March 18th, 2019 
adminI need two discussion replies – 150 words each
Clay Shirky: Transforming government through the internet
As we look atvarious scholars and journalists who investigate the effects of social media and other digital technologies youll notice that some folks are more worried about the negative influence on human interaction while others focus on the possibilities for progress of various kinds including enhancing democracy.
Clay Shirky is one of the observers who lands squarely in the latter category. While not ignoring the potential for misuse his study of history leads him to believe that the societal changes that occur when new media are introduced are initially chaotic because there are more ideas out there for people to disagree with and this is not a bad thing. In fact he describes the study of social media what were doing in this course as watching people argue. Hes interested in the development of technological tools that facilitate better arguments.
What does he mean by this? What else struck you in his talk and what connections do you see with what youre reading in Kovariks book?
(Like many TED talks this one has a lot of information and ideas packed into a short presentation so it merits either a second watch or a review of the transcript.)
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