The Idea of Technology

“What’s wrong with the PC?”Donald Norman

- Three main complaints about the PCSelling Technology:

- Planned obsolescence - Creeping featurism

“The Cell Phone and the Crowd” Vicente Rafael

- Technology as empowerment- Technology as democratization of

information

“When it comes to politics, the internet is closing our minds.”

“When it comes to politics, the internet is closing our minds.”

Agree

• Personalized filters weed out opposing viewpoints, things that you are probably not interested in

• Algorithms determine your information

• Increasing power of corporate advertisers on the internet slowly decreasing choice

• Surrounding ourselves with like-minded people (Facebook) to not hear many differing opinions

Disagree

• Internet provides a forum to debate and exchange ideas

• Unending resource• democratization of

information that might not otherwise be accessible to the masses

• Would we really be better off without Facebook and Twitter?

• If you don’t want filters, then how do you go about deciding what is actually of importance to an individual?

Exam 2 (Weeks 5-9)

Review

Week 5 Clive Dilnot and The Artificial

Terms/Ideas• Three phases of society• Watershed moments

• Artificiality• Human-centered design• Design as:• possibility• interface• means of understanding

Week 6Luxury

Terms/Ideas• The disconnect between production and consumption

(and how labor fits into this)• Commodity • Fetishism• The purchase of fantasy• Status• Brand• Logo• Immateriality• Absolution• Capitalism

Readings“The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof,” Marx“No Logo” Klein“Design and Immateriality,” Moles

Week 7Carlos Teixiera and the Knowledge

Economy

Terms/Ideas• Industrial vs. Knowledge Economy• Restructuring Business Models

• knowledge sharing• non-hierarchical

• Flow of information• Heuristics

Readings“Leaders for the Knowledge Economy,” Friedman“Open Innovation Systems: The Case of Industree,” Teixiera

Week 8Gender: Coded Design

Terms/Ideas• Patriarchy• Socially constructed• Capitalism• Consumers versus makers• The myth of male genius• Gendered spaces/objects

Readings“Made in Patriarchy,” Cheryl Buckley“Playboy Penthouse Apartment”, in Joel Sanders’ Stud

Week 9:Technology

Exam Point Deductions

• Only discussing the image’s subject and not connecting it to other readings or lectures

• Few or no readings mentioned/cited

• Few or no mentions of elements discussed during lecture or recitation

• Continual spelling or grammatical errors

• No use of key terms

• Assertions made without providing support through use of the images, readings, lecture, etc.

• Misuse of key terms or inaccurate reference to readings

• Only doing a formal analysis of the images themselves without addressing key concepts addressed in class.

• Superficial discussion of images and concepts

Style Faux Pas• Don’t use the first person when for exams or in formal academic writing

• Don’t use slang, colloquialisms or “nowadays”