Course outline
Module 1
Module 1: Y2K and the Millennium Bug
Y2K and the Millennium Bug
Knowledge check
Q1. What was the Y2K bug fundamentally caused by?
- A. Computer viruses spreading across the internet
- B. Programs storing years as two digits, so '00' could be misread as 1900 ✓
- C. Satellites falling out of orbit at the turn of the millennium
- D. Hard drives failing due to overheating in data centres
Why: Many older programs stored years using only the last two digits to save memory and storage. Systems might interpret '00' as 1900 instead of 2000, causing errors in date calculations.
Q2. Which area of daily life was widely feared to be at risk from Y2K failures?
- A. Only video game consoles
- B. Banking, utilities, and air traffic control systems ✓
- C. Public library book catalogues
- D. Television broadcast schedules only
Why: Banking, power grids, water utilities, telecommunications and air traffic control all relied on date-dependent software, so they were among the sectors most scrutinised for potential Y2K failures.
Q3. What was a common term used for the Y2K problem?
- A. The Digital Eclipse
- B. The Millennium Bug ✓
- C. The Binary Blackout
- D. The Server Storm
Why: The problem was popularly called the 'Millennium Bug', reflecting both the approaching year 2000 and the idea that it was a flaw or bug in software.
Q4. What did most governments and companies do in the years before January 1, 2000 to address Y2K?
- A. Ignored the issue because it was considered a hoax
- B. Banned the use of all computers for one day
- C. Audited, tested, and updated their software and systems ✓
- D. Switched entirely to paper record keeping permanently
Why: Organisations worldwide invested heavily in identifying affected code, testing systems, and fixing or replacing non-compliant software before the rollover.
Q5. What was the outcome when the clocks struck midnight on January 1, 2000?
- A. Widespread global computer failures caused major disruptions
- B. Most systems worked without major failures, though a few minor problems occurred ✓
- C. All internet connections were permanently lost
- D. Electricity supplies were cut off in every country
Why: Thanks to extensive preparation, the rollover passed with few serious incidents. Some minor issues were reported, but the widespread catastrophe many had predicted did not occur.
Module 2
Module 2: The Rise of Reality Television
The Rise of Reality Television
Knowledge check
Q1. Which reality television series, premiering in 2000, is widely credited with launching the modern reality TV boom in the United States?
- A. Survivor
- B. Big Brother ✓
- C. The Real World
- D. American Idol
Why: Big Brother premiered in the Netherlands in 1999 and its American version debuted in July 2000 on CBS. Its format of isolated contestants voted out by viewers helped spark the reality TV boom that followed.
Q2. What was the name of the 2000 CBS show that featured a group of strangers competing for a million-dollar prize by surviving on a remote island?
- A. The Amazing Race
- B. Survivor ✓
- C. Fear Factor
- D. Temptation Island
Why: Survivor premiered in May 2000 and became a major hit. Contestants lived on a remote location and voted each other out until one winner remained to claim the prize.
Q3. Which early 2000s MTV reality series followed a group of young people sharing a house in a major city, helping to popularize the 'unscripted' format?
- A. The Real World ✓
- B. Jackass
- C. Cribs
- D. Punk'd
Why: The Real World, which began in 1992, was a pioneer of the reality format. Its long-running seasons in the 2000s continued to shape the genre by placing strangers together and filming their daily lives.
Q4. Which phrase best describes the appeal of reality television in the early 2000s?
- A. Highly scripted dramas performed by professional actors
- B. Documentary films about historical events
- C. Unscripted programming featuring everyday people, often in competitive or confessional settings ✓
- D. Live news coverage of current affairs
Why: Reality TV centered on unscripted content featuring non-actors, often placed in competitive situations or shown through confessional interviews. This low-cost, high-drama format drew large audiences in the 2000s.
Q5. Which 2002 Fox program, starring a famous rock musician and his family, became a major reality hit and showed viewers a domestic side of celebrity life?
- A. Keeping Up with the Kardashians
- B. The Osbournes ✓
- C. Laguna Beach
- D. The Simple Life
Why: The Osbournes followed Ozzy Osbourne and his family in their Los Angeles home. It premiered in 2002 and was a breakout success that revealed celebrity life in an informal, humorous way.
Module 3
Module 3: Dot-Com Boom and Bust
Dot-Com Boom and Bust
Knowledge check
Q1. Which event is generally considered the starting point of the dot-com bubble's rapid rise in the late 1990s?
- A. The release of the Netscape Navigator web browser in 1994 ✓
- B. The Federal Reserve raising interest rates in 1987
- C. The launch of the first personal computer in 1975
- D. The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996
Why: The commercial success of Netscape Navigator, which went public in August 1995, drew widespread attention to the internet as a business opportunity and helped kick off the investment frenzy that defined the dot-com boom.
Q2. What term describes the period of soaring stock prices for internet-related companies in the late 1990s?
- A. The Great Depression
- B. The Dot-Com Bubble ✓
- C. The Silicon Winter
- D. The Web Recession
Why: The Dot-Com Bubble refers to the speculative surge in technology and internet company valuations, fueled by heavy investment, between roughly 1995 and 2000.
Q3. Many dot-com companies failed in 2000 and 2001 primarily because they:
- A. Were banned by the government from operating online
- B. Spent heavily on growth and advertising without a viable path to profit ✓
- C. Lost their domain names to competitors
- D. Were unable to access the internet due to hardware shortages
Why: Many startups burned through venture capital on aggressive marketing and rapid expansion while generating little or no revenue, so when investor confidence collapsed, they ran out of cash.
Q4. Which popular pets-related online retailer became a well-known symbol of dot-com excess before collapsing in 2000?
- A. Amazon.com
- B. eBay
- C. Pets.com ✓
- D. Yahoo!
Why: Pets.com, famous for its sock puppet mascot and Super Bowl advertising, shut down in 2000 after spending far more than it earned, and it became a emblem of the bubble's excesses.
Q5. What was the approximate date when the NASDAQ Composite index peaked before a steep decline?
- A. March 2000 ✓
- B. January 1992
- C. October 1987
- D. June 1995
Why: The NASDAQ Composite reached its peak in March 2000 and then lost a large portion of its value over the following two years as the bubble burst.
Module 4
Module 4: Post-9/11 Culture and Politics
Post-9/11 Culture and Politics
Knowledge check
Q1. Which event in September 2001 most directly shaped the political and cultural climate of the early 2000s in the United States?
- A. The dot-com stock market crash
- B. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon ✓
- C. The launch of the first iPhone
- D. The end of the Cold War
Why: The September 11, 2001 attacks triggered a major shift in American politics, security policy, and popular culture, including patriotic media, heightened airport security, and new national security laws.
Q2. What was the USA PATRIOT Act, passed in October 2001?
- A. A law that created the Department of Homeland Security
- B. A law expanding government surveillance and investigative powers in response to terrorism ✓
- C. A law that ended the draft
- D. A law regulating social media companies
Why: The USA PATRIOT Act expanded law enforcement and intelligence surveillance powers after 9/11, and it remains one of the most debated post-9/11 policies.
Q3. Which reality TV show, first aired in 2000, became a major cultural phenomenon in the early 2000s by putting strangers together in a shared living space?
- A. Survivor ✓
- B. Jeopardy!
- C. 60 Minutes
- D. Sesame Street
Why: Survivor premiered in 2000 and helped launch the reality TV boom, popularizing the format of unscripted competition among ordinary contestants.
Q4. What was the main concern of the Y2K problem as the year 2000 approached?
- A. That computers storing years as two digits would misread dates, causing system failures ✓
- B. That a new virus would erase the internet
- C. That global oil supplies would run out
- D. That satellites would fall from orbit
Why: Many older computer systems stored years using only two digits, so software might interpret '00' as 1900, potentially causing errors in banking, utilities, and other systems.
Q5. Which social media platform, launched in 2004 by a Harvard student, initially connected college students before expanding to the general public?
- A. Twitter
- B. MySpace
- C. Facebook ✓
- D. YouTube
Why: Facebook was launched in 2004 at Harvard and gradually opened to other colleges and then the public, becoming central to early social media culture.
Module 5
Module 5: The Birth of Social Networking
The Birth of Social Networking
Knowledge check
Q1. Which social networking site, launched in 2003 and popular with musicians and teens, allowed users to customize their profile pages extensively?
- A. Friendster
- B. MySpace ✓
- C. Bebo
- D. Orkut
Why: MySpace, launched in 2003, became the most visited social networking site in the United States by 2006. Its customizable profile pages and music features made it especially popular with musicians and teenagers.
Q2. Which platform, founded in 2004 at Harvard University, was originally designed to let students rate the attractiveness of classmates before evolving into a broad social network?
- A. LinkedIn
- B. Twitter
- C. Facebook ✓
- D. YouTube
Why: Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and fellow students at Harvard in 2004. It began as a campus-only network for Harvard students before expanding to other colleges and eventually the general public.
Q3. What was the name of the 2000 MTV reality series that followed the lives of a group of young people in Real World-style housing and helped popularize the reality TV genre?
- A. Survivor
- B. Big Brother
- C. The Real World ✓
- D. Temptation Island
Why: The Real World premiered on MTV in 1992, and its format of filming strangers living together was a major influence on reality television. It remained a prominent show through the 2000s.
Q4. Which social network, launched in 2002 and popular in the early 2000s, is often considered an early precursor to Facebook by allowing users to list friends and browse their networks?
- A. Friendster ✓
- B. Google+
- C. Snapchat
- D. Instagram
Why: Friendster, launched in 2002, is widely regarded as one of the first major social networking sites. It introduced many features, such as friend lists and profile pages, that later became standard on platforms like Facebook.
Q5. What was the primary concern surrounding the Y2K bug as the year 2000 approached?
- A. Computers might fail to correctly handle dates after December 31, 1999, because many systems stored years using only two digits ✓
- B. Social networks would crash from too many users logging in at midnight
- C. Reality TV shows would be banned by federal regulators
- D. Global satellite communication would permanently shut down
Why: The Y2K bug arose because many older programs represented years with two digits, so '00' could be misread as 1900. Governments and businesses spent heavily on fixes, and the feared widespread failures largely did not occur.
Module 6
Module 6: Music Downloads and the Rise of Piracy
Music Downloads and the Rise of Piracy
Knowledge check
Q1. Which file-sharing service, launched in 1999 by Shawn Fanning, is widely credited with popularizing peer-to-peer music sharing in the early 2000s?
- A. Napster ✓
- B. Kazaa
- C. LimeWire
- D. iTunes
Why: Napster allowed users to share MP3 files directly with one another through a central index server. Its rapid growth made it the most famous early peer-to-peer music service and triggered major legal battles with the recording industry.
Q2. What file format became the dominant way to store compressed digital music during the early 2000s, making music easy to copy and share online?
- A. WAV
- B. MIDI
- C. MP3 ✓
- D. FLAC
Why: MP3 used lossy compression to shrink audio files to a small fraction of their original size while keeping acceptable sound quality. This made songs practical to download and share over the slow internet connections common at the time.
Q3. What was the main reason the recording industry gave for taking legal action against file-sharing services in the early 2000s?
- A. Downloaded files were too low in quality
- B. Shared music was being copied without payment to artists and labels, causing lost sales ✓
- C. Peer-to-peer networks were slowing down the internet
- D. Services were collecting users' personal data without consent
Why: The Recording Industry Association of America and major labels argued that free copying of copyrighted recordings was reducing CD sales and harming artists financially. This argument drove many lawsuits against both services and individual users.
Q4. Which iconic device, released in 2001, offered a way for people to legally buy and carry digital music, helping shift consumer habits away from piracy?
- A. Walkman
- B. Discman
- C. iPod ✓
- D. Zune HD
Why: Apple's iPod, launched in 2001 and paired with the iTunes Store from 2003, made it convenient to buy songs for a small fee and carry thousands of tracks. Its success helped demonstrate that consumers would pay for legal digital music.
Q5. What was the name of the 2003 online music store launched by Apple that sold individual songs for 99 cents each?
- A. Spotify Store
- B. Pandora Music
- C. iTunes Music Store ✓
- D. Rhapsody Hub
Why: The iTunes Music Store opened in 2003 and let users legally buy individual tracks for 99 cents. It became one of the most successful legal alternatives to piracy and changed how people purchased music.
Module 7
Module 7: The Blogosphere and Citizen Media
The Blogosphere and Citizen Media
Knowledge check
Q1. Which term describes the collective network of personal websites and online journals that grew rapidly in the early 2000s?
- A. The Intranet
- B. The Blogosphere ✓
- C. The Webring Archive
- D. The Newsgroup Commons
Why: The blogosphere refers to the interconnected community of blogs, which expanded dramatically in the early 2000s as blogging platforms became easier to use.
Q2. What is 'citizen media' in the context of the 2000s internet?
- A. Government-funded public broadcasting
- B. News and commentary produced by ordinary people rather than professional journalists ✓
- C. Television programs filmed in public spaces
- D. Official websites run by city councils
Why: Citizen media describes content created by non-professional individuals who report, comment on, or document events, often through blogs, photos, and video.
Q3. Which 2004 event is often cited as a turning point showing the power of blogs to influence mainstream news?
- A. The launch of the iPhone
- B. Bloggers scrutinizing and ultimately contributing to the downfall of a CBS News report on George W. Bush's military service ✓
- C. The Y2K bug causing widespread computer failures
- D. The first live-streamed reality television finale
Why: Bloggers questioned the authenticity of documents used in a 60 Minutes II segment, and their criticism helped lead to the report's retraction and the resignation of several CBS News staff.
Q4. What was a key reason blogging became accessible to non-technical users in the early 2000s?
- A. Mandatory computer programming classes in schools
- B. Free, user-friendly platforms like Blogger and LiveJournal that required no coding knowledge ✓
- C. Government subsidies for home computers
- D. Television networks hosting blog software
Why: Platforms such as Blogger, LiveJournal, and later WordPress let people publish online through simple web forms without needing to write HTML or manage servers.
Q5. Which feature allowed bloggers to link to one another and notify each other of new posts, helping build the blogosphere's community?
- A. Pop-up advertisements
- B. Trackbacks and blogrolls ✓
- C. Email chain letters
- D. Search engine banners
Why: Blogrolls listed other blogs a writer recommended, while trackbacks automatically notified a blog when another blog linked to it, fostering conversation across the blogosphere.