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HU Credits:
4
Degree/Cycle:
2nd degree (Master)
Responsible Department:
Political Science
Semester:
Yearly
Teaching Languages:
Hebrew
Campus:
Mt. Scopus
Course/Module Coordinator:
Alon Peled
Coordinator Office Hours:
Mon 0700-0800
Wed 1200-1300
Teaching Staff:
Dr. Alon Peled
Course/Module description:
The course surveys the impact of the information age on the state, its institutions, citizens, and the relationships among them. The topics of the course includes the changing “balance of information power” among the state, its public sector organizations, and the citizens, the impact of the “end of work” thesis on the welfare state, the impact of the “global information village” on the state, the conflict between transparency and privacy, and the new ethical dilemmas of the computer age such as property rights, viruses, and hackers. During the course’s last month, the students will present their works and ideas in class.
Course/Module aims:
Debate in class how citizens and the state's institutions grapple with the challenges of the information age including privacy protection, open government, and national borders in the age of the Internet.
Argue with each other if allegedly new ethical dilemmas such as viruses, hackers, and computer-based crime require different thinking about the relationship between citizens and the state's institutions.
Examine critically what values we have lost (as citizens and as members of a community) in the rapid transition from the industrialized age to the information age.
Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Evaluate if the challenges of the information revolution are new or rather new developments in the evolution of old dilemmas.
Compare the different behavior of citizens and institutions in different countries while confronting the challenges of the information age.
Criticize the romantic-progressive perceptions of the information age and develop different lines of criticism of the modern worship of computers, the internet, and new information technologies.
Demonstrate advanced techniques of visual display and manipulation of data used by the state institutions.
Assess future directions of the information revolution and how these directions will impact and redesign the state institutions and the relationships between citizens and these institutions.
Attendance requirements(%):
100
Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:
Active class discussion led by the students and through a debate that combines the reading materials and the teacher's lectures
Course/Module Content:
The Information Revolution: Past, Present, Future
-- The History of the Information Revolution
-- The Political History of the Internet
The State in the Information Age
-- National Borders in the Age of the Internet
-- Censorship and Internet
-- Freedom of Speech vs. Moral Behavior
-- Democracy and Technology
-- Bureaucratic Politics and Information Technology
-- Crosssing (successfully) Digital Babel
The Ethical Problems of the Information Age
-- Computer Based Crime
-- The Loss of Privacy
-- The Hackers Dilemma
-- Viruses and their Creators
-- The Moral Debate of Artificial Intelligence
-- Piracy and Theft in the Information Age
Organizations, Political Manipulation, and Information Technology
-- The Visual Display and Manipulation of Data
-- Data Visualization: The Good and the Bad
-- How to Lie with Powerpoint?
-- How to Lie with Maps?
The Case Against the Information Age
-- The Technopoly Thesis
-- Computers You cannot Trust
-- The End of Work
-- Information Overload Society
-- The Alienated Workplace
Student Presentations
Required Reading:
The Information Revolution: Past, Present, Future
-- The History of the Information Revolution
Weinberger (2007), "Everything is Miscelleneous"
-- The Political History of the Internet
Noveck (2009), "Wiki Government", Chapter 1
-- The State in the Information Age
-- National Borders in the Age of the Internet
Arsneault et. al. (2005), "Which countries benefit?"
-- Censorship and Internet
Roberts (2010), "Blacked Out", Chapter 10
-- Freedom of Speech vs. Moral Behavior
-- Democracy and Technology
Fung, Graham, and Weil, "Full Disclosure", Chapter 1
-- Bureaucratic Politics and Information Technology
Peled, Alon. "When Transparency and Collaboration Collide: Lessons from the USA Open Data Program"
Peled (2001), "Two Tales of Online Government"
-- Crosssing (successfully) Digital Babel
Peled (2010), "Traversing Digital Babel"
Radin, "Contested Commodities."
The Ethical Problems of the Information Age
-- Computer Based Crime
-- The Loss of Privacy
Raul (2002), "Privacy and the Digital State", 1-72
-- The Hackers Dilemma
-- Viruses and their Creators
-- The Moral Debate of Artificial Intelligence
Ayers (2007), "Super Crunchers", pp. 1-45
-- Piracy and Theft in the Information Age
Organizations, Political Manipulation, and Information Technology
-- The Visual Display and Manipulation of Data
Tufte (2001), "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", Chapter 1
-- Data Visualization: The Good and the Bad
-- How to Lie with Powerpoint?
-- How to Lie with Maps?
Monmonier, "How to lie with Maps", pp. 87-122
The Case Against the Information Age
-- The Technopoly Thesis
Tapscott & Williams (2006), "Wikinomics", Chapter 1
Postman (1993), "Technopoly", Chapter 7
-- Computers You cannot Trust
-- The End of Work
-- Information Overload Society
-- The Alienated Workplace
Student Presentations
Additional Reading Material:
Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 10 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 90 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %
Additional information:
Course Requirements
-- Read all course materials.
-- Active participation in class discussions. Student who will miss more than three meetings without a satisfactory explanations will not get a grade for the class.
-- Present one short paper in class or the seminar paper (as work-in-progress). This presentation counts as 10% of the final grade.
-- Submit three short papers (two pages each, each paper counts as 30% of the final grade).
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