The aim of this course is helping to understand and analyze the networked social movements in the changing digital media ecology. The course will summarize social movement theories with a special focus on the recent practices on performance. Case studies from WITNESS and MIT Open Doc and Center for Civic Media will be introduced. Social media analytical tools to be used for research also will be introduced. The topics can vary from ecological movement focusing on climate crisis, worker movements, peace protests, women and LGBTQI movement in different contexts and time frame. It is also possible to choose one topic as a whole group and concentrate on that topic with different aspects. Assignments include active participation during the discussions, presenting designing a digital media advocacy project (10 May) and a final research project focusing on any social movement use of digital media. All participant students are expected to present shortly their research project designs or proposals (on 3 May) and preliminary findings (on 14, 21 and 28 June) of implemented pilot work. Those who need less credit can only make oral presentations.
Recommended Reading List
Neil Alperstein. 2021. Performing Media Activism in the Digital Age. Palgrave. (main book).
Veronica Barassi. 2015. Activism on the Web: Everyday Struggles Against Digital Capitalism. London: Routledge.
Lina Dencik and leistert, Oliver (eds). 2015. Critical Perspectives on Social Media and Protest: Between Control and Emancipation. London: Rowman and Littlefield.
A., Kavada, & Poell, T. 2021. From Counterpublics to Contentious Publicness: Tracing the Temporal, Spatial, and Material Articulations of Popular Protest Through Social Media. Communication Theory, 31(2), 190-208. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaa025
Alice Mattoni. 2017. A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements. Media ecology and media practice approaches, Social Movement Studies, 16:4, 494-505, DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2017.1311250
S.Milan. 2013; paperback edition 2016. Social Movements and Their Technologies: Wiring Social Chang e Palgrave Macmillan.
Suay M. Ozkula, Paul J. Reilly & Jenny Hayes. 2022: Easy data, same old platforms? A systematic review of digital activism methodologies, Information, Communication & Society, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2021.2013918
Emiliano Trere. 2020. Hybrid Media Activism. Ecologies, Imaginaries, Algorithms.
KR. Wissensbach Accounting for power in transnational civic tech activism: A communication-based analytical framework for media practice. International Communication Gazette. 2020;82(6):545-563.doi: 10.1177/1748048519832779 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1748048519832779