Tiny Logo for Comm 149 Dr. Andrew Wood
Office: HGH 210; phone: (408) 924-5378
Email: wooda@email.sjsu.edu
Web: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda

Celebration and Technopolis

"Locally, nationally and even internationally Silicon Valley has become mythic territory where bright young nerds in a garage can blend innovation and entrepreneurial savvy to create more democratic corporations. Silicon Valley is not just any California coastal town. For better or worse, it has become a metaphor for tomorrow land, a theme park of global corporate enthusiasm ranging from the small Ma and Pa Wang start-up to Hewlett Packard and Apple. Beneath the hype, however, there does exist a region occupied by real people who struggle to survive the consequences of the myth and create a microecology of meaning in their own lives."

Ideal Community Project is Due

We look to Silicon Valley as a laboratory for computer-mediated communities. This region, once known as the Valley of the Hearts Delight, has transformed itself into a high-tech cluster in which everything and everyone is wired to the hilt. At least, that's what the media report. We examine research efforts that complicate such unidimensional perspectives on public life in our community. In contrast to our local technopolis, we also visit Celebration, a communal attempt to live in the past rather than the future. However, this "new urbanist" cross between a garden city and company town conceals much within its planned neighborliness.

Ideal Community Project Due

Reading: Morris

Supplemental Website: The Silicon Valley Cultures Project

Supplemental Website: Wood's Celebration Resources

Supplemental Article: Brett Schulte's Presence of the past - includes an interview with Dr. Wood

Supplemental Notes: Langdon Winner: Silicon Valley mystery house

Viewing: X Files: Mulder and Scully visit a perfect community

Viewing: Pleasantville: Geography of Everywhere

Notes: Jan English-Lueck

Notes: Philip Morris

Activity: Where is Silicon Valley?

Activity: Time Travel

Off-campus webpages related to Technopolis

Off-campus webpages related to Celebration

Note: These pages exist outside of San Jose State University servers and their content is not endorsed by the page maintainer or any other university entity. These pages have been selected because they may provide some guidance or insight into the issues discussed in class. Because one can never step into the same electronic river twice, the pages may or may not be available when you request them. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Dr. Andrew Wood.

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