The Digital Revolution

In its early years, the internet struck many observers as a positive development, linking humans in new ways. Yet even as the internet has encouraged minorities to unite and organize, it’s also encouraged extremist groups whose views are incompatible with a free society. Two relevant examples: one positive | one negative. (If you have trouble accessing these articles, here are pdfs: article 1, article 2.)

I’m sure you all have ideas about this, since it’s a topic you’re living on a daily basis. Leave a brief comment with an insight of your own, about what makes the internet so powerful a force—for good and evil—or perhaps what we need to do to bring it to heel.

Picturing a Neighborhood

In the second half of class, I’d like for some or all of you to briefly present your photo essay to class. So give a few minutes thought to what you’d want to say, by way of introducing it. Perhaps what got you interested in that neighborhood, or an anecdote about it, or a story about how it’s changed over the years—or how it’s changing in the present day.