New course: The internet, public action, and development

2839 small Internet

The Internet, Public Action, and Development

Communication/PoliSci 232, Spring Quarter, 3-5 units, Mondays 12:15-2:05

Larry Diamond and Vivek Srinivasan, instructors

Recent events in many parts of the world have raised interesting questions on the relationship between the Internet, democracy and the quest for a better life. The "cyberspace" has changed the way in which people can mobilize, debate and act while those in positions of power have used it to monitor, stifle and control. What makes this drama fascinating is that the cyberspace in itself is changing rapidly. Governments, corporations, peoples' movements and other forces are engaged in a battle to shape the cyberspace through technological innovations, laws and policies. This course seeks to explore such changes with a view to understanding what consequences they will have on public action, democracy and development.

This course is intended as a research seminar. The first part of the course will consist of lectures and discussion of readings, in order to set the theoretical and empirical framework for the research to be done. During the quarter, students will organize themselves into research teams to investigate a specific topic and provide a synthesis of relevant literatures and recent empirical findings or trends. Thus, the course offers broad scope for students to explore major issues in the field, such as the impact of Internet regulation on social development (especially health and education), the impact of social media on the quality of governance and on socioeconomic development, and the effect on society of differing types of defamation laws that protect or fail to protect anonymous speech.

The final few sessions of the course will be student-led, as the research teams present their work and open their presentations for discussion. Students will also submit a final written paper. The aim is not only to expose students to recent research on the Internet, development, and public action, but also to provide an interesting space for collaboration among students from different disciplines, and a great learning experience for the facilitators as well.