TMD2018

Website for the Cornell Tech Section of Tech Media Democracy Course

Tech Media Democracy

The Cornell Tech section of a NYC-Wide Course

INFO 5330, Winter 2018
Prof. Mor Naaman
Monday 7-8:30pm, Rotating location
Wednesday 1:55-3:10pm, Bloomberg Center 161
Slack team (mandatory, sign in with your Cornell.edu email)
#techmediademocracy

Weekly schedule

What is this Course?

If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter” – Thomas Jefferson

This course is part of a city-wide effort to create new tech that supports and defends journalism and media – the most critical elements of our democracy – as they are increasingly threatened by political and market forces.

This course will bring together journalism, design, media studies, and technical disciplines to understand the various threats to journalism and media, and attempt to address these challenges using technical and computational methods and techniques. The free press, journalism and the media are some of the most critical elements of our democracy, but have been increasingly under attack by political and market forces. These challenges include: dwindling resources and support for deep investigative journalism; smear, law and technical and even physical assaults of media organizations and journalists; challenges to credibility and reliability including fake news and discrediting campaigns; and shifting business models and income sources that threaten both local and national news organizations and coverage.

The main content of this course will be provided in a weekly meeting in a semi-rotating location (see schedule below). In addition, there will be two hackathon events which will jumpstart the class projects, where students form groups and work on addressing the challenges discussed in previous weeks.

Key Threads: Global Sessions

Additional Key Threads: Cornell Tech Section

Class Requirements

Reading and Quizzes

There is only a minimal amout of mandatory reading in this class: one or two readings, mostly popular press or media reports, for the Wednesday sessions. Everyone must do these readings. Each week, there is a 30% chance (determined by random draw) of a classs quiz about the reading, for an expected total of 3.9 quizzes during the semester. In addition, each week, 10% of the class (determined by random draw) will be asked to comment about the mandatory reading in class. Quizzes are part of your grade as noted above. In-class comments are part of your participate grade.

Presentations

In randomly-assigned teams of two or three students, each student will take part in one class presentations, each about one of the optional readings. Exact instructions and guidelines for presentations are below.

Project 1

Project 2

Attendance

You may miss up to one class without notice, and no more than two absences are acceptable, even with excuse. In any case, please do let the instructors know if you happen to miss a class session, either in advance or retroactively.

Participation

Class participation is a significant part of your grade, and is function of the quantity and quality of your class discussion. Not being able to discuss the readings in class will cost you participation points.

Exams

There are no exams. Yay!

Grades

Your grade breakdown (G for Group grade):
10% Class presentation (G)
15% Reading quizzes
15% Participation
25% Project 1 (G)
35% Project 2 (G)

Note: the average grade in this class is likely to be a B or B+. You will need to really stand out to get an A, let alone an A+.

M.Eng and MBA students may take the class for a grade or pass-fail with prior approval. All the requirements for class would still stand. To get a passing grade, a student would need a B- and above grade for each of the class components.

Class Presentations

Requirements and procedures

Class presentations will be assigned by the teaching team.

The basic presentations should be 10 minutes long, strictly enforced. The presentation must touch on:

The teaching team will be available to provide some pointers and directions as needed; you will need to approach us by the Friday before your presentation, at the latest, to get assistance.

While the presentations are done in groups, each presentation should be 100% coherent and consistent. In other words, presentations that are clearly based on “split work” where each partner is respobsible for her/his own part are unacceptable. Work together to create a flowing, coherent and meaningful presentation!

Your presentation grade will be based on the quality and clarity of your presentation.

Academic Integrity

Each student in this course is expected to abide by the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity. Any work submitted by a student in this course for academic credit will be the student’s own work. In this course collaboration is allowed in the group projects and presentations.

Students with Disabilities

Your access in this course is important. Please give the teaching team your Student Disability Services (SDS) accommodation letter early in the semester so that we have adequate time to arrange your approved academic accommodations. If you need an immediate accommodation for equal access, please speak with your teaching team after class or send an email message to us and/or SDS at sds_cu@cornell.edu. If the need arises for additional accommodations during the semester, please contact SDS.

The teaching team

Mor Naaman

Instructor, Associate Professor
mor -AT- jacobs.cornell.edu
@informor

Where to find him: Bloomberg, 2nd floor
When to find him: sign up for office hours (Thursdays 3pm-4:30pm) here

Michael Wilber

Teaching Assistant
mjw285 -AT- cornell.edu

Where to find him: Bloomberg, 3rd floor
When to find him: email or Slack to schedule time to chat