This semester, I had the insane privilege of being taught by professor Clay Shirky, who just scored a new gig at NYU as a full-time faculty member. Shirky is the author of two books on the transformative power of the internet in changing our society and culture, and is generally thought of as one of the thought leaders in the field of social media.
This semester, he taught a class entitled “New Media and Public Action” at the Kennedy School of Government, a fascinating exploration of how new media tools can alter the course of history. We explored the sociological and technological mechanisms through which these alterations work. For my final paper, I wrote about the outrage surrounding the new TSA procedures, viewed through the lens of the our class.
You can read the paper below, or go here to download a copy. Any comments? Feel free to leave them below or e-mail them to me (especially if it’s before tomorrow, since that’s when I’m handing this thing in!). Enjoy!
[Note: Unfortunately, it looks like the hyperlinks I inserted into the text of my paper were not retained by Scribd. I will fix this later, but in the meantime, trust that all the blue underlined text links to extremely relevant and interesting content]