Global Internet Activism. Introduction.

Global Internet Activism

Trebor Scholz | The New School University | Eugene Lang College | LCST 4014 A | Spring 2009

Political Activism,
Advocacy, and Art Activism

week 2
week 1 Access, Censorship,
Social Media, and the

week 3
Alleged Democratization
Citizen Media: from
of Society
Seattle to South Korea
War and Social Media: Serbia

week 5
week 4
War and Social Media: Iraq, Gaza

week 6 Spring Break
week 7
War and Social Media: Counter-publics
Iran, Afghanistan in Iran

week 8 week 9
Cell phone-enabled
Citizen Media in China
week 12
activism: Philippines

Burma
week 11
week 10 Japan, Singapore
A Better World in Second Life?
week 14
One Laptop Per Child
week 13
Cyber Publics in India
week 15
Mobilization

Trebor Scholz | The New School University | LCST 4014 A | Spring 2009

http://globalvoicesonline.org/

http://www.kitab.nl/tunisianprisonersmap/

Political Activism, Advocacy, and Art Activism using
Social Media: Introduction, Overview
week 1
Jan 27, 29

Questions:
What is the value of discussion? Think of the worst group discussion you have ever been involved in. What
happened that made these discussions so unpleasant? Conversely, think of the best discussions you have ever
been involved in. What made these conversations so satisfying? How would you like to be spoken to by your
peers? Together we formulate ground rules for discussion for the weeks to come.

Throughout the semester there will be repeated anonymous after-class questionnaires.

Required Readings (Thursday):
Kazys Varnelis, quot;Conclusion: The Meaning of Network Culture,quot;Kazys Varnelis, Networked Publics (Cambridge: Boston,
2008) 146-163.

Suggested Reading:
Nina Felshin, quot;Introduction,quot; Nina Felshin, But is it Art? The Spirit of Art and Activism (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995) 9-28.

Brecht, Bertolt. quot;The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication (July 1932).quot; ToniSant. 1 Jan. 2001. 14 Jan. 2009
<http://www.tonisant.com/class/2001/fall/brechtradio.htm>.


John Heart;ield : Whoever Reads Bourgeois Newspapers Becomes
Blind and Deaf: Away with These Stultifying Bandages ! (1930)

;lickr.com/photos/marcwathieu/2469720834/sizes/l/

Access, Censorship, Social Media, and
the Alleged Democratization of Society
week 2
Feb 3, 5
Questions:

What are valid arguments for and against the claim that the Internet democratizes society? How do the

mainstream media pick the conflicts that they cover? What are our chances to be affective/effective as

individuals or small groups dealing with issues like the US prison system, and (urban) poverty in the prevailing

surroundings of corporate late capitalism? How do we decide which issues we take on and which ones we

ignore?

Required Readings:
John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, quot;Activists,quot; John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Born Digital (New York: Basic Books, 2008)
255-270.

Sunstein, Cass R. quot;The Daily We.quot; Boston Review — Home. July-Aug. 2005. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://bostonreview.net/
BR26.3/sunstein.html>.

Suggested Reading:

Brea, Jennifer. quot;From Kivu to Gaza: How the Media Choose the Conflicts They Cover.quot; Global Voices Online. 9
Jan. 2009. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/01/09/from-kivu-to-gaza-how-the-media-choose-the-
conflicts-they-cover/>.

quot;Overview.quot; The Internet In the Arab World A New Space of Repression? 1 Jan. 2004. The Arabic Network for
Human Rights Information. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://anhri.net/en/reports/net2004/intro.shtml>.


http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/projects/maps/

http://opennet.net/blog/2009/01/pakistan‐communication‐authority‐issues‐directives‐block‐web‐sites

Citizen Media: from Seattle to South Korea
week 3
Feb 10, 12

Required Readings:
Dorothy Kidd, quot;IndyMedia.org A New Communication Commons,quot; Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers,
Cyberactivism (London: Routledge, 2003) 47-65.

Gillmore, Dan. We the Media. Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. 1 July 2004.
Chapter 1: From Tom Paine to Blogs and Beyond. 6 Jan. 2009 <http://oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/
book/ch01.pdf>.

Suggested Reading:
Kanter, Beth. quot;Video Blogging in Rural Cambodian Province.quot; Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use
Social Media. 4 May 2008. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/05/video-
blogging.html>.

Shirky, Clay. quot;Exiting Deanspace.quot; Many-to-Many:. 3 Feb. 2004. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://many.corante.com/
archives/2004/02/03/exiting_deanspace.php>.

Shirky, Clay. quot;Is Social Software Bad for the Dean Campaign?.quot; Many-to-Many:. 3 Feb. 2004. 14 Jan.
2009
<http://many.corante.com/archives/2004/01/26 is_social_software_bad_for_the_dean_campaign.php>.

Case Studies:
OhMyNews, IndyMedia, Riseup’s Crabgrass, The Memory Hole, Wikileaks, TXTmob, Bahrain Censored
Google Earth, Tunisian Prison Map, tracking Darfur suspects on Facebook, Google Earth as visual
evidence of the destruction in Darfur.


http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/042r6O45du52Y/610x.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0aeO6Eh4hMgNg/610x.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/
2dnhmy
http://english.ohmynews.com/

http://www.bushin30seconds.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb1GQ2ioFuc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti‐war_protest

March 27, 2006, LA
Students organize 15000 people for immigration protest through MySpace and SMS

War and Social Media: Serbia

week 4
Feb 14, 17

Required Readings:
Raymond Williams, quot;Alternative Technology, Alternative Uses?,quot; Raymond Williams, Televison (London: Routledge,
1990) 138-160

Scholz, Trebor. quot;Carnival in the Eye of the Storm.quot; Art Journal (2000). Molodiez. 1 Dec. 2000. 14 Jan. 2009
<http://molodiez.org/kosovoarticle.html>.

Select from mailing list archive:

Archive of posts March 1999. 1 March. 1999. 26 Jan. 2009
<http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9903/maillist.html>.

Archive of posts April 1999. 1 Apr. 1999. 26 Jan. 2009
<http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9904/threads.html>.

Suggested Reading: (Excerpts handed out in class)
Collin, Matthew. This Is Serbia Calling : Rock 'n Roll Radio and Belgrade's Underground Resistance. London: Serpent's
Tail Limited, 2001.

Case Studies:
NATO bombing of Serbia: The first Internet War (use of mailing lists),
Radio B-92

Media:
Excerpts: Predictions of Fire by Michael Benson (1996)


discussio starter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IGOZTpbuUY&feature=PlayList&p=E516EF846565A0A2&playnext=1&index=30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xkUMqXyDAo&feature=PlayList&p=64AD6D43071FFFA7&playnext=1&index=2

Military forces install a shrine, created by the Serbian Orthodox Church, on the disputed border between Serbia and Montenegro. Photograph by Savo Kovacevic, 2005.
source: http://slought.org/img/archive1/1351+press1.jpg

week 5
War and Social Media: Iraq, Gaza

Required Readings:
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, quot;Constituents of a Theory of the Media,quot; John Thornton Caldwell, Electronic
Media and Technoculture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000) 51-76.

David Kline and Dan Burstein, quot;A GI Blogs the War in Iraq. An Interview with Colby Buzzell,quot; David Kline
and Dan Burstein, Blog! (New York: eds books, 2005) 265-269.

Case Studies:
War blogging: Salam Pax, Iraq Blog Count, Iraq Body Count, Game: Dead in Iraq, Youarenothere.org,
Iraqslogger.com, Alive inBaghdad.org, Bird Watching and Blogging In Iraq

Media:
Iraq in Fragments (2006)


Salam Pax March 2003 Anonymous Iraqi Blogger gains international visibility with posts about the war

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Censored_Tibet_March_2008_protest_videos_-_AVI_format

http://www.appliedautonomy.com/

http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/war_in_140_characters_or_less

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_con;lict

War and Social Media:
Afghanistan
week 6
March 3, 5

Required Reading:
Michael Y. Dartnell, quot;Insurgency Online as Global Witnessing The Web Activism of RAWA,quot; Michael Y. Dartnell,
Insurgency Online Web Activism and Global Conflict (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006) 46-72.

Jon W. Anderson, quot;Internet Islam: New Media of the Islamic Reformation,quot; Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early,
Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002) 300-304.

Suggested Readings:
Zuckerman, Ethan. quot;…My heart’s in Accra » Hossein Derakshan at Expression Under Repression.quot; Ethan Zuckerman. 11
Nov. 2005. 14 Jan. 2009
<http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2005/11/18/hossein-derakshan-at-expression-under-repression/>.

Hermida, Alfred. quot;BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Web gives a voice to Iranian women.quot; BBC NEWS | News Front Page.
17 June 2002. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2044802.stm>.

Delio, Michelle. quot;Blogs Opening Iranian Society?quot; Wired News. 28 May 2003. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://www.wired.com/
culture/lifestyle/news/2003/05/58976>.


Counter-publics in Iran

week 7
March 10, 12

Required Reading:
Babak Rahimi, quot;The Politics of the Internet in Iran,quot; Mehdi Semati, Media, Culture and Society in Iran Living with
globalization and the Islamic state (London: Routledge, 2008) 36-56.

Jon W. Anderson, quot;Internet Islam: New Media of the Islamic Reformation,quot; Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A.
Early, Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002) 300-304.

Warner, Michael (2002): Publics and Counter-Publics. In: Public Cultures, vol. 14, no. 1, 49-90. URL:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~dcloud/Warner.pdf

Suggested Reading:
quot;Censorship in Iran.quot; Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 1 Jan. 2009. 14 Jan. 2009
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Iran>.

Case Studies:
Iran Inside Out. 10 Jan. 2009. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://iraninsideout.com/>.


Cell phone-enabled activism: Philippines

week 8
March 24, 26

Required Readings:
Jonathan Donner, quot;The social and economic implications of mobile telephony in Rwanda: An ownership/access
typology,quot; Stefan Bertschi, Chris Locke Peter Glotz, Thumb Culture. The Meaning of Mobile Phones for Society
(Bielefeld: transcript, 2005) 38-47.

Ellis, Eric. quot;TIMEasia.com | Asia Buzz: Revolution | 1/23/2001.quot; Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos,
Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 23 Jan. 2001. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://www.time.com/time/asia/asiabuzz/2001/01/23/>.

LaFraniere, Sharon. quot;Cellphones Catapult Rural Africa to 21st Century.quot; The New York Times 25 Aug. 2005. 14 Jan.
2009 <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/international/africa/25africa.html>.

Suggested Reading:
Rabble. quot;Cellphones, Rural Social Movements and the Bolivian Gas War.quot; Anarchogeek:. 18 Nov. 2003. 14 Jan. 2009
<http://www.anarchogeek.com/archives/000256.html>.

Case Studies:
“Hello Garci!” Scandal

Parra, Juliana R. quot;» Human Rights Video.quot; Global Voices Online. 13 Mar. 2008. 14 Jan. 2009
<http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/human-rights-video/>.


http://www.;lickr.com/photos/thewily;ilipino/132176013/sizes/o/


Citizen Media in China

week 9
March 31, April 2

Required Reading:
David Kline and Dan Burstein, quot;Making Global Voices Heard,quot; David Kline and Dan Burstein,
Blog! (New York: eds books, 2005) 324-332.

quot;A Brief History of the Internet in China.quot; The Industry Standard. 17 May 2004. 14 Jan.
2009 <http://archive.thestandard.com/article.php?story=20040517152848274>.

Yang, Guobin. quot;Activists beyond Virtual Borders: Internet–Mediated Networks and
Informational Politics in China.quot; First Monday. 25 Aug. 2006. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://
firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1609/1524>.


A Better World in Second Life?
week 10
April 7,9

Required Readings:
Wagner James Au, The Making of Second Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2008). 197-214.
Suggested Reading:

Kanter, Beth. quot;More about that Homeless Avatar in Second Life.quot; Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use
Social Media. 1 Jan. 2007. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/01/
more_about_that.html>.

Au, Wagner J. quot;New World Notes: HOMELESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS (Updated).quot; Second Life: New World
Notes. 5 Dec. 2006. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/12/homeless_for_th.html#more>.

Case Studies:
Better World Island, Democracy Island, The Avatar Action Center, Camp Darfur in Second Life, the
Breast Cancer Network of Strength in Second Life, Homeless in SL

Speaker:
SL meeting with Second Front (Scott KiIdall, Patrick Lichty, Liz Solo, Doug Jarvis, Bibbe Hansen, Yael
Gilks and Gazira Babeli)


Democracy Island http://nyls.blogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/3dwikipark3.jpg

http://www.avataraction.org/twiki/tiki‐index.php

http://www.stopgenocidenow.org/campdarfur/second‐life

http://www.networkofstrength.org/secondlife/

http://www.betterworldisland.org/

Japan, Singapore

week 11
April 14, 16

Required Readings:
quot;Pulling the Plug: A Technical Review of the Internet Shutdown in Burma | OpenNet Initiative.quot; ONI Home Page.
20 Sept. 2007. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://opennet.net/research/bulletins/013>.


Causes and Groups: Burma
week 12
April 21, 23

Required Readings:
quot;Pulling the Plug: A Technical Review of the Internet Shutdown in Burma | OpenNet Initiative.quot; ONI
Home Page | OpenNet Initiative. 20 Sept. 2007. 14 Jan. 2009 <http://opennet.net/research/bulletins/
013>.


http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24957770200

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2318966938

http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1430

Cyber Publics in India

week 13
April 28, 20

Required Readings:
Ravi Sundaram, quot;Beyond the Nationalist Panopticon: The Experience of Cyberpublics in India ,quot; John
Thornton Caldwell, Electronic Media and Technoculture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000)
270-294.

Case Studies:
Tsunami Responses


http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

week 14
May 5, 7

Required Reading:
Ames, Morgan. quot;Hackermentality: Constructionist Learning and Hacker Ethos in One Laptop Per Child.quot;
Diss. Unpublished Stanford University, 2008.

(The instructor will email you the text with permission by the author. Please do not distribute.)

Suggested Reading:
http://www.laptop.org/en/


static.guim.co.uk/sys‐images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2009...


Mobilization
week 15
May 12, 14

Presentations

Write letters to successors


Trebor Scholz
scholzt@newschool.edu

Twitter: trebors
Blog: http://www.collectivate.net/journalisms
Delicious: http://del.icio.us/trebor
Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/treborscholz
LibraryThing: http://www.librarything.com/profile/trebor

Global Internet Activism. Introduction.

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Ähnlich wie Global Internet Activism. Introduction.

Ähnlich wie Global Internet Activism. Introduction. (20)

Mehr von The New School

Mehr von The New School (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Global Internet Activism. Introduction.