Topics Relevant to This Course
We will not get around to discussing each of these, but all the topics listed here are certainly suitable for the required research paper. The central focus of the paper must concern both democracy and new communication technologies. See also the handout containing 10 abstracts of AEJMC conference papers from 2005 (all of these are related to some aspect of democracy).
Topic List
- Does declining public interest in news reports (decrease in newspaper circulation; decrease in viewership of network TV news) send a danger signal for the future of democracy?
- How are minority views heard or given voice in society?
- Why is this important (essential) in a democracy?
- Citizenship and multiculturalism (Kymlicka)
- Marketplace of ideas
- Crowdsourcing, collaboration, wisdom of crowds (Shirky, Groundswell, Jenkins)
- Microblogging (e.g., Twitter) and its role in the public sphere
- Cultural hegemony (Gramsci)
- Access to technology and the digital divide
- Effects of technology on social interactions, families, communities
- Social capital (Putnam)
- Do blogs and user-generated content online change the public conversation?
- Virtual vs. real communities
- Anonymity and freedom of expression
- Privacy (medical records, purchase data, cameraphones)
- Databases and their effect on an individual's privacy
- Encryption technologies
- Surveillance; government acting as Big Brother (O'Harrow)
- U.S. First Amendment and its relationship to new communication technologies
- Religion: establishment and free exercise
- Freedom of speech and press
- Right of assembly
- Petition for redress of grievances
- What is the relationship between the public and the government supposed to be in a democracy?
- Why does the press enjoy special freedom under the U.S. Constitution?
- How do other nations with a democratic government regulate or monitor the press, broadcast media, the Internet and/or individual speech rights?
- When does regulation of communication technologies have a detrimental effect on individual free speech or freedom of the press?
- Corporate control of the press; media monopolies (Bagdikian; McChesney)
- Intellectual property, file sharing, software piracy (Vaidhyanathan)
- Read-only vs. read-write culture (Lessig)
- Influence of global media industry: Music, movies, fashion, language
- Is a local culture worth preserving? Why or why not?
- How is culture constructed (or deconstructed) by mass media and their audiences?
- Identity: What role does our online life play in shaping our ideas about who we are?
- Social networks and ... identity, community, social capital, etc.
- Effects of globalization
- Will nation-states be made obsolete by a borderless world?
- The idea of "glocal"
- Global cities (Sassen); centers and peripheries
- Is technology neutral or not?
- Technological determinism
- Effects of instant global information flow (always on, anywhere)
- 24/7 financial markets and effects on national economies
- Satellite network transmissions: Can a government secure its borders against the free flow of information?
- Instant news and the Internet; role of blogs following September 11, London bombings, etc. (see also Burma unrest, 2007)
- Citizen journalists (State of the News Media, 2009)
- Mobile data: The news in your pocket
- Cyberactivism
- WTO and G8 protests; role of "smart mobs" (Rheingold)
- NGOs (nonprofits) in today's global information sphere: Are NGO Web sites taking on the watchdog role that in the past was assumed by a free press?
Banned Topics
Students may not use these topics for the research paper in this course:
- Electronic or online voting
- Use of blogs or campaign Web sites in the 2004 or 2008 U.S. elections
Your instructor cannot bear to read any more about these topics, which have been very thoroughly covered already.