Panel 1: What is technorealism?
   An overview (3:00 - 4:15)

For too long, public discussions of technology have been reduced to simplistic extremes: Are you for it -- or against it? Will it save society -- or destroy it? This panel will seek to articulate technorealism, a more nuanced and useful way to think about the changes that are occurring in computing and communication.

Technorealism is not a top-down philosophy, but rather a way of talking about a set of principles that many people already share. Yet, predictably, this view has been ignored by pundits and politicians who sensationalize technology with breathless tales of either high-tech doom or cyber-elation. Technorealism deflates myths such as the idea that technologies are neutral. Or that information is knowledge. Or that government has no role to play on the electronic frontier. Or that wiring the schools will save them.

Moderator: Prof. Lawrence Lessig. Panelists: Paulina Borsook, Simson Garfinkel, Douglas Rushkoff, Andrew Shapiro, David Shenk, Mark Stahlman

Panel 2: Hypertext and Hyperbole:
   Technorealism Applied (4:30 pm - 6:00 pm)

There's been much hand-wringing recently over the Matt Drudge phenomenon -- the idea that journalism's Big Media gatekeepers now face competition from any muckraker with a modem and moxie. News observers have been quick to belittle -- and even to demonize -- webzines, email lists, and other nontraditional online information sources. At the same time, some cyberspace denizens have professed their intent to ignore the basic components of traditional journalism.

This panel of leading journalists and editors (all of whom have worked in "old" and new media) will discuss a more subtle and accurate way -- a technorealist way -- to understand the possibilities and limitations of online communication, whether it be chat rooms, Drudge, or Microsoft's Slate. The panelists will also look more broadly at the social and political potential of new media, from interactivity to identity exploration to using the Internet as a tool for global organizing.

Moderators: Prof. Charles Nesson and Jonathan Zittrain. Panelists: David Bennahum, Brooke Shelby Biggs, Marisa Bowe, Steven Johnson, Steve Silberman, Stefanie Syman