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Part I Reading Summaries Zuboff, Shoshana

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Part I Reading Summaries

Zuboff, Shoshana. “The Coup we are not Talking about, We can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both” NYTimes, Jan. 29, 2021.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/sunday/facebook-surveillance-society-technology.html

Horwitz, Jeff & Deepa Seetharaman. “Facebook Executive Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site less Divisive” WSJ, May 26 2020.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499

While doing your readings, please pay attention to the following: What are the key concepts, terms that the author presents? What do they mean? (explain them in your own words) What examples does the author use? (show how these examples support the main argument of the text) Can you think of other examples? These considerations should be used to write your reading responses below.

In your own words, write around 250 words on the readings of the week, using the issues discussed above.

PART II Essay

Choose one of the two question below (based on readings for the week):

1. Explain Surveillance Capitalism according to Shoshana Zuboff's opinion piece in the New York Times.

Observe your own use of the Internet, what kinds of data do the media companies capture from your Internet activities. Evaluate the findings of your own experiences and explain if you agree with Zuboff's assessment. You do not want to just think about the most immediate effect, but more long term consequence that goes beyond your own experiences.

2. Discuss the idea about "Media Fragmentation". Now using Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman's article on Facebook. Discuss if Facebook, a for-profit company, increases the rate of media fragmentation in the US

The paper should be 3-4 pages (750 to 1000 words).