COURSE SYLLABUS SOCIOLOGY 499: SOCIOLOGY OF THE INTERNET MAYMESTER 2001 PROFESSOR: OFFICE: PHONE: CLASS MEETINGS: James

Witte Brackett Hall, Room 130 - G 864.656.3816 (email: jwitte@clemson.edu) M.-F., 5:30-8:30, Sa., 9:00-12:00, Brackett 114,

COURSE DESCRIPTION This is a new course offering that focuses on the sociology of the Internet. The aim is to look past the hype surrounding this new technology. After some opening discussion on the history of the Internet and its administration, the course content follows two main topics: interaction online and groups/organizations online. The emphasis will be on discovering similarities and differences regarding offline and online social phenomena. At one level, the Internet is a means of communication and information distribution, as is the telephone. There are no college classes on the Sociology of the Telephone. Nevertheless, the Internet is of important sociological significance. The Internet is such a powerful technology with characteristics that alter our takenfor-granted means of understanding communication and the distribution of information. By examining how our society comes to grips with this new technology and its effects on interaction, individuals and organizations, we will gain insight into these basic building blocks of society. The class will be organized around a introductory text to sociology. We will do so as a means to really think about the sociology of the Internet and to avoid an overly technical or a journalistic perspective. Students will spend about one-third of the class time online, including daily participation in an ongoing online chat. Another third of each class meeting will be spend discussing basic sociological concepts and the final third will be devoted to the application of the concepts to online experience. COURSE MATERIALS Materials for the class include: Macionis, John J. 2001. Sociology. (8th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Other articles on reserve will be assigned. All readings are required and are to be completed by the date indicated on the syllabus. COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND STUDENT EVALUATION Grades for the class will be calculated based on the following formula: Daily class logs (12 each worth 4 points) Project #1: Interaction Online Project #2: Organizations Online Final Presentation (during exam period) 48 points 20 points 20 points 10 points

Your final grade for the class will be based on the following scale: A B C D F 90-100 80-89 70-79 60-69 below 60

ACADEMIC HONESTY Cases of suspected cheating or plagiarism will be reported directly to the Deans office. Be forewarned: I take this seriously and expect you to do the same. College policies and procedures will be strictly followed regarding the investigation of suspected cases and punishments if warranted. If you are unsure about the line between collaboration and cheating, feel free to talk to me before it is too late.

CLASS SCHEDULE 5/14/01 History of the Internet Witte, James. C. 2000. Academics Online: A Sociology of Scholarship and the Internet. The World and I, vol 15(5), pp 289-303. (CLE reserve)

5/15/01 The Internet and Social Research Macionis, Chapters 1-2. 5/16/01 The Internet and Culture Macionis, Chapters 3-4. 5/17/01 Socialization, Interaction and Groups Online Macionis, Chapters 5-7. 5/18/01 Deviance and Norms Online Macionis, Chapters 8-9. 5/19/01 The Digital Divide #1: Class Macionis, Chapters 10-11. 5/21/01 The Digital Divide #2: Macionis, Chapters 12-13. 5/22/01 The Digital Divide #3: Macionis, Chapters 14-15. 5/23/01 Institutions Online #1: Macionis, Chapters 16-17. 5/24/01 Institutions Online #2: Macionis, Chapters 18-19.

5/25/01 Institutions Online #3: Macionis, Chapters 20-21. 5/26/01 The Internet and Social Change Macionis, Chapter 22. Interesting URLs

Economy
www.etrade.com www.amazon.com http://minneapolisfed.org/economy/usindex.html http://www.peapod.com/

Politics
www.cnn.com/election/2000 http://www.washtimes.com/election2000/ http://npr.org/news/national/election2000/ http://politicalinsider.com/campaign2000.htm http://www.democrats.org/index.html

Family
http://www.familyeducation.com/home/ Learning Network Family Channel http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/2207/ The Berry Family Homepage http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/8979/ The Lawrence Family Homepage http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Brothers_Keeper/ Genealogy program to help you organize your family information http://www.childofmydreams.com/ Adoption and infertility resource

Education www.eb.com CLE Textbook sites (give outlines, practice quizzes, etc. online) http://www.littlegreenpeas.com/ A garden of learning for toddlers and preschoolers http://www.nytimes.com/learning/ The NY Times Learning Network

Religion
Religion specific chat rooms http://bibletutor.luthersem.edu/ http://www.ais -gwd.com/~cdevans/ Bible Study Net http://www.americanatheist.org/ http://www.hindukids.org/ Hindu Kids Universe http://www.moslem.org/

Includes an introduction to Islam, Qur'an search, articles, audio downloads, etc. Today we are going to begin looking at the digital divide. After your 15 minutes of chatting, begin to examine the sites listed below--feel free to find your own as well. Begin by looking for information/evidence for the existence of a digital divide, particularly as based on income and class. Tomorrow we will focus on other aspects of stratification, including race, gender, geography and disabiity. http://www.pbs.org/digitaldivide/ http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/content/sections/index.cfm http://www.digitaldivide.gov/ http://www.powerup.org/index.shtml http://www.ed.gov/Technology/digdiv.html http://netculture.about.com/internet/netculture/cs/digitaldivide/

Crime Websites: I am in the late group that looked at the websites of crime and hackers. The first website I went to was telling how to be a hacker. The person that made this website said the reason he made it was because he received a lot of email asking how to become a hacker. This website can even be translated into 12 different languages. This website had a lot of different links to go to to find out how to be a hacker. There was a site that told what a hacker was, like the definition. There was a site that told the normal attitude of a hacker. The author says that if it wasn't for hackers, we would not have the www. The traits that is said these hackers usually act like are "boredom and drudgery ar evil," "freedom is good," "nobody should ever have to solve a problem twice," etc. This website tells us that to be a hacker you must get a thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence. There are also links you can go to that tells the basic hacking skills and teaches people how to hack. The one link that I thought was kind of interesting was called The Hacker/Nerd Connection. This said that most people think hackers are nerds and this link tells us that that is not necessarily true. The author also told us about crackers, which are people that break into computers and phone systems. They do not really know what they are doing. Instead of fixing things, they break and tear up things. It is an insult for a hacker to be called a cracker. The second link I went to recommended a lot of books that would tell us about hackers. This website had a list that was an attempt to

cover some of the issues that will invariable come up when people without previous experience of the hacker community try to hire a hacker. This is for free distribution. Anyone can put someone's name on the list. This site also had a list of frequently asked questions and answers about hackers and crackers. The one statement that I thought was very interesting, actually it was in a question and someone asked why hackers count from 0. The answer was that most hackers count from zero because that is how the computer counts. They do it be habit. It also said that most hackers are good engineers. The third link talked about finding out how to tell a cracker from a hacker. This site even had a homepage for the annual hacker convention, which I thought was interesting. I would have never thought that hackers would have a convention. It told where the convention was located, in what certain motel and even showed pictures from the motel. It also told the price of the rooms, what to bring to the convention, the current events, and the current speaking schedule. This site also had a lot of links that you could go to and one of them was how to hire a hacker. The fourth link had articles of quotes about what people think about hackers, the different traits of hackers, etc. This site had a lot of news websites. It also talked about AS hacker's disease. The articles had one person defending the people with AS. This person said "there are plenty of folks with AS who are hard-working and productive, but if not mentored, they could become a hacker." There was an article on autism and if and how it affected being a hacker. AS means Asperger Syndrome and 1 out of every 1,000 children has autism. AS patients are intelligent far more socially adept that autism patients. Albert Einstein and Vincent Van Gogh showed signs of autism or AS. There was an experiment some researchers did and they found that there are many similarities between AS and many hackers. The only way to treat AS and hacking is mentoring. A researcher named Grandin said," Mentoring offsets this behavior that gets them into trouble."

The fifth link is like a yahoo site, where you can do your own search. I guess like a server, like yahoo or aol are. This site told about a lot of the policy issues and cybercrime. This site tells how to report internet related crimes. It showed computer crime and then had secondary links of policy, cases, laws, document, and guidance. When you click on this secondary links it showed further information about these topics. Chat rooms: I did not get to chat in the chat rooms for 15 minutes because the server was down and would not let me go in under navigator or windows explorer. I tried both.