University of Toronto Communications Essay

A 2,000 -2,500 word essay on one of the following three questions:

1. Is hacktivism meaningful to digital culture? What do the tactics, techniques and procedures tell us about hacktivism? What causes have been important to hacktivists? Have hacktivists been successful in their activism, or does hacktivism need to change? If so, how?
   
   
2. Many of the hackers and organizations we have studied in this course are critical of intellectual property and copyright. Why? What are some of the ways in which hackers have intervened against intellectual property? Why is this important to both hackers and digital culture? (Hint: this essay allows you to focus on piracy and/or free and open source software).
3. Work in high-tech industries is considered lucrative and often glamorous, but what are the risks and challenges that high tech workers face? Are there structural problems with the technology industry that make working in it harder for some groups of people?

Requirements.

• Essays are expected to be supported by 6-8 scholarly sources including course readings as well as journal articles and scholarly books which the student will identify in the course of their research.
• Students are free to use secondary and primary sources including newspaper articles, magazines, websites and non-scholarly monographs can also be used, but do not count towards the scholarly bibliographical requirements above.
• All essays are expected to use properly formatted APA style citations and include an APA style reference page.