{"id":295,"date":"2018-09-13T18:21:37","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T22:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/?page_id=295"},"modified":"2018-09-13T22:01:21","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T02:01:21","slug":"case-study-2-congressional-hearing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/case-study-2-congressional-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Study 2 (Congressional Hearing)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Overview<\/h5>\n

This case study takes the form of a congressional hearing into the impact of social media. Five senators will question everyday users of the Internet, as well as executives of leading social media platforms, including HeadShot, Bitter, and the online retail juggernaut Sahara. The hearing will occur over two rounds, with different students swapping into the various roles in each round.<\/p>\n

Setting<\/h5>\n

This congressional hearing takes place in the near future. Sahara has just released its InnerNet\u2122 device, an always-on connection to Sahara and the Internet embedded in the consumer\u2019s inner ear. At the same time, a rash of teen suicides apparently connected to a social media game called the Ono Challenge has people worried about the effects of our always online lifestyle.<\/p>\n

Procedure<\/h5>\n
    \n
  1. Introduction to the case study and assign roles (5 minutes)<\/li>\n
  2. Related roles meet and talk about their roles.\u00a0Based on the short description of your role, take time to embellish your persona. Flesh it out. Consider\u00a0your motivations, and what\u2019s at stake from your role\u2019s point of view. All the senators will meet with each other, all the social media executives will meet with each other, all the \u201ccivilians\u201d (teens, parents, etc.) will meet with each other. (10 minutes)<\/li>\n
  3. Round 1 of congressional hearing. The five senators take turns questioning the witnesses. Yes, I know, this is not how real congressional hearings work. (10 minutes)<\/li>\n
  4. Report from the peanut gallery. What do onlookers observe? What have they noticed that the participants have not? (5 minutes)<\/li>\n
  5. Round 2 of hearing with new students filling the roles. (10 minutes)<\/li>\n
  6. Debrief (10 minutes)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    Roles<\/h5>\n

    California Senator:<\/strong> You are the junior senator from California, considered to be business-friendly but with a progressive social agenda. Before running for office you managed a venture capital fund that specialized in startups. You still have connections to Silicon Valley, including many donors to your campaign.<\/p>\n

    North Carolina Senator:<\/strong> You are the senior senator from North Carolina. You\u2019ve welcomed the tech industry to your state and have argued that the data warehouses in the western part of the state will prove to be an economic boon to those rural areas. You\u2019re also suspicious about government intervention into corporate affairs.<\/p>\n

    New York Senator:<\/strong> You are a fiery senator from New York who says it like it is. You first came into the public eye when, as the state attorney general, you sued HeadShot for selling consumer data without consumer consent. You convened this hearing after learning about the Ono Challenge from your middle school niece.<\/p>\n

    Texas Senator:<\/strong> You are a rising star in the Senate. Though Big Oil and Big Tech money helped put you there, you also know your constituents back in Texas are concerned about the recent rash of pre-teen and teen suicides connected with social media.<\/p>\n

    Florida Senator:<\/strong> You are Florida\u2019s junior senator. While you have been called spineless by your opponents (who hasn\u2019t, you tell yourself), you like to think of yourself as a great compromiser. You see both sides of every issue and are happy to let the prevailing winds blow you in either direction.<\/p>\n

    Teenager:<\/strong> You are an average teenager. A sophomore in high school, you haven\u2019t given much thought to college yet but you do see on iParty that Evan\u2019s parents are gone this weekend and his house is going to be so lit.<\/p>\n

    Teenager:<\/strong> You are an average teenager from an affluent background. On your 16th birthday your parents bought you an InnerNet\u2122, a small device embedded in your inner ear with an always-on connection to the Internet. It\u2019s way better than that old Alexa your family had when you were little.<\/p>\n

    Grieving Parent:<\/strong> You are the parent of teen who recently killed herself doing the Ono Challenge, a mysterious game that has gone viral on HeadShot, Bitter, and other social media networks. The game challenges users to increasing levels of self-harm, culminating with suicide.<\/p>\n

    Novelist:<\/strong> You are the author of a dystopian YA novel about the damaging effects of social media on relationships, compassion towards others, and attitudes towards nature. The novel is over a decade old, but remains eerily prescient.<\/p>\n

    Chief Executive Officer of HeadShot:<\/strong> You are the CEO of HeadShot, the leading social media network. You\u2019re also the founder, having built HeadShot in your dorm room to facilitate rating photos of incoming coeds. That first version of HeadShot was called FMK. With over 2 billion users, your little site has come a long way and is now many peoples\u2019 only source of news.<\/p>\n

    Chief Operating Officer of Bitter:<\/strong> You are the COO of Bitter, a social media network that lets users send 280-character \u201cbites\u201d to their followers. Though its member base pales in comparison to HeadShot, Bitter is the best place to find reporters, politicians, celebrities, and Nazis.<\/p>\n

    Chief Data Analyst for Sahara:<\/strong> You are the head of data analytics for the online retail juggernaut Sahara, whose new embodied interface to the Internet\u2014called the InnerNet\u2122\u2014has taken the country by storm. Recently approved by the FDA, the InnerNet\u2122 is a low-powered always-on transceiver embedded directly in the inner ear with a permanent connection to Sahara\u2019s servers. As the InnerNet\u2122 ad goes, \ud83c\udfb5 Whisper Your Dreams to Us, and We\u2019ll Whisper Dreams to You<\/em> \ud83c\udfb5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Overview This case study takes the form of a congressional hearing into the impact… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-295","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PaaBmC-4L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":312,"url":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/case-study-guidelines\/","url_meta":{"origin":295,"position":0},"title":"Case Study Guidelines","author":"Dr. Sample","date":"September 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Overview Roughly every other Friday a small group of students will lead the rest of the class through a role-playing case study focused on some slice of digital culture. The group will prepare scenarios inspired by a real life examples and assign roles for students. The precise topic of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":558,"url":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/case-study-7-life-online\/","url_meta":{"origin":295,"position":1},"title":"Case Study 7 – Life Online","author":"Dr. Sample","date":"November 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Overview This case study introduces you to the concept of Life Online, particularly the way in which your online activity can come back to haunt you in very tangible and problematic ways. We will discusses the implications the arise when offline life and online life merge. The case study involved\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":511,"url":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/case-study-6-conspiracy-theories\/","url_meta":{"origin":295,"position":2},"title":"Case Study 6 (Conspiracy Theories)","author":"Dr. Sample","date":"October 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Overview As a class, we are tasked with exploring the growth, spread, and impact of internet conspiracies. This case study puts you in the shoes of one of three characters: a firm believer in the falsehood of a traumatic event, a social media platform executive, or the parent of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":616,"url":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/case-study-8-biometrics\/","url_meta":{"origin":295,"position":3},"title":"Case Study 8 (Biometrics)","author":"Dr. Sample","date":"November 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Guidelines Introduction and dividing people into groups. (5 minutes) In groups, discuss what the implications of this technology are for your role. (10 minutes) Now form groups of five people with a member from each demographic\/role. Share the pressing benefits or concerns from your first discussion. (10 minutes) Get back\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43,"url":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/guidelines\/","url_meta":{"origin":295,"position":4},"title":"DIG 101 Guidelines","author":"Dr. Sample","date":"August 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Professor Mark Sample Chambers 3286 Office Hours: 1:30-2:30pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and by appointment Learning Outcomes By the end of the semester, you will be able to do the following: Contextualize Internet culture within the broader history of culture and technology Critique computational approaches to questions about arts and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":472,"url":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/case-study-5-ai\/","url_meta":{"origin":295,"position":5},"title":"Case Study 5 (AI)","author":"Dr. Sample","date":"October 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Overview This case study explores how Artificial Intelligence might impact our life in a medical setting. In each group, a patient will choose between a human or an AI doctor to diagnose and treat their disease based on his\/her own judgment, while the parent and the hospital chief influence the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"MAIS , a medical artificial intelligence system designed to diagnose and treat patients","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/files\/2018\/10\/dr_mais.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/files\/2018\/10\/dr_mais.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/files\/2018\/10\/dr_mais.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/files\/2018\/10\/dr_mais.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/295\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}