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 . Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, pp 3-12.
Week 2. How do networked technologies change social movements and shape collective actions?
Read:
Bennett, W. Lance, and Segerberg, Alexandra, “The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics”, Information, Communication & Society 5, 15 (2012).
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
Watch: “Clay Shirky: How cellphones, Twitter, Facebook can make history (2009)
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
Excerpts from: Milan, S. (2013). Social movements and their technologies : wiring social change. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313546
Watch: “Here comes everybody” (2008), “The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Businesses” (2013), “Revolution 2.0” (2011), ‘Mac commercial’ (1984), selected clips from “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World” (2016)
Week 4. The Dark Side of Digital Activism I: Commodity Activism, Clicktivism, Slacktivism
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.
Dennis, James , Beyond Slacktivism: Political Participation on Social Media. Palgrave McMillan, 2019.
Watch: Kony campaign (2012), Invisible children, Avaaz campaigns
Week 5. The Dark Side of Digital Activism II: Surveillance, Authoritarianism, Cyber Warfare
Read:
Excerpts from
Murdoch, Stephen, “Destructive Activism”, in Joyce, Mary ed., Digital Activism Decoded. The New Mechanics of Change, (New York: International Debate Education Association, 2010).
Morozov, Evgeny, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011).
Watch: Syrian Electronic Army videos, TOR, NSA, the dark side of Instagram campaigns
Week 6. Class review & Midterm exam
Week 7. Occupy Wall Street: Occupying spaces, media, and the imaginary
Read:
Costanza-Chock, S. (2012). Mic check! Media cultures and the Occupy movement. Social Movement Studies, 11(3-4): 375-385.
Mattoni, Alice. (2018). I post, you rally, she tweets…and we all occupy. The challenges of hybrid spatiality in the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations. In M. Mortensen, C. Neumayer, & T. Poell (Eds.), Social Media Materialities and Protest: Critical Reflection
Further reading:
Schultz, H. 2017. Don’t Occupy Gotham City: A Protester Reviews ‘The Dark Knight Rises.’ Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/dont-occupy-gotham-city-a-protester-reviews-the-dark-knight-rises
Watch: selected clips from “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012)
Week 8. The Arab ‘Spring’: Was it really a 2.0. revolution?
Read:
Abdulla, Rasha A., “The Revolution Will Be Tweeted” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs 3, 1 (2011).
Burris, Greg, “Lawrence of E-rabia: Facebook and the new Arab Revolt”, Jadaliyya, October 17, 2011.
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: “Asma Mahfouz, the video that sparked the Egyptian Revolution” (2011), “Tweets from Tahrir: The Arab Awakaning” (2012), “Tunisia: portion of irevolution CNN (2011)”, “Bahrain: portion of irevolution CNN” (2011) , “Egypt: portion of irevolution CNN” (2011), "How Facebook changed the world- the story of the Arab Spring" (2012)
Week 9. Reclaiming Public Spaces I: Squares and streets vs bits and pixels
Tahrir Square and the Arab Spring
Read:
Excerpts from:
Gerbaudo, Paolo (2012). Tweets and the streets. Social media and contemporary activism. Pluto Press.
Elshahed, Mohamed “Tahrir Square: Social Media, Public Space,” Design Observer, February 2011.
Watch: “Tahrir” (2012), “How the Internet has made social change easy to organize but hard to win” (2014), “The Square” (2013)
Week 10. Reclaiming Public Spaces II: Squares and streets vs bits and pixels
From the Quiet Revolution to the Maple Spring: Social movements in Québec
Read:
Teruelle, R. (2016). Tactical Use of Media, Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Red Squares, and Other Tactics: The 2012 Québec Student Protests. PhD thesis, the University of Toronto. 166-199.
Garland, E. (2012). How Quebec's 'Maple Spring' Protests Fit With the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street (Sort Of). The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/how-quebecs-maple-spring-protests-fit-with-the-arab-spring-and-occupy-wall-street-sort-of/258402/
Venne, J-F. (2017). “The dubious legacy of Quebec’s Maple Spring.” University Affairs.https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/dubious-legacy-quebecs-maple-spring/
Watch: “Insurgence” (2013), “Dérives” (2013); Carré Rouge Sur Fond Noir ; The Canadian Press. (2012, May 22). Timeline of events in Quebec student strike. CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/timeline-of-events-in-quebec-student-strike-1.1244671
Week 11. Revolution & resistance in Cuba: from online protests to offline digital circulation
Readings:
Excerpts from:
Venegas, C. (2010). Digital dilemmas: The State, the individual, and digital media in Cuba. Rutgers University Press.
Henken, T. 2021. Cubans Are Proving That the Internet Can Still Be a Force for Democracy. Slate.https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/cuba-internet-protests-web.html
Week 12. Feminist movements: from #hashtagactivism to the reappropriation of time and space
Martin, S.J. (2021), Anthropology’s Prophecy for #MeToo: From Hollywood to Hong Kong. Visual Anthropology Review, 37: 120-141. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12229Jackson, S. J., Bailey, M., & Welles, B. F. (2020). Women Tweet on Violence: From #YesAllWomen to #MeToo. In #Hashtagactivism : networks of race and gender justice. MIT Press.
Watch: MeToo is a movement, not a moment (2018); Take Back the Night; Ni una menos/Non una di meno
Week 13. Not opposing but proposing: Emancipatory communications practices
Excerpts from: Milan, S. (2013). Social movements and their technologies : wiring social change. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313546
Week 14
Wrap up/presentations of online project