ENGL 391 (Section 001, Schedule #32076)
Virginia Commonwealth University
Spring 2015
TTh 11:00am-12:15pm :: 264 Hibbs
Prof. David Golumbia
Office: 324D Hibbs Hall
Spr 2015 Office Hours: Tues 1:00-3:30pm

Digital Studies

PAPER ASSIGNMENT 1

Write a paper of about 10 pages (approx 2500 words) paper addressing one of the following prompts. The paper is due by class period on Thursday, March 19. You may submit the paper via email or on paper. Your essay should have the form of a typical English paper: a coherent argument supported by evidence.

  1. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission issued new rules regarding "Net Neutrality." Are these new rules and/or the discussion surrounding them instances of what Curran and Morozov call "internet centrism" and/or what Morozov calls "internet exceptionalism"? Why or why not? Be sure to define "internet centrism" and/or "internet exceptionalism" carefully using either Curran's or Morozov's essays.
  2. In his film All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (especially the second part), filmmaker Adam Curtis reflected at some length on the influence of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of "objectivism." Research some of the leading figures of internet culture who are followers of Rand. Choose one of them and discuss how the work they do (the products they make or companies they lead) do or do not embody "objectivist" principles. You should carefully define what you mean by "objectivism" for the sake of your argument.
  3. Justin Bieber?
  4. Rob Horning discusses many ways in which social media, in particular Facebook, constructs and defines identity. Choose some specific examples from Facebook as well as some specific examples from other media (such as books, films, or TV shows). Do they construct and define identity in the same way that Horning says social media does?
  5. Discuss Google's proposed but never-fully-released product Google Glass in terms either of (a) the discussion of "e-personality" and/or "delusions of grandeur" in Aboujouade's essays, or "internet centrism."
  6. Open topic. You may write on any topic related to the course. The simplest form for such an essay is to choose a specific media object or event, and use it to discuss one of the arguments presented in one of the critical works we have read or viewed so far. However, the subject of all open topic papers must be approved by the instructor via email in order to receive credit for the assignment.
General Instructions

The essay should be about 10 pages in length, but please use your word processor to count the number of words; word count and not page length is the official metric for the assignment. Short quotations DO count toward the total word count for the essay. Long quotations (of 50 or more words) should not generally be counted toward the 2500 word total for the assignment.

This is not primarily a research paper, and you do not need to consult outside sources except for the primary book or piece of media you choose to interpret. However, you are also very welcome to include secondary and primary sources of any kind that relate to the assignment and the course material. Any sources, including that primary source, should be properly cited in your paper, using any acceptable bibliographic citation format. One very simple format is to use a list of Works Cited at the end of the paper, and indicate by author, work and page number in parentheses the exact quotations within the paper itself.

For convenience, here are some citations from course readings, copied from the course bibliography. You are very welcome (and even encouraged) to cut and paste citations directly from the bibliography. For works other than movies, articles, or books, just do your best: the point is to indicate where you got material that is not written by you; I am less concerned with the exact form your citation takes than I am with the attempt to provide a citation.

Works Cited

Mark Andrejevic, "The Work of Watching One Another: Lateral Surveillance, Risk, and Governance." Surveillance & Society 2:4 (2004). 479-497.
Julia Angwin, "It's Complicated: Facebook's History of Tracking You." ProPublica (Jun 17, 2014). http://www.propublica.org/article/its-complicated-facebooks-history-of-tracking-you.
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, "The Californian Ideology." Mute 3 (Autumn 1995).
Adam Curtis, dir. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. Three Parts. United Kingdom: BBC, 2011.

Other standard forms of citation (such as footnotes) are also acceptable, but failing to properly indicate sources technically constitutes plagiarism.

Speaking of plagiarism, all work for this assignment and the rest of this course is expected to be your own, and should not include elements from other sources (such as online commentaries on the works you write about), unless you also put them in quotation marks and clearly indicate your sources as described above.

Last updated March 3, 2015.