Esssay Topics for your 1000 word essay due end of week 12 in your blog.

1. Marc Prensky's "Emerging online life of the digital native" and Dave Weinberger's "A New World" both presentdifferent views of contemporary internet users. In light of your own experiences with new technologies do you think they are accurate portrayals? Discuss why or why not with specific examples.

2. The idea of the internet as cyberspace has been a part of our contemporary culture for some time, particularly in the popular medium of film. But is the concept of cyberspace still relevant to our contemporary society? Discuss with reference to your own experience of contemporary media.

3. Digital media put the tools of production into the hands of the everyday computer user making it incredibly easy to produce content. These creative skills used to be something that people worked to develop. Now it appears that amateurs can produce content of a fair standard within a relatively short period of time. Where does this leave 'professionals' and highly-skilled artists? Choose one area of creativity and discuss some of the challenges facing practitioners vs amateurs in producing digitalcontent.

4. What are the uses/limits of the internet in terms of politics and/or democracy? Should we rethink the nature of the political? What happens to the nation/state in the age of networks that have the potential to span thewhole planet? What has happened to the idea of "community" in the age of networked digital media? Discuss with an example.

5. Creative Commons is both a solution and yet another failure to deal with authorship and copyright on the internet. Discuss and give examples.

6. Any other challenging topic related to the lectures that is approved by your tutor. To be approved, your topic should be unique and be based in your own interests in the online world and the theory that relates to it.


Students will research and present an academic essay (min 1000 words, max 1200) that answers one of the
questions above. Write your essay for the internet, embedding links to
available citations and illustrating it appropriately. When you have completed your essay you must post it
onto your weblog by 5pm of Friday of week 12. Concentrate on getting the maximum amount of ideas
and insights into the relatively short word limit. The general approach to the topic must be decided in
consultation with your tutor.
As it is an academic research essay, you must include at least five (5) links to websites relevant to the
topic, AND must reference at least five (5) academic journal articles and/or scholarly library books that
you have consulted in your research. That means a MINIMUM of ten (10) reference items.

Students are expected to display a high level of critical analysis of their chosen topic. Students are
encouraged to write as clearly and concisely as possible. You must fully reference all your sources in the
essay in appropriate academic style.

Make sure you keep a copy somewhere other than your blog. (why not try google docs... )