The Internet: Hype and Glory*

Welcome to Issues in Professional and Public Discourse (English 4874). This course is offered as part of the Professional Writing Program in the Department of English at Virginia Tech. This web site supports Jim Collier's section of the course (CRN 92741, Fall 2008) entitled "The Internet: Hype and Glory."

"Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster innovation and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences."
— Lewis Mumford, The Pentagon of Power, 1970.

"We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before."
— John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, 1996.

*The course subtitle is taken from the name of an opinion column written by Walter Shapiro that appeared in USA Today from 1995-2004. Taken broadly, the subject of Shapiro's column was contemporary politics. However, I find Shapiro's turn of phrase captures perfectly the extravagant claims and continuing promises made by purveyors of the Internet — a central theme in our course.