This course aims to examine problems with existing modes of social media and work towards building new, affirmative visions for social media.
View the full syllabus and schedule as a Google Doc.
MAS.S67 Fixing Social Media
Weekly Zoom Meeting Link: https://mit.zoom.us/my/ethanz
Instructor: Ethan Zuckerman (ethanz@mit.edu)
TA: Anna Chung (awchung@mit.edu)
Time: Wednesday 1-4pm
Location: E15-341
Website: https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/
Website Login: https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/wp-admin/
Mailing List: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/fixingsocialmedia
Course description
Over the past decade, user-generated participatory media – social media – has emerged as the dominant model for content of the Internet. From Facebook to Twitter, YouTube to Wikipedia, content created by non-professionals and circulated for commercial and non-commercial motives underpins seven of the top 10 websites in the US, and has become an increasingly important component of the news ecosystem.
While social media was initially hailed as a powerful tool for broadening civic participation, many problems have emerged with the rise of the medium, from questions of whether social media usage is bad for our individual mental health, to whether the fabric of our democracy is being damaged by disinformation, fragmentation and hyperpolarization. As legislators look to regulate these platforms and commentators propose shutting them down entirely, this course looks for an alternative: affirmative visions of social media that are good for individuals and society, which we could work towards building.
This class examines possible problems with existing modes of social media, discusses ways in which social media could be a benefit to individuals and societies, develops case studies of successful and healthy online communities, and ultimately designs and builds tools to improve existing social media systems or replace them with novel models. Students will write reflectively about weekly readings and discussions and participate in multi-week projects, ultimately building teams to work on final projects.
Assignments
All assignments should be posted on the course blog (except for weekly discussion questions). Please be sure to tag your with the assignment number (i.e. Assignment 1).
Link to course website login: https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/wp-admin/
Weekly Discussion Question (due on Tuesday by midnight before each class)
Based on one or more of the readings each week, generate a thoughtful discussion question. Submit this question on this Google Form by midnight before each class.
Assignment #1: No phone day reflection (due February 19)
Spend 24 hours without your phone, preferably on a day where it’s necessary to leave your house, go about your daily business, etc. (No fair spending 24 hours on a yoga retreat.) Write a 500-1000 word reflection on the experience. What accommodations do you need to make to get through the day? How does this exercise change how you think about your relationship with your phone? Is “addiction” the right way to understand your relationship with your phone, or are other terms a better description? (For no special bonus points, except bragging rights, spend the 24 hours without using any internet connected devices as well.)
Assignment #2: Media diary (due February 26)
For the next week, maintain a diary of all the media you encounter – news, entertainment, etc. Pay attention in particular to how you came into contact with a piece of media – did you choose to read it, discover it via social media, have it recommended to you? What parts of your media diet are algorithmically driven? Do you understand why you’re encountering certain content? How are you encountering information through different mediums and how do you feel about the encounters?
After collecting data for at least one week, produce a visualization of your media consumption. This could be in the form of a data visualization, a zine, etc.
Assignment #3: Online community case study (due Monday, March 30 at 1pm)
Write a case study of a healthy online community. What criteria are you using to determine online health? How does the community in question exemplify healthy behaviors?
Case studies should be 3-5 pages (around 3000 words). You are encouraged to include images and screenshots. We will be selecting a few case studies for sharing out to the class, so be prepared to share your case studies in a 5-minute presentation!
Assignment #4: Project proposal (due Tuesday, April 7 at 1pm)
What can social media do for us? For particular communities? For democracy? Propose a project designed to improve social network spaces. This could be a successor system designed to address a problem with existing platforms, a new community atop an existing platform or an entirely new platform. In your proposal, clearly identify the specific problems and communities you’re aiming to address.
You are encouraged to work in multifunctional teams!
Assignment #5: Final project (due Wednesday, May 6)
For your final projects, you will prepare a design document and implement a functional prototype designed to improve social network spaces.
Evaluation will depend on your performance on these five assignments and participation in class, including active discussion of the assigned readings.
Course Schedule
February 5 – Introduction (slides)
Overview of syllabus and expectations
Watch and discuss clip from Black Mirror, “Nosedive”
Readings:
Sophie Gilbert, “Black Mirror’s ‘Nosedive’ Skewers Social Media” (The Atlantic)
“Butterflies” (The Memory Palace Podcast)
February 12 – Humans are the killer app: A history of social media (slides)
Even before we connected computers via the internet, humans used computers to connect with one another. We trace the history of social interaction via computer network back to email lists, through MUDs and MOOs, bulletin board systems, multiplayer games and contemporary social networks. What are the characteristics of a social network? Is social media an inevitable outgrowth of networking humans?
Readings:
boyd and Ellison, “Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship
Intro + Chapter 1 from Rheingold, The Virtual Community
Mailland and Driscoll, “Minitel: The Online World France Built Before the Web”
Dibbel, “A Rape In Cyberspace”
Assignment #1: No phone day reflection (due February 19)
Spend 24 hours without your phone, preferably on a day where it’s necessary to leave your house, go about your daily business, etc. (No fair spending 24 hours on a yoga retreat.) Write a 500-1000 word reflection on the experience. What accommodations do you need to make to get through the day? How does this exercise change how you think about your relationship with your phone? Is “addiction” the right way to understand your relationship with your phone, or are other terms a better description? (For no special bonus points, except bragging rights, spend the 24 hours without using any internet connected devices as well.)
February 19 – Tobacco, asbestos and Facebook: The real or imagined dangers of social media (slides)
Asbestos was a life-saving fire retardant material before it was understood as a cause of cancer. Cigarettes were seen as a safe way to relax before they were understood as a public health hazard. Will we come to learn that social media use has harmed a generation of citizens, or will we come to understand the current moment as a “moral panic”?
Readings:
Harris, “How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds”
Turkle, “Connected but Alone” (TED talk)
Bowles, “A Dark Consensus about Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley”
Marwick, “To catch a predator? The MySpace Moral Panic”
Due: Assignment #1
Assignment #2: Media diary (due February 26)
For the next week, maintain a diary of all the media you encounter – news, entertainment, etc. Pay attention in particular to how you came into contact with a piece of media – did you choose to read it, discover it via social media, have it recommended to you? What parts of your media diet are algorithmically driven? Do you understand why you’re encountering certain content? How are you encountering information through different mediums and how do you feel about the encounters?
After collecting data for at least one week, produce a visualization of your media consumption. This could be in the form of a data visualization, a zine, etc.
Valentines videos shown at the beginning of class:
February 26 – How social media destroyed democracy (or not) (slides)
The role of social media in electing Donald Trump and in Britons’ decision to leave the EU is debatable, but it is clear from Cambridge Analytica and the Internet Research Agency that social media has become a battlefield for political influence. What’s less clear is whether we are prepared to navigate these influences. Social media is accused of increasing polarization and creating ideological echo chambers, of spreading mis- and disinformation, and of reducing trust in professional news media. Can democracy survive the rise of social media, or are these threats misunderstood and exaggerated?
Readings:
Pariser, “Beware online ‘filter bubbles’” (TED talk)
Vosoughi, Roy and Aral; “The spread of true and false news online”
Craig Silverman, “How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News”
Anonymous, “What Happened after my 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right”
In Class Exercise: Trolling the 2020 US Elections
Break up into groups of four (in class). Brainstorm the ways that as trolls (pick your motivation – foreign government, ethnic nationalist, for the lulz) you would hack, disrupt or generally screw with the 2020 US elections. Before next week, convene as a group and organize a 3 minute pitch (preferably with slides) to seek funding from a supervillain for your disruptive activities. Include a complete budget.
Due: Assignment #2
Presentations in class
Opening videos:
March 4 – What do we want (social) media to do for us?
Thomas Jefferson observed that he would prefer a free press and no democracy to a democracy without a free press. Since inception, the role of media in US democracy has been central, as a space to allow a vast nation to discuss how to govern itself. Can we imagine social media that would be good for us as citizens in a democracy?
Readings:
Intro + Chapter 1 from Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America
Schudson, “Six or Seven Things News Can Do for Democracy”
Zuckerman, “Six or Seven Things Social Media Could Do for Democracy”
Assignment #3: Online community case study (due March 11)
Write a case study of a healthy online community. What criteria are you using to determine online health? How does the community in question exemplify healthy behaviors?
March 11 – Celebrating successful communities
Facebook in Sri Lanka has led to anti-Muslim violence. But Wikipedia has created enormously valuable educational resources. Why do some online communities provide supportive and creative environments while others veer towards toxicity? What can we learn from different ways of designing and building these communities? We will look at the case studies students have written, as well as additional case studies to understand the space.
Readings:
Jake Pitre, “Being Queer on Tumblr: Privacy and Anonymity in the Age of Social Media”
Kelsey Ables, “The Rise and Fall of Internet Art Communities” (Artsy)
Ignacio Siles, “Inventing Twitter: An Iterative Approach to New Media Development”
March 18 – Spring break! (no class)
March 25 – Spring break! (no class)
April 1 – Design Workshop + Online Community Presentations (class recording)
This class will be dedicated to a design workshop + presentations on your online community case studies.
Note that there are no assigned readings for this class, but come prepared to talk through potential final project ideas during the design workshop!
Due: Assignment #3
Presentations in class
In Class Exercise: Design Workshop with Alexis Hope
During this workshop, Alexis will share tips and resources for ideation, design briefs, and human-centered research. We’ll also be breaking out into small groups to discuss initial project ideas and form potential project teams.
Assignment #4: Project proposal (due April 7)
What can social media do for us? For particular communities? For democracy? Propose a project designed to improve social network spaces. This could be a successor system designed to address a problem with existing platforms, a new community atop an existing platform or an entirely new platform. In your proposal, clearly identify the specific problems and communities you’re aiming to address.
April 8 – Feeds, algorithms and information overload (class recording)
When Facebook launched NewsFeed, an algorithmically curated list of items posted by friends in 2006, it was hard to imagine it would be central to debates about the future of democracy in 2019. Do we need algorithmic help coping with the abundance of social media produced by people we follow? How do those algorithms shape our views of the world and who controls them?
Readings:
Shirky, “It’s Not Information Overload, it’s Filter Failure”
Tufekci, “YouTube, The Great Radicalizer”
Herrman, “How Tiktok is Rewriting the World”
Sandvig et al, “Auditing Algorithms”
Gobo Team, “Why We Built Gobo”
Due: Assignment #4
Presentations in class
April 15 – Successor Systems + Decentralization (class recording)
Stuart Geiger proposes “successor systems”, tools that are both critiques of existing systems and attempts to improve upon them. We examine some successor systems and consider what it would mean to improve existing social media platforms. Is it ethical to improve platforms in ways the platforms don’t support? Is it ethical to spend effort fixing problems platforms refuse to address themselves, or does this force vulnerable populations to spend time fixing a platform’s problems?
Early writings on the internet assumed that the network’s architecture would resist central points of control. The rise of massive platforms for social media and common architectures like Amazon Web Services has disproven that notion. Now some innovators are trying to design a new, decentralized internet. We’ll look at blockchain/ledger models of decentralization as well as Solid, the architecture Tim Berners-Lee is proposing. Why haven’t decentralized architectures taken off? Is decentralization a technical solution to a technosocial problem?
Readings:
Irani, “Turkopticon: Interrupting worker invisibility in amazon mechanical turk”
Zhang et al “Squadbox: A Tool to Combat Email Harassment Using Friendsourced Moderation”
Vaidhyanathan, “Open Source as Culture/Culture as Open Source” (p. 17-30)
In Class Exercise: Ask a Designer Q&A with Alexis Hope
Bring any questions you might have around the final project and design process!
Assignment #5: Final project (due May 6)
For your final projects, you will prepare a design document and implement a functional prototype designed to improve social network spaces. You are encouraged to work in multifunctional teams.
April 22 – Moderation and governance (class recording + slides)
One of the key difficulties in user generated content systems is determining what content can be allowed on a platform – platforms without moderation (4chan) tend to be chaotic, hard to use and unwelcoming. But moderation is costly for platforms to provide and it acts as governance, subjecting speech to controls that individuals have little or no influence over. What are ethical and practical ways to regulate online communities? Could moderation become a form of governance in online communities?
Readings:
Gray and Suri, “The Humans Working Behind the AI Curtain”
Peck, “The Punishing Ecstacy of Being a Reddit Moderator”
Doctorow, “Regulating Big Tech Makes Them Stronger”
April 29 – Economic models and their implications
Most social networks are free to use, and supported by targeted advertising. What’s emerged as a default model to support these spaces is sometimes referred to as “surveillance capitalism” – we subject ourselves to surveillance in exchange for “free” services. Is surveillance capitalism new, or just an extension of pre-existing models for supporting media? Is it dangerous to us as individuals or a society? What other models might support social media spaces?
Readings:
Selection from Zuboff, “Surveillance Capitalism”
Zuckerman, “The Internet’s Original Sin”
Ceglowski, “The Internet with a Human Face”
In Class Exercise: Project crits with Ethan, Anna, and Alexis!
May 6 – Final Presentations
This class overlaps with Exploring Media Ecosystems, a conference that addresses many topics related to the class. We may open the final presentations to conference attendees and encourage students to attend conference talks.
Due: Assignment #5
Presentations in class