ENGL 597 Special Topics

Questioning Information Technologies: Issues of Access, Equity, Privacy, and Safety (3-0-3) (F/S). This course examines the ways in which information technologies affect society, politics, culture, and daily life. Proponents of technology, such as Nicholas Negroponti, Al Gore, and Bill Gates, have recently described a future in which emerging information technologies will positively affect culture, politics, and daily life, transforming the world in dozens of desirable ways. Other commentators on technology are more skeptical. In Technopoly, Neil Postman describes how uncontrolled growth of technology leads to a culture without a moral foundation, while Clifford Stoll likens the hype surrounding the Internet to the selling of “silicon snake oil.” Jeffrey Rothfeder (Privacy for Sale) argues that databases have turned the details of one's private life into just another product to be bought, sold, and traded. And Tom Forester and Perry Morrison (Computer Ethics) question the wisdom of relying on increasingly complex equipment--such as fly-by-wire airliners--governed by increasingly complex software. Through the low-tech methods of reading, writing, and discussion, students will explore the ideas of these and other “Neo-Luddites,” and will explore, as well, the obligations and responsibilities of technical communicators as they serve as the “bridge between those who create ideas and those who use them” (STC Code of Ethics) PREREQ: None.

Revised 30 July 2003.