Teaching slides on the political impact of the Internet

I teach a class on the applications, technology and implications of the Internet and we begin each week with a discussion of current events relevant to the class. This semester many of those discussions have included material on the implications of the Internet for politics.

I've gone through my discussion slides for this term and put those that deal with the political impact of the Internet in a single, annotated PowerPoint file.

The slides focus on the current election, but also establish context by covering the use of then-new media in earlier elections, starting with radio, and other disappointing political uses of the Internet.

The slides are in chronological order as we have gone through the semester. If you are teaching a related class -- perhaps in political science -- you might find something useful. (I will continue adding new material -- suggestions welcome).

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Update 12/1/2016

I've added new slides dealing with the outing of fake news purveyors, truth versus freedom of speech, risk-limiting audits, a Stanford study of junior high, high school and college students reading of Internet news and the possibility that the Internet might become a "vast wasteland."

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Update 12/14/2016

I've added new slides dealing with National Security Advisor nominee General Mike Flynn's tweets concerning fake news. He later deleted one of the embarrassing tweets, but it had already been cached by the Internet archive.

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Update 12/17/2016

I've added slides dealing with General Flynn, European fake news, Tiananmen Square, the consequences of fake news, good journalism, Trump's continuing post-election lies and Facebook's effort to identify fake news.

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Update 12/20/2016

I've added slides on "Alt Right" gaming of Google search and Google's effort to thwart them.

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Update 12/21/2016

I've added new slides on "Alt Right" gaming of Google (and Bing) search, Google's effort to thwart them and a Pew Research survey on the public's view of fake news.

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Update 12/23/2016

I've added new slides on fantasy versus reality (examples from Trump and Bill Clinton) and whether they matter and Facebook's moves to combat fake news after first dismissing their role.

Update 12/27/2016

I've added new slides on the possibility of real-world consequences to fake news and Russian political hacking in Germany, Italy and the US.

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Update 1/6/2017

I've added new slides about the Panama Papers and what they reveal about Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson. (Collaborative analysis of the Panama Papers by journalists is a positive application of the Internet in politics).

The new slides are located here.

The cumulative slide deck is located here.

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Update 1/9/2017

I've added new slides tracing the impact of a single fake story on the Breitbart News Web site along with some background on Breitbart's Steve Bannon.

The new slides are located here.

The cumulative slide deck is located here.

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Update 1/16/2017

I've added new slides dealing with Trump's writing style on Twitter and his reaction to his briefing on Russian hacking by intelligence agencies. (His response also provides an illustration of his Twitter writing style.

The new slides are located here.

The cumulative slide deck is located here.

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Update 1/17/2017

I've added new slides dealing with Facebook's efforts to flag fake news in the US and Germany and possible fact-checking collaboration.

The new slides are located here.

The cumulative slide deck is located here.

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Update 1/19/2017

I've added new slides dealing with the Internet Archive and others in archiving Internet content that might be deleted or altered for political purposes.

The new slides are located here.

The cumulative slide deck is located here.

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Update 9/15/2017

The campaign is over and Trump is president, but I've gone back and added a couple of new slides -- one on Trump's continued lying and another on recent revelations about Facebook. They are part of a collection of lecture slides I used during the campaign. A subset used in another lecture may be found here. I've added the new slides to both decks.