"Online Communities" Communications course questions

Questions:

1. On April 30, the Pew Research Center published the most recent results of their ongoing Internet & American Life Project survey, suggesting that a “declining majority of online adults say the internet has been good for society.” After reading the full report at Pewinternet.org,

a. Analyze and develop one of the reasons cited by the survey respondents within the context of the class reading list.

b. Evaluate the extent to which the survey data reflects the popular and academic discourse concerning the status of the internet.

2. Are mass media conceptions of audience still useful in the internet age? Argue how either Walter Lippmann’s “The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads” or Stuart Hall’s “Encoding/Decoding” can be adapted to consider new media audiences.

3. Identify how the liberatory potential of the internet is framed in two of the class readings, making sure to discuss the major points of agreement and disagreement between authors. Choose between: Yochai Benkler; Zeynep Tufekci; Cass Sunstein; and John Parry Barlow.

4. Using at least two of the class readings, explain why algorithms have been identified as having an important role in the production and consumption of online media.

5. Have recent political events demonstrated the radical impact of social media on the political process, or not? Explain your position. In doing so, argue against the position of at least one of the class readings or videos.