watch president s men submit your work 250 400 words is fine

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I was watching this movie recently and was reminded of a phrase from Bill Joy’s article, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” that states that some of the biggest scientific achievements of the 20th century, including the development of nuclear weaponry, were accomplished with little or no computing power. As a somewhat smaller example of this, the journalists working on the Watergate story in the movie All the President’s Men are working with little to no opportunities to work with digital technology, it’s nearly all analog tech being used, right from the iconic opening shot of the typewriter.

That being said, it’s also striking how the question of establishing the facts of what happened in that episode in American political history still revolves around people working to get the significant problem solving (and subsequent leg work) of research accomplished.

For this extra credit opportunity, I’m asking you to watch the movie , pick a episode from the story involving the research process (indicate the time markers for the corresponding part of the movie) and write a short essay discussing the following points:

  • Summarize that point in the story briefly.
  • Identify the information behavior (information seeking or information creation) that’s being engaged in by the story’s protagonists.
  • Identify the technologies that the reporters are working with in the movie as they work on solving the information problems at hand.
  • In what ways would using digital technologies have changed their work? In what ways would the work of research and investigation have remained essentially the same?

Submit your work (250-400 words is fine)