SCHEDULE
Week 1. Introduction and course overview: What is a social movement?
Read:
Excerpts from:
Della Porta, Donatella, and Diani, Mario, Social Movements: an Introduction (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 20-29
Snow, D., Soule, S., & Kriesi, H. (2007). The blackwell companion to social movements (Blackwell companions to sociology). Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, pp 3-12.
Week 2. Do networked technologies shape social movements and collective actions?
Read:
Gladwell, Malcom. “Small Change. Why the Revolution will not be tweeted”, The New Yorker Oct 2010 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell
Abdulla, Rasha A., “The Revolution Will Be Tweeted” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs 3, 1 (2011)
https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-revolution-will-be-tweeted/
Watch: “Asma Mahfouz, the video that sparked the Egyptian Revolution” (2011), “Tweets from Tahrir” (2012), “Egypt: portion of irevolution CNN” (2011), "How Facebook changed the world- the story of the Arab Spring" (2012); "How the Internet has made social change easy to organize but hard to win” (2014)
Week 3. Why are networked technologies expected to bring social change?
Read:
‘Technology: the promises of communicative capitalism’ , in Dean, J. (2009). Democracy and other neoliberal fantasies : Communicative capitalism & left politics. Durham: Duke University Press
Schmidt, E., & Cohen, J. (2010). The digital disruption: Connectivity and the diffusion of power. Foreign Affairs, 89(6), 75-85.
Watch: “Here comes everybody” (2008), “The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Businesses” (2013), “Revolution 2.0” (2011), ‘Mac’s commercial’ (1984), selected clips from “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World” (2016)
Recommended Readings:
Packer, George, “Change the world”, The New Yorker, May 27, 2013.
Schmidt, E., & Cohen, J. (2013). The new digital age : Reshaping the future of people, nations and business (First ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Week 4. The 'Pros' of Networked Activism: Case Studies in Hashtag Activism
Excerpts from:
Jackson, Sarah J., Bailey, Moya, and Foucault Welles Brooke (2020). #Hashtag Activism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice. Boston: MIT Press.
Watch: videos from Black Lives Matter
Week5: The Dark Side of Networked Activism: Clicktivism, Slacktivism
Read:
Excerpts from:
Morozov, Evgeny, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011).
Dennis, James , Beyond Slacktivism: Political Participation on Social Media. Palgrave McMillan, 2019.
Watch: Kony campaign, Avaaz campaigns, Invisible children, Aylan Kurdi
Week 6: Commodity Activism in the Neoliberal Moment
Read:
Excerpts from:
Mukherjee, Roopali, and Banet-Weiser, Sarah (eds), Commodity Activism: cultural resistance in neoliberal times, (New York and London:New York University Press) 2012.
Week 7
Class review & Midterm exam
SPRING BREAK
Week 8. Challenges of Networked Activism Ten Years after the Arab ‘Spring’: an Overview
Read:
Della Ratta, Donatella, “On ready-made revolutions in the Arab world: how armchair journalism and citizen empowerment fit into the rhetoric of contemporary neoliberal discourse”, in Bennet, Pete, and McDougall, Julian, Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth: Hard Times Today (London: Routledge, 2016).
Watch: “Tweets from Tahrir” (2012), “Tunisia: portion of irevolution CNN (2011)”, "How Facebook changed the world- the story of the Arab Spring" (2012); "The Uprising" (2013)
Week 9. Ten Years After the 'Spring': Has Video Witnessing Become Evidence?
Read:
Excerpts from:
Della Ratta, Donatella (2018), Shooting a Revolution: Visual Media and Warfare in Syria, London: Pluto Press.
Watch: “Citizen journalism and Arab Spring: Andy Carvin” (2012), “10 Tactics for turning information into action” (2010), “How to make a trustworthy video” (2013), Witness videos
Week 10. Ten Years After the 'Spring': Who Owns the Image? Deletion, Moderation, Filtering and the Question of the Archive
Excerpts from:
Della Ratta, Donatella, Dickinson, Kay and Haugbolle, Sune (2020) The Arab Archive. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures
Watch: “Silvered Water” (2014), “The Uprising” (2013), user-generated videos from Syria, Egypt, etc.; "The Cleaners" (2018)
Week 11. Ten Years After the 'Spring': Tactical media and Artivism
Read:
Garcia, David, and Lovink, Geert, The ABC of Tactical Media Manifesto, May 16. 1997
Critical Art Ensemble, Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas (Autonomedia, 1996).
Raley, Rita, “Introduction Tactical media as Virtuosic Performance”, Tactical Media, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2009).
Watch: Paper Tiger TV, Indymedia, Luther Blisset, Liberation Newsreel, Critical Art Ensamble, The Yes Men, AdBusters, Anonymous.
Week 12. Ten Years After the 'Spring': The Rise of Tech Activism and Unionism
Read:
Excerpts from
Digital Labor : The Internet As Playground and Factory, edited by Trebor Scholz, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012.
Scholz, Trebor (2016) Uberworked and Underpaid: How Workers Are Disrupting the Digital Economy. London: Polity Press.
Week 13. Ten Years After the 'Spring': Platform Cooperativism and Data Justice
Excerpts from
SCHOLZ, T., & SCHNEIDER, N. (Eds.). (2016). Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, A New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet.
Scholz, Trebor (2014) Platform Cooperativism vs the Sharing Economy. Medium
https://medium.com/@trebors/platform-cooperativism-vs-the-sharing-economy-2ea737f1b5ad
Week 14
Wrap up/presentations of online project
*Final exams (check date): paper & visual presentation
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