Global Tech

Until there’s a vaccine for the new coronavirus, infectious disease professionals point to digital contact tracing as a key way for authorities to safely lift lockdowns and begin cauterizing the economic, mental health and other personal trauma the pandemic is inflicting on millions of people worldwide.

This course is organized around the broad question of what journalists should know about the way digital media are reshaping society. To answer this question, it provides a series of foundational readings on the effects of new media on a number of domains of social life, including culture, the economy, privacy, law, politics, social movements and journalism.

On your smartphone, you’re not much more than a data machine, generating reams of valuable information that tech companies can mine for insights, sell to advertisers and use to optimize their products.

There’s abundant speculation that our smartphones make us less happy. Twitter: saps your attention. Facebook: fills you with FOMO. Email: your boss is barking directives again.

The internet has upended many trades. Next, perhaps, will be census takers. A new study finds that Google’s “Street View” photographs can be used to estimate a neighborhood’s racial fabric. They can also correctly predict if a town will vote Democrat or Republican over 80 percent of the time.