Description
Our program asks how the World Wide Web is affecting the structure and function of today's political and social movements. How are strategies for political organizing and social protest changing in a technological environment and a globalizing media culture that are themselves rapidly changing? These and related questions are at the heart of this spring quarter program, which will explore the both the history and current status of selected political and social movements in the U.S and abroad.
The analytical emphasis in this exploration is on the role of communications media in the formation and function of mass movements. The program combines readings in the history of social movements and social media with instruction and practice in web research and web publishing. This wiki provides the vehicle for students to structure their own intensive research projects on causes and organizations of their choosing.
This program structures an opportunity for students and faculty to place contemporary political and social movements on the web into their historical context. It allows us to examine what worked and did not work within mass movements in the past, how digital technologies are affecting contemporary movements, and what we may learn about our own times to make online activism successful now and in the future.
Bibliography of Readings
Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice by Martha McCaughey, Michael D. Ayers (2003)
We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People by Dan Gillmor (2006)
Social Movements, 1768-2004 by Charles Tilly (2004)
People's Movements, People's Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements by Bob Ostertag (2007)
The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle by T.V. Reed (2005)
Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media by Robert W. McChesney (2007)
Insurgency Online: Web Activism and Global Conflict by Michael Y. Dartnell (2006)
The New Transnational Activism by Sidney Tarrow (2005)
