User:Aaronshaw/course wizard/Course description

Online Communities & Crowds

Communication Studies 378

Northwestern University

Fall, 2014

Instructor: Aaron Shaw

Teaching Assistant: Sneha Narayan

Detailed information about this course is available on the course website.

The most innovative and ground-breaking organizations today are online “peer production” communities and crowds. Distributed groups collaborate over the Internet to write free encyclopedias (Wikipedia), launch social movements (Avaaz, MoveOn), create software (GNU/Linux), share music and films (the Pirate Bay), develop innovative products (CHDK), and conduct advanced scientific research (Zooniverse).

When and why do these efforts succeed? What motivates participants to join, contribute, and sustain these communities? How can online communities’ and crowds’ successes be harnessed and reproduced? What can be learned from their shortcomings?

This course presents an intensive and interdisciplinary introduction to the study of online communities and crowds, with a particular emphasis on how and why some of these systems are so wildly effective at mobilizing and organizing people in ways that seem to have been impossible a few decades ago. Throughout the quarter, we will analyze these and other conceptual puzzles, studying many different communities in the process. Readings and assignments will draw on current research in the social sciences (Communication, Sociology, Economics, Sociology), Human Computer Interaction, law, and social theory.

As part of the course, students will also participate in several communities (including Wikipedia), creating content, assessing peer contributions, and reflecting on their experiences.

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