish your understanding of the historical context of the question.

SLP 2

Web 2.0: 2001–Present

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. If this is so, then the average SLP essay of 2–3 pages, which averages out to just about 1,000 words, should be worth a picture. So that is what we are going to do in this SLP assignment: Draw a picture.

Last year, P2PU, the online “school of webcraft,” offered a course entitled “Web 200: Anatomy of a Request.” Basically, it dealt with some of the more technical aspects of Internet processes, although many of the students were not particularly technically inclined. Early in this course, an assignment was given—and the same assignment is now being given to you, as follows:

Hey, everyone,

Your assignment is to draw a picture of how the Internet works. You don’t need to do any research for this assignment, I just want you to use your current knowledge and represent it graphically.

You can use any application you’d like.

If you find this assignment a little intimidating or confusing you might want to see some samples of what the students in the P2PU course came up with; you can page through the different student pictures here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johndbritton/sets/72157624932677905/detail/

(Note that you can click on any picture to see it full size—one of these was actually done by your instructor, although I’m not going to tell you which one.)

As you see, none of these are highly technical, and some of them are downright whimsical. But interestingly, they all reflect many of the same general kinds of concepts about what the Internet is and how it is shaped. Obviously, there is no one “correct” picture to be drawn. The aim here is simply for you to reflect your own understanding about what the critical elements of the Internet are and how they are linked to each other.

Most of you probably have some degree of experience with online drawing tools and some accessibility to such tools; even if you don’t have experience, the basics of the available tools are easy enough to learn quickly. At the low end, every Windows computer comes with an application called MSPaint, which is certainly adequate for the purposes of this exercise. Moving up the line, you might use MS PowerPoint or possibly Photoshop, or one of any number of free online drawing tools that you can find linked here—Queeky is particularly nice if you like to draw boxes and arrows and such (note that none of these tools require you to download or install anything). There is also SketchUp from Google, another free but powerful drawing tool. Or at the other end of the techno-spectrum, you could always draw your picture in pencil on the back of an old envelope and find someone to scan it into digital form for you.

If you encounter any particular difficulty with finding a way to carry out this assignment, please let your instructor know as soon as possible so that you can work out some way of completing it.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Your assignment need only include your graphic, although you are welcome to add whatever commentary you feel is necessary by way of explanation. It should reflect your personal ideas about the shape and elements of the Internet.

You will be assessed on the degree to which you include relevant elements and appropriate relationships including all the network components and program applications that you know or are aware of; you will not be assessed on the quality of your artwork or your degree of mastery of whatever drawing tool you choose to use.

The important part of all these project assignments is to carefully assess your own experiences with the topic, and then reflect critically on what you might have learned about yourself and about situations through this assessment process.

The more that you can use the exercise to develop personal implications for your growth as a potential business person as well as an Internet-savvy individual, the more value you will get out of the exercise.

CASE 3

Web 3.0: The Semantic Web and Beyond