Politics of Code

While our relationships between ourselves, our environment, and other people are inherently political, computer technologies and technology companies consistently claim to remain “neutral”. This course will assume the opposite —software is political—, and focus on how software applications share commonalities with political systems, how they affect their users as political actors and how we can build alternatives or improvements to those systems. This course is aimed at deconstructing the design and implementation of software as a political medium, such as Facebook’s timeline algorithm, city officials’ use of computer simulations to orchestrate urban life, blockchain-backed proof of ownership and algorithmic criminal assessment. Along with an introduction to political theory and media studies, coupled with an exploration of the underlying political impacts of those systems, students will work on several hands-on projects to offer functioning alternatives to those systems. To that end, this course will include several workshops in JavaScript, Python and Unity.

Projects and writing assignment should be submitted by email. The submission for projects will be in a .zip file containing either a standalone application and the write-up document or the write-up, with the IP address of the project and with the local files uploaded to that server. Writing assignments will be submitted by uploading it to one’s website and sending that URL in an email. Essays will be graded on (1) whether a clear understanding of the present and future challenges presented by computer technology in regard to that topic, and (2) if the response presents a clear, well-argued position (whether agreeing, disagreeing, or both) regarding that issue. - 20% Reading responses will be graded on (1) whether at least one of the issues presented in the readings has been acknowledged, (2) whether the response deliberately identifies the possible implications that these issues have and (3) whether the response presents an active position (agreement/disagreement) with those implications. - 10% Participation is the pendant of the weekly reading responses. During lectures, students are expected to participate (1) in class by asking questions, contributing to the discussion and providing feedback to other students’ projects. Students who do not feel comfortable enough to participate regularly in class discussions can contribute to the class by (2) proposing readings, articles or examples that are relevant to the weekly topic. - 10% Solo and Group projects will be graded on (1) functionality (is the application free of unintentional bugs? is it usable by someone else than the developers? in case of a networked project, does it support more than two or three connections at once?), (2) on how well the original political intent is represented in its design and its use (does it influence the behavior of users in a specific way? does it open new ways to think and act about the situation?) and (3) on how possible it would be to deploy the project in the real world (does it only work in the classroom or could it work anywhere in the world? what would be the necessary steps for that to happen?). - 15 + 15% Group Projects - 30% Final Project