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 2

Write a paper of about 10 pages (approx 2500 words) paper addressing one of the following prompts. The paper is by the end of the final exam period for this class, 10:50am, Tuesday, May 5, 2015. The paper or project should be emailed to me at dgolumbia@vcu.edu. Your essay should have the form of a typical English paper: a coherent argument supported by evidence. The typical form of a paper will be an argument using the terms of one or more of the critical readings we've done this term, supported and illustrated with specific examples of digital media and technology.

  1. Consider an important political controversy that is not directly related to internet technology, such as climate change, abortion, or civil rights based on race, gender, and/or sexuality. How have digital technologies shaped and changed the nature of these controversies? Have they better facilitated democratic deliberation about the controversy? Why or why not? Use specific examples in your answer.
  2. Investigate the writing and thought of a civil rights leader from the pre-digital era such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Angela Davis. How do their hopes and plans for social change meet up with current ideas about social change and civil rights associated with digital technology?
  3. Simone Browne's "Race and Surveillance" essay digs into the history of racial classification and ties this history into current surveillance and social media technologies. Follow up on one of these threads, researching more about one part of the history of racial and cultural classification, and finding comparison material for it in contemporary technology.
  4. With reference to the readings on "immaterial labor," think about some forms of "immaterial labor" that do not involve the computer. Compare ways that society has valued that kind of labor with the ways that digital immaterial labor is valued (or not).
  5. Do some research into the reasons that freedom of expression and freedom of the press are considered vital to a democratic society. How does the rhetoric surrounding these rights today fit (or not fit) into the historical understandings of these values?
  6. What would be a reasonable way that democratic societies might allow (and disallow) the kind of data collection exemplified by data brokers and credit monitoring agencies? How might the public be fully-informed about the way these practices work and the uses to which they are put? What do you make of the fact that in the age of open information, there has been a proliferation of some of the most closed and secretive practices of data collection in human history?'
  7. Compare the way "internet freedom" and digital democracy are understood in two different countries. This requires either detailed research into at least one country other than the US, or personal knowledge based on your own experience in another country.
  8. 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 April 21, 2015.