INFO 6210/COMM6211: Information, Technology, Society
Cornell Tech - INFO 6210/COMM6211
Credits: 3 hours
Fall 2019
Helen Nissenbaum, Information Science: Cornell Tech

About the course:

This research seminar is a core requirement of the doctoral program in Information Science. It explores key theoretical and methodological approaches underlying the study of information, technology, and society. In this semester’s iteration, the seminar will focus on ethical, political, policy, and quality of life issues taking, primarily, philosophical and normative perspectives, also drawing from the social sciences, including disciplines such as sociology, communications, history, science & technology studies, and others. The course is designed to be rigorous and to prepare students to make their own analytically and theoretically sound contributions to scholarship and research.


Prerequisites: none.

Readings: Weekly reading assignments will be posted on Course Canvas.

Three Key Objectives of this Course:

• We will explore and evaluate the social, political, economic, cultural, and ethical dynamics that accompany technology "on the ground" (i.e. embedded and in use). We'll sample longstanding debates as well as newly emerging issues, both to gain a historical perspective and to see how well we have learned lessons from the past (if at all!) Although the details of particular cases and issues are important, more important is for you to develop the theoretical grounding to think rigorously not only about the particular cases we study but to extrapolate to other, similar ones and ultimately those that inform your own research.
• We will spend a good deal of time discussing methods, methodologies, and approaches not necessarily in their own right. However, in the articles and cases that we study, we will allow time to extract and critically analyze the approaches taken in these works. In some instances, this will mean confronting methodological difficulties and disagreements (and the ethical entanglements that can accompany them) posed by digital and information technologies.
• We will devote attention to the professional craft of being a researcher and a member of a research community. This means working on the skills of reading analytically, critiquing readings and your colleagues' works-in-progress constructively, communicating your ideas effectively in writing and orally, generating good research questions and collaborations, and related skills.

All activities, and assignments are mandatory for a passing grade.
* Please access the full syllabus through the course Canvas page for detailed instructions and deadlines for the assignments and activities.

• Initial Self-assessment

  Level-setting description of you, your methodological and theoretical orientation, your research experience and trajectory, and your particular aims for the course. The goal of this assignment is to give you a chance to reflect on how this course fits into your own development as a researcher, and to give me a good sense of the skills and interests you're bringing to the class.

• Particpation - Ongoing

  Participation is a crucial component of a seminar-style class. I expect everyone to arrive to class having thoroughly read and engaged with the course materials and being well prepared to discuss the material. Your contributions to the class can and should occur in our in-person meetings; in addition, we'll operate an online Forum for interaction with your colleagues, to discuss questions, and post additional items of interest.

• Citiques - Twice over the course of the semester; due before class

  You'll prepare a 2-page, double-spaced critique based on the week's readings, which you will post to the Forum for others to read. This is not only a summary, although a brief overview of key argument might be useful. In addition, however, you should use these as opportunities to mash up themes and texts against your own research, ideas, perspective, analysis, interests, etc. This is a similar skillset to what you'll bring to critique of your colleagues' work, and in due course, such exercises will make your own work better. Here is a non-exhaustive list of some possible approaches:

  • Focus on method: How do these researchers know what they know? Do they know what they think they know? What are some other ways of knowing about the thing they're talking about? How do these researchers operationalize and measure the concepts they are interested in?
  • Focus on assumptions: What assumptions underlie the research and writing? What theory of the world are these authors working with, and what are they trying to explain? What questions don't they ask? If there are assumptions that you think are faulty or context-dependent, what are they, and how might recognition of them change the conclusions the authors reach?
  • Focus on design: How might you redesign a technology, a policy, a norm, or a social structure in light of the ideas/findings in this research? How could you assess the effects of such a redesign? What new issues might it introduce?
  • Focus on ethics: What ethical issues are raised by the technology under discussion? What ethical issues are raised by the research about the technology? How might either be addressed? What approaches do the authors take (if apparent) to thinking about ethics? Do you find their approaches sufficient?
  • Focus on extensions (especially to your own work): How does the research make you reflect differently on your own academic research? Can you "remix" it with work you're doing to come up with something new? Could you apply it in some other context or generalize it in a different field? Try articulating a mini-proposal for a project you could pursue that relates in some way to the week's topics /readings.

  Things to keep in mind for critiques

  • "Critique" doesn't necessarily mean "critical" in a negative sense; the point is to be analytic, creative, and reasoned, regardless of whether you love or hate something.
  • Your critique doesn't have to involve all the readings for a given week. You can go deep on one paper if you want. That said, synthesis is an important research skill, and you may get more out of the assignment if you try to draw together several of the readings.
• Class Facilitaiton - Once over the course of the semester

  Drawing on one of your critiques, you will also be required to serve as a facilitator of our class discussion (possibly, with another student depending on enrollment) once during the semester. This means that you will be responsible for leading class discussion and prepare discussion questions for your colleagues in advance. I'll provide more detail about this component at our first meeting.

• Research Paper

  You will produce a 15-20 page (double-spaced) paper, in lieu of a final exam, that draws out a key theme from the course. I encourage you to use this requirement as a way to further some aspect of your research agenda (e.g., as a first draft of a paper you could submit to a conference or journal, as a way to explore some facet of your dissertation project, as a means to collect pilot data or test out a method that's new to you, etc.). We will discuss the paper in more detail as the course progresses, but I encourage you to begin thinking of topics early in the semester, initially toward a proposal. The research paper should be based on independent thinking and may draw on sources from outside as well as inside class.

• Peer Review

  A key component of academic life is learning how to give constructive, generative feedback to colleagues. This is just as important a skill as developing your own research ideas (they often go hand-in-hand!) and the goal of this assignment is to practice that skill. You will be asked to provide feedback for two of your colleagues' research proposals, in the style of conference- or journal-style peer review, with the aim of helping to improve their work. We'll talk more specifically about how to provide genuinely helpful peer review before the assignment.

• Conference Presentation

  In the final one or two weeks of class, you'll give a 10-15 minute oral presentation about your research-paper-in-progress, in the style of a presentation you might give at an academic conference or workshop, to be followed by 5 minutes of class feedback. (Time allotted will depend on enrollment.) The goals of this assignment are to practice communicating about your work clearly and succinctly, to generate useful feedback from your colleagues, AND (as important) to generate useful feedback TO your colleagues.

Reading Schedule

Students should complete required readings prior to the scheduled date and be ready to particpate in class and online discussions. All required readings are posted on the Class Canvas. Recommended readings (for students wishing to delve deeper into particular issues) are clearly marked.