Course webpage is here: http://peterasaro.org/courses/2022War.html
Course blog is here: http://digitalwar2022.wordpress.com/
This course focuses on exploring how digital technologies and media are transforming warfare, international conflicts, and popular uprisings and their suppression. We will explore how these technologies are changing the nature of warfare, and the rhetoric that is used to justify the development and use of these new technologies and strategies. The course critically examines the claims that technologies can produce increasingly risk-free, or even bloodless, wars, and considers how the risks of engaging in armed conflict are being redistributed. It also examines how new forms of digital and social media are being enlisted in the service of international conflicts. Topics discussed include the military's use of video games for recruitment and training; the role of digital media in war journalism, state propaganda and information warfare, and hackivist sites such as Wikileaks; the use of social media in both organizing and suppressing popular uprisings such as the Arab Spring; mass surveillance in the name of state security; developments in cyberwarfare; and the increasing use of military robotics, including armed Predator and Reaper drones, as well as the development of fully autonomous weapons.
You are expected to have thoroughly and thoughtfully read the assigned texts, viewed the assigned videos, and to have prepared yourself to contribute meaningfully to the class discussions. For some people, that preparation requires taking copious notes on the assigned readings; for others, it entails supplementing the assigned readings with explanatory texts found in survey textbooks or in online sources; and for others still, it involves reading the texts, ruminating on them afterwards, then discussing those readings with classmates before the class meeting. Whatever method best suits you, I hope you will arrive at class with copies of the assigned reading, ready and willing to make yourself a valued contributor to the discussion, and eager to share your own relevant media experiences and interests. Your participation will be evaluated in terms of both quantity and quality.
As this is a seminar, regular attendance is essential. You will be permitted two excused absences (you must notify me of your inability to attend before class, via email). Any subsequent absences and any un-excused absences will adversely affect your grade.
You will be required to make
weekly blog entries commenting on the readings for the week. You will be required to create an account on WordPress (if you
do not already have one), and send me an email with your LoginID and the EMAIL
ADDRESS used to create the account, so that you can
be added as an author for the collective course blog. Everyone will be posting
to a common blog page, and this will be readable by your classmates. When
writing and making comments, you are expected to treat other students with the
same respect and courtesy as you should in the classroom.
Discussion questions will be posted each week to help stimulate the writing
process. You are also expected to read the posts of your classmates, and
encouraged to comment on other people's posts each week. Posts will not be
graded (they will receive 2 {on-time], 1 [late] or 0 [not completed] points),
but I will read them and occasionally comment on them. There will be 10
posts required through the semester, thus 20 points, constituting 20% of your grade.
Comments are strongly encouraged, and you can receive up to 10 points (extra credit) for each substantial comment (paragraph or longer) that you make on someone else's post.
Blog posts will be due before the start of each class. They are time stamped when you post them, and late posts will only receive half credit (1 point). THere is no specific topic for each post, but they should express your reactions to and reflections on the readings for that week.
Research Project Idea Due: October 4
Length: 300-500 words
(approx. 1 page)
Research Project Full Proposal/Draft Due:
November 1
Length: 500-2000 words (approx. 1-4
pages)
Final Project Presentations:
November 29 & December 6
Oral Presentation, 5 minutes (Powerpoint
Optional) plus discussion
Final Project Due: December 9
Length (media project description): 500-3000 words (approx. 1-10
pages) + Media Project
Length (research paper option): 3000-5000 words (approx. 10-18 pages)
There will be no final exam. Instead, a final research
project will be required. There are 2 options: Research Paper Option, and Media
Project Option.
Final Project will be due one week after the last day of class. If that deadline will not work for you, you need to make other arrangements one week in advance, at the latest. We will set aside time in the last day(s) of class for presentations of final projects. These will not be graded but will offer an opportunity for feedback before submitting your final project.
Project topics can address any aspect of the topics and materials discussed in class. Projects should include materials beyond what is directly covered in class, as appropriate for your topic. In other words, they should require research. The blog will provide many ideas for projects, as will class discussion. You will be asked to submit a short description of your Project Idea early in the semester, and will receive feedback on it.
Later in the semester you will have to write a more formal Proposal for your project, based on feedback and further research. Project proposals should state the research question, problem, or phenomenon that will be the focus of your research. It should also state your thesis or position on the issue, as well as outline the argument you will use to support your position. This applies to both papers and media projects. You should also indicate the sources and materials you will consult and utilize in making your argument and producing your final project. For the Media Project Option, you should state as clearly as possible what you intend to deliver for the final draft (i.e., video length, style, format, content; website; set of infographics, etc.).
Final Project Presentations will occur on the last days of class. These should be short 5-10 minutes summary of your research paper or project, allowing 5-10 minutes for discussion. Group projects can be presented collectively.
Research Paper Option
This will take the form of a 3000-5000 word (Times
New Roman, 12pt font, double spaced) term paper. You should draw upon sources
from the course readings as well as beyond the course readings. You should cite
your sources properly.
Media Project Option
Media Projects can take the form of film and video
pieces, audio documentaries, websites, interactive media, performance pieces,
infographics, a social media campaign strategy, or other ideas. In addition to
the actual media product, you will need to submit your Idea, Proposal, and a
Final short written piece explaining your project, its motivations, methods and
what you did to realize it.
Group Project
Option
Those pursuing the Media Project Option have the further option of
participating in a group research project. For the students pursuing this
option, the process will be much the same, with the Idea being an individual
statement of what you plan to contribute to the group project, and the Proposal
and Final projects being collective efforts to realize the research project. In
addition, each person choosing this option must submit a 1-page self-assessment
of their participation in the group, due at the same time as the Final
project.
For the
Group Project Option, the topic will be to develop social media strategy and/or
media content for the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (www.icrac.net). As a co-founder of this
organization, I will provide guidance to the group. However, it is largely up
to the group to conceive and develop the project. The actual project could
range from a high-level media strategy, to infographics and clickable content,
to a social media campaign, to an audio/video or digital media project, or any
combination of these or other ideas.
Past group projects included a performance piece (with live drone and event
poster), a short documentary film, and website: https://vimeo.com/62904622.
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Papers and written ideas and proposals should be submitted to me in electronic form by email (Word Perfect, MS Word, PDF, HTML and plain TXT are all fine). All assignments are due at 6pm at the start of class on the day they are due. Late final papers will not be accepted, as I must turn in grades shortly thereafter.
In addition to the extra points available for commenting on blog posts, there will be several events during the semester which will allow you to get extra credit points, or make-up for missed (excused) classes.
All readings will be available electronically, via the web, in PDF, MS Word, HTML, or similar format. You are welcome and encouraged to buy any of the books used.
Student Introductions
How to create a WordPress Account, and make a Blog Entry
Watch Before Class: " Drones, Hackers and Mercenaries - The Future of War" DW Documentary, 42 min., April, 2022.
Required:
Edward
Bernays, Propaganda, Horace Liveright Inc., 1928, pp. 1-61 and
135-153. Joseph
Goebbels, "The Führer as a Speaker," German Propaganda Archive, Calvin
College, 1936. David
Vaughn, "The Master's Voice," The Guardian, October 8,
2008. Joseph
Goebbels, "Knowledge and Propaganda," German Propaganda Archive, Calvin
College, 1934. Watch:
Joachim Fest and Christian Herrendoerfer, Hitler: A Career, 1977, 160 min. Recommended: Watch:
"President Biden's Remarks on Democracy," C-SPAN, September 1, 2022, 28 min. Watch:
"Trump Speaks at Dr Oz Rally in Pennsylvania" The Independent, September 3, 114 min. Watch:
Mark
Achbar and Peter Wintonick, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the
Media, 1992, 167 min. Required: Watch:
Eli
Parser, "Beware Online 'Filter Bubbles'," Ted Talk, March 2011, 9
minutes. Will
Oremus, "The Filter Bubble Revisted," Slate, April 5,
2017. Watch: Last Week Tonight with John
Oliver , "The Sinclair Group," HBO, July 2, 2017, 19
minutes. Watch:
Jeff
Hancock, "The Future of Lying," Ted Talk, September 2012, 18 minutes. Arjun Appadurai, "Miscommunication," The Idea of Media, August 17, 2020. Watch: PBS Frontline,
"United States of Conspiracy," July 28, 2020, 54 min. Watch: PBS Frontline,
"American Insurrection," April 13, 2021, 84 min. Recommended: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble Watch: PBS Frontline,
"Digital Nation," February 2, 2010. Watch: Adam Curtis, The
Century of the Self, 2002, 235 min. Watch: Sidney Lumet, Network, MGM,
1976, 121 min. https://www.mediamatters.org/people/james-okeefe Required: Huw Lemmey
(2012) "Devastation in Meatspace," The New Inquiry, November 28,
2012. Rebeccas L.
Stein (2014) "How Israel militarized social media," Mondoweiss, July
24, 2014. Faisal Irshaid (2014)
"How ISIS is spreading its message online," BBC News, June 19,
2014. Mustapha
Ajbaili (2014) "How ISIS conquered social media," Al Arabiya News,
Tuesday, 24 June 2014. Jay Caspian Kang
(2014) "ISIS's Call of Duty," The New Yorker, September 18,
2014. Watch: United States Information Agency (1984) Soviet Active Measures, 23 min. Recommended: Watch: Frontline (2014)
The Rise of ISIS, October, 28, 2014, 53 min. Watch: Viceland (2016) Cyber
War Episode 5, Syria's Cyber Battlefields, 23 min.
Paywalled Israeli Defense
Forces_Spokesperson's_Unit U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Media
Activity Wikipedia entry on
DoD Defense Media Activity Required: Watch: United States Information Agency (1984) Soviet Active Measures, 23 min. Peter
Pomerantsev, "Brave New War," The Atlantic, December 29,
2015. Peter
Pomerantsev, "Inside the Kremlin's Hall of Mirrors," The Guardian, 9
April 2015. Samatha
Power, "Why Foriegn Propaganda is More Dangerous Now," New York Times,
September 19, 2017. Massimo
Calabresi, Inside Russia's Social Media War on America, Time, May 18,
2017. Watch: NYTimes The Weekly, Episode 2: "Fake Believe", 2 min. trailer, Full episode on Hulu, 27 mins. (2019) Recommended: Required: Andrew E. Kramer, "Hackers Bring Down Government Sites in Ukraine," New York Times, January 14, 2022 Stuart A. Thompson, "The War in Ukraine, as Seen on Russian TV," New York Times, May 6, 2022 Serge Schmemann, "Putin's Information War Is Far From Over," New York Times Opinion, May 5, 2022 Ciaran Martin, "Cyber Realism in a Time of War," Lawfare, March 2, 2022 Recommended: Farhad Manjoo, "The Ukrainian Cyberwar That Wasn’t," New York Times Opinion, March 11, 2022 Watch: "Putin's Road to War," PBS Frontline, 54 minutes, March 15, 2022. Watch: "Ukraine: Life Under Russia's Attack," PBS Frontline, 54 minutes, August 2, 2022. Required: Adrian Chen,
The Agency, New York Times Magazine, June 2, 2015. Peter Elkind, "Inside the Hack of
the Century: Part 1, 2 and 3," Fortune, June 25, 2015 Matthew
M. Aid, Inside the NSA’s Ultra-Secret China Hacking Group, Foreign
Policy, June 10, 2013 APT28:
A Window into Russia's Cyber Espionage Operations?,
FireEye
Jeff Sommer, "How Silicon Chips Rule the World." The New York Times, September 9,
2022. Watch: Nova (2015)
Cyberwar Threat, PBS, 54 min. PAYWALL Watch: Cyber War, Season
1, Epsiode 8, "America's Elite Hacking Force", Viceland, 23min. Watch: Baltic Elves Fight Kremlin Trolls,
Radio Free Europe, May 19, 2017, 3 min. Recommended: Watch: Fault
Lines (2010) Cyberwar, Al Jazeera English, 24 min. Watch: Frontline
(2003) Cyberwar, PBS, 53 min. Watch: Elves vs Trolls - Fighting Disinformation in Lithuania,
NATO, May 3, 2017, 2 min. Tallinn Manual for
Cyberwarfare Wikipedia,
"U.S. Cyber Command" United States Army Field
Manual on Electronic Warfare (2012) United
States Department of Defense, "Cyber Strategy" Required: Seymour
Hersh (2004) "Torture at Abu Ghraib," The New Yorker, May 10,
2004. Ciar
Byrne, (2003) "War reporting 'changed forever' says BBC," The Gaurdian,
March 31, 2003 Jim
Boumelha (2010) "US must deliver justice on friendly fire," The
Gaurdian, April 10, 2010. Morgan
Weiland, "Protecting Journalism in the Digital Era," Stanford Lawyer,
Nov. 8, 2013. U.S.
Filmmaker Repeatedly Detained at Border, Salon, 2012. Watch: Excerpt on U.S. Strike on Al
Jazeera Office, Control Room, 2004. IMBD Watch: "Israel: Unlawful Attacks on
Palestinian Media," Human Rights Watch, 2012. Watch: "A Thousand Cuts," PBS Frontline, 100 minutes, January, 2021. Recommended: Explore:
Witness.org website Watch:
Errol Morris (2008)
Standard Operating Procedure, Sony Classics,116 min. Watch:
John
Pilger (2010) The War You Don't See, BBC, 120 min., YouTube
link Required: Grégoire
Chamayou (2011) "The Manhunt Doctrine," Radical Philosophy, Volume 169,
Sep/Oct 2011. Watch:
Frontline (2011)
Kill/Capture, PBS, 53 min. Explore: Bureau
of Investigative Journalism "Drone Wars: The Full Data" website Explore: Pitch Interactive Visualization of
BIJ Drone Strike Data Matt Taibbi,
"How to Survive America's Kill List,"
Rolling Stone, June 19, 2018. Recommended: Wajahat
Ali, "Drone victim: U.S. strikes boost al-Qaida recruitment," Salon,
May 2, 2013. Mark
Isikoff, "Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on
Americans," NBC News, February 4, 2013. Also: Full
Memo Required: Watch: Future
of Life Institute (2017) Slaughterbots, Video, 8 min. Watch: Future
of Life Institute (2021) Slaughterbots: If human:kill(), Video, 6 min. Watch: New York Times (2019) A.I. Is Making it Easier to Kill (You). Here's How., Video, 20 min. Watch: Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (2022) Immoral Code, Video, 23 min. Listen/Read: Nahlah Ayed,
"Killer robots march into uncharted ethical territory," CBC Radio, September 20, (2019), 53 min. Recommended: Watch: Daniel Suarez (2013) The
Kill Decision Shouldn't Belong to a Robot, TED Talks, 14 min. Watch: Noel Sharkey (2013) Toy
Soldiers to Killer Robots, TEDxSheffield 2013, 18 min. Required: Watch: Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras Interview
with Edward Snowden Part
I, 12 min., The Guardian, July 9, 2013, and Part
II, 7 min., The Guardian, July 8, 2013 Peter
Maass, "How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets," New York
Times, August 13, 2013. Peter
Maass, "Q & A: Edward Snowden Talks to Peter Maass," New York
Times, August 13, 2013. Watch:"Life Inside China's Total Surveillance State," 8 min., Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2017. Watch:Laura
Poitras, "The Program," 8 min., New York Times Op-Doc, August 22,
2013. Recommended: Watch:Laura Poitras, "Citizenfour," 114 min., 2014. Wikipedia, "National Security
Agency" Wikipedia,
"PRISM (surveillance program)"Week 3: September 13
Propaganda 2.0: Fake News & Media ManipulationFriday, September 16
New America Online Seminar (free registration required)
Josh Chin and Liza Lin, "Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control," 12-1pm ETWeek 4: September 20
Information Warfare
Week 5: September 27
Russian Disinformation & PropagandaWeek 6: October 4
Project Ideas Due
Digital Tech & Ukrainian WarWeek 7: October 11
CyberwarWednesday, October 12
AI Ethics & Society (free on-line registration)
Milagros, Miceli, "Why Talk About Bias When We Mean Power? Shifting the Research Focus in AI and Data Ethics," 10-11:30am ETThursday, October 13
Paley Center Panel Discussion (in-person, $25 for General Admission)
Panel, "From the Cuban Missile Crisis to Ukraine: How Television Has Captured US-Russia Relations Over Sixty Years,"
The Paley Museum, 25 West 52 Street, NYC, 7pm ETTuesday, October 18
New America (free on-line registration)
Panel Discussion, "Big Tech, Censorship, and Terrorism," 12-1pm ETWeek 8: October 18
Digital War Journalism & The Targeting of
JournalistsWednesday, October 19
Library of America (free on-line registration)
"Lying and Politics: The Relevance of Hannah Arendt," 6-7pm ETThursday, October 20
New America Online Seminar (free registration required)
Panel, "How Should the U.S. Respond to Disinformation?," 12-1pm ETWeek 9: October 25
Drones & Targeted KillingWeek 10: November 1
Project Proposals/Drafts Due
Military Robotics & Autonomous Lethal Weapons, a.k.a.
Killer RobotsOctober ???
Humanitarian Disarmament Forum
More details here.
Contact me if you are interested in attending.Week 11: November 8
Surveillance & the State
Week 12: November 15
Bias in Algorithms: Automated Racism/Sexism/Agism/Ablism
Required:
Watch: Joy Buolamwini, The Algorithmic Justice League, 2016, 9 min.
Recommended:
Watch: Ken Loach and Laura Obiols, I, Daniel Blake, 1 hr. 40 min. (2016)
Reading (TNS e-reserves): Karagiannopoulos, V., 2021. A Short History of Hacktivism: Its Past and Present and What Can We Learn from It. In Rethinking Cybercrime (pp. 63-86). Palgrave Macmillan.
Required:
Peter Asaro (2016)
"Will #BlackLivesMatter to RoboCop?," WeRobot 2016, University of Miami School of Law, Miami, FL, April 1-2,
2016.
Watch Video discussion (starts at 5:20).
Recommended:
Listen: Podcast with Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Data & Society, Nov. 2, 2017, 35 min.
Watch: Paul Verhoeven, Robocop, 1987, 102 min.
Required:
Google Employees, "Letter in Protest of Project Maven," 2018.
Kate Conger, "Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract," Gizmodo, May 14, 2018.
Polina Godz, "Tech Workers Versus the Pentagon: An Interview with Kim," Jacobin, June 6, 2018.
Bellingcat.com, The Home of Online Investigations.
Aric Toler, "Advanced Guide on Verifying Video Content," Bellingcat, June 30, 2017.
Annalee Newitz, "A Better Social Media World Is Waiting for Us," New York Times, December 1, 2019.
Watch: "Battle for Hong Kong," PBS Frontline, 54 minutes, February 2, 2020.
Recommended:
Watch: Frontline (2011) Revolution in Cairo, PBS, 60 min.
Philip N. Howard (2011) "Digital media and the Arab spring," Reuters, February 16, 2011.