P11. 0017 Globalizing Social Activism and the Power of the ... · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ... P11. 0017...
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1 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ROBERT F. WAGNER GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE P11. 0017 Globalizing Social Activism and the Power of the Media Spring, 2010 Professor Ted Perlmutter [email protected] Course Hours: Monday/Wednesday 2:00-3:15 Room 512, Silver Center, 33 Washington Place Office Hours: Wednesday 3:30-5:00 The course will analyze how information technology has transformed capacities for individuals and groups to share knowledge, develop strategies, and expand the scope of their work. The last decade has been transformative in terms of the tools and resources available to those seeking to influence society at the local, national, and international level. Indeed, the distinction between these levels of activities, long a cardinal axis of social science analysis has become increasingly blurred. Even within the last year, we have three major events: the political revolt in Iran, the economic summit in Copenhagen, and the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti that have dramatically demonstrated how much the landscape has changed. This course will focus on analyzing these and similar events in the context of theories of social movements, global civil society and international relations. The course will have three thematics, which will accord roughly with three sections of the course: 1.) An application of theoretical paradigms from international relations, social movements and global civil society theory, to the rise of non-state actors in the context of the ―information revolution‖ and the political change s that have occurred in the last fifteen years. 2.) An examination of critical cases of international mobility and mobilization: including discussions of the campaign to ban land mines, anti-globalization campaigns, environment, China, Iran and genocide prevention. 3.) An examination of changes in and challenges to journalism, as the rise of bloggers and other more participatory forms, have combined with economic challenges to the daily newspaper have changed the information ecosystem. In certain cases, we will be primarily interested in the mobilization patterns and techniques. In others, it will be the effects of the underlying information and communication technology. It is the relationship between the increasing centrality of new forms of organization and new information technologies that will be a recurrent them of this course.
Transcript of P11. 0017 Globalizing Social Activism and the Power of the ... · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ... P11. 0017...
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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
ROBERT F. WAGNER GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE
P11. 0017 Globalizing Social Activism and the Power of the Media
Spring, 2010
Professor Ted Perlmutter [email protected]
Course Hours: Monday/Wednesday 2:00-3:15
Room 512, Silver Center, 33 Washington Place
Office Hours: Wednesday 3:30-5:00
The course will analyze how information technology has transformed capacities for individuals and groups to share knowledge, develop strategies, and expand the scope of their work. The last decade has been transformative in terms of the tools and resources available to those seeking to influence society at the local, national, and
international level. Indeed, the distinction between these levels of activities, long a cardinal axis of social science analysis has become increasingly blurred. Even within the last year, we have three major events: the political revolt in Iran, the economic summit in Copenhagen, and the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti that have
dramatically demonstrated how much the landscape has changed.
This course will focus on analyzing these and similar events in the context of theories of social movements, global civil society and international relations.
The course will have three thematics, which will accord roughly with three sections of the course:
1.) An application of theoretical paradigms from international relations, social movements and global civil society theory, to the rise of non-state actors in the context of the ―information revolution‖ and the political changes that have occurred in the last fifteen years.
2.) An examination of critical cases of international mobility and mobilization:
including discussions of the campaign to ban land mines, anti-globalization campaigns, environment, China, Iran and genocide prevention.
3.) An examination of changes in and challenges to journalism, as the rise of bloggers and other more participatory forms, have combined with economic challenges to the
daily newspaper have changed the information ecosystem.
In certain cases, we will be primarily interested in the mobilization patterns and techniques. In others, it will be the effects of the underlying information and communication technology. It is the relationship between the increasing centrality of new forms of organization and new information technologies that will be a recurrent
them of this course.
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The course will raise questions such as:
To what extent does it make sense to speak of global civil society? What are NGOs‘ roles within it?
Which types of organizations are most able to use and/or most dependent on sophisticated use of information and communications technology?
Has the development of new modes of communication made more open and less hierarchical organizational forms possible?
Has this development changed the balance of power between challengers and authoritarian governments in countries like China and Iran?
What (if anything) does it mean to talk of a Twitter Revolution in places like Moldova and Iran?
How have democratically-driven mapping processes, like those that have taken place in cases as diverse as the electoral violence in Kenya and the response and rebuilding efforts in Haiti, affected the international community‘s ability to
respond.
To what extent does the rise of amateur journalism offer new opportunities for collaboration with traditional actors?
How can society best capitalize on these new sources to support civil society and an active democracy?
The course will also enhance students‘ digital literacy by instructing them on how to
use blogs, wikis, rss feeds, and social tagging systems. Digital literacy is critical for two reasons. First, because its tools have become critical for participation in today‘s workplace, whether it be in business, government, or the non-profit sector. Second, because it is only by using social media tools that one comes to understand their
power to develop and diffuse one‘s message. Increasingly, it is necessary not only to use individual tools, but also to understand how to combine them to reach different audiences and to reinforce one‘s message.
Required Texts:
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin, New York, 2008
Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Cornell University Press, 1998.
Sidney Tarrow and Donatella della Porta, Transnational Protest and Global Activism, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
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Course Site(s) and Requirements
We will be using a Google Sites Wiki as the web platform for this course. The site
address is At the level of logistics, the Google Sites Wiki will function as a replacement
for Blackboard—assignments and readings will be posted, discussions will be held, etc. A wiki is a very different platform, because all content, except that which is explicitly locked can be edited by everyone in the course. The most powerful effect of
this openness is that it enables active collaboration. It also will enable cross-linking between documents, comprehensive search capacities and the ability to see what everyone has posted recently.
We will use a wiki for two major assignments and a number of minor ones. The major assignments include a simulation based on the Danish cartoon crisis and a
disaggregation/reaggregation of the Clay Shirky text.
Students will also be required to use the following technologies to focus on an issue of their choosing related to the class themes. This will likely involve contributing to a site called Digitactive, which tracks and describes how different advocacy and activist
groups use the internet. The structure and requirements for this assignment will be worked out collectively in the class.
Blog (WordPress)/Posterous)
Microblog (Twitter)
RSS (Netvibes)
Increasingly, businesses and NGOs, no matter how small have to develop
comprehensive social media strategies. One of the goals of the course is to enable you to understand how these technologies function and how they can best be coordinated and combined.
Grading and Other Policies
Course grades are based on three requirements:
Class and wiki participation: 30%
Mid-Term Take-Home Exam: 30%
Final Take-Home Exam OR Blog/Twitter/RSS feed: 40%
Participation: All wiki assignments must be completed before class:
Final Project Due Date: May 8
All late assignments will be penalized one third of a letter grade (i.e., from an A- to a B+) for each day or fraction of a day late. All students are responsible for saving a hard copy or a backup in some other digital form of all assignments.
Other Policies
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Google Sites Wiki: All assignments and course documents are available on the Google
Sites Wiki.
This syllabus is tentative and subject to change at the discretion of the instructor .
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Week 1: Jan 20
Wednesday
Discussion of syllabus, educational goals, and course technology.
Student Introductory exercise.
Resources that will be discussed in class:
Haiti Rebuilds -- The Birth of Global Citizen 1.0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-antonio-vargas/haiti-rebuilds----the-bir_b_428688.html.
Twitter Revolution – Iran YouTube Video, Produced by ABC Australia, distributed by Journeyman Pictures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW2oy9c5NiM&skipcontrinter=1
Netvibes discussion of Haiti: http://www.netvibes.com/ws10#Haiti
Week 2: Changing Media/ Autonomous Voices Tag: CMAV
Post-Industrial Revolutions and Manifestos (Monday, Jan 25)
Thomas Friedman, ―The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century:, Chapter 1, pp. 3-47, and ―Open Sourcing: Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities, 81-103.
Karl Marx, ―The Communist Manifesto‖, Ch1 and 2, http://bit.ly/6t1i0e and http://bit.ly/7D7g1s
Eben Moglen, ―The dot Communist Manifesto‖, pp. 1-7 http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/dcm.pdf
Information Revolutions, (Wednesday, Jan 27) Tag: IReV
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, ch. 1-3 Global Voices Online http://globalvoicesonline.org/about/ Global Voices Online is a non-profit global citizens‘ media project, sponsored by and launched from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School.
Biella Coleman "Indymedia's Independence: From Activist Media to Free Software" Planetwork Journal http://journal.planetwork.net/article.php?lab=coleman0704.
Recommended:
Change.org
Disputing Censorship http://www.committeetoprotectbloggers.org/
Monroe E. Price, Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution and Its Challenge to State Power 1 New Role of the State, pp. 3 – 31
Week 3 : Global Civil Society and NGOs:
NGOs and Civil Society (Monday, February 1 ) Tag: NgoCs
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CR Anheier, Helmut, Marlies Glasius, and Mary Kaldor. [Selections from:] "Introducing Global Civil
Society." Global Civil Society, 2001, pp. 3 - 21 Kenneth Anderson and David Rieff, ―Global Civil Society: A Sceptical View‖, GCS 2001
Recommended:
Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor ―Global Civil Society in an Era of Regressive
Globalisation: The State of Global Civil Society in 2003‖ in Mary Kaldor, et. al. Global Civil Society Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003, pages 109-160.
NGOs and States Global Policy Forum, http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/role/stateindx.htm (Articles about role of NGOs and increasing efforts to regulate them.)
NGOs, Civil Society, and the Internet (Wednesday February 3) Tag: NgoInt
Naughton, John (2001): ―Contested Space: The Internet and Global Civil Society‖. In: Helmut Anheier/ Marlies Glasius/Mary Kaldor (Hrsg.), Global Civil Society 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press, S. 147-168. http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/Yearbooks/2001/2001chapter6.pdf
Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Ch. 4,6,7
Recommended:
Jonathan Bach and David Stark, ―Link, Search, Interact: The Co-evolution of NGOs and Interactive Technology‖, Theory, Culture & Society 2004 (SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol.
21(3): 101–117
Week 4: Networks and the Power of Symbols
Norms (Monday February 8) Tag: IRnorms
Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics Chapter 1 and 2.
Recommended:
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence, 3rd edition. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Chapter 2: Realism and Complex Interdependence, 20-32. Part V, ―Globalism and the Information Age‖
Finnemore, Martha and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. "International Norm Dynamics and Political
Change." International Organization, 52: 887-917
Environmental Networks and Norms (Wednesday February 10)
Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, "Environmental Advocacy Networks", Ch.4, pp. 121-165
Week 5: Social Movement Theory
Transnational Activism (Wednesday February 17) Tag: TransAct
Kathryn Sikkink, ‗Patterns of Dynamic Multilevel Governance‖, Transnational Protest and Global Action, Ch. 7, pp. 151-173
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Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy
Week 6:
Conflict Diffusion (Monday February 22)
Sidney Tarrow and Donatella Della Porte, Transnational Protest and Global Activism, Ch. 1 (1-14), 6, and 10.
Danish Cartoon Exercise.
Networked Activism (Wednesday February 24) Tag: CyberAct
W. Lance Bennett, ―Communicating global activism: strengths and vulnerabilities of networked politics‖, Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social Movements 123-147.
Shirky, Chapter 7 ―Faster and Faster‖ and 9, ―Fitting our Tools to a Small World‖
Week 7: Land Mines / Diffusion of Norms / Global civil society / ICT
Global Civil Society and Norm Diffusion (Monday March 1) Tag: LmNorms
Price, Richard. 1998. "Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines." International Organization, 52: 613- 644
Cameron, Maxwell, ―Global Civil Society And The Ottawa Process: Lessons From The Movement To Ban Anti-Personnel Mines‖ Canadian Foreign Policy, ISSN 1192-6422, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Fall 1999), 85-102. (directory)
ICT (Wednesday March 3) Tag: LmICT
Ken Rutherford, ―The Landmine Ban and NGOs: The Role of Communication Technologies ―
http://www.nautilus.org/gps/info-policy/workshop/papers/rutherford.html
Hubert, Don. The Landmine Ban: A Case Study in Humanitarian Advocacy Occasional Paper #42 Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies (Providence, Brown University, 2000) http://www.watsoninstitute.org/pub/op42.pdf
Index on Landmines: http://www.icbl.org/index/ a comprehensive guide to Landmine resources
on- and off the Internet .
Take Home Mid-Term: Will be handed out on March 3 and be due at 5:00 on March 5
Week 8: Anti-Globalization / “Global Justice”
Context, Movement, and Structure (Monday, March 8) Tag: AgNet)
Desai, Meghnad and Yahia Said. [Selections from:] "The New Anti-Capitalist Movement: Money and Global Civil Society." In Global Civil Society 2001, edited by Helmut Anheier et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001: ch. 3, pp 1-28
Felix Kolb, ―The Impact of Transnational Protest on Social Movement Organizations: Mass Media and the Making of Attac Germany‖ Transnational Protest and Global Activism, pp. 95-120.
Indymedia videos from Hong Kong WTO
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Target WTO: Common Front, "Struggles from the Margins: Dec 17/18 Battle of Hong Kong against
WTO"http://targetwto.revolt.org/node/156
Radio Hongkong.de http://radiohongkong.de/clip.php?clipId=1263&PHPSESSID=6c8acc05c6e212ccd9dc2da869b3a763
Anti-Globalization and ICTs (Wednesday, March 10) Tag: AgICT
Peter Van Aelst and Stefaan Walgrave ―New Media, new movements? The role of the internet in shaping the anti-globalization movement‖ Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social Movement, pp. 97-122.
Brigitte Le Grignou and Charles Patou ―ATTAC(K)ing expertise: does the Internet really democratize
knowledge? Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social Movements, pp. 164-180
Recommended:
Steve Wright, ―Informing, communicating and ICTs in contemporary anti-capitalist movements‖, Cyberprotest: New media, Citizens and Social Movements: pp. 77-93.
Week 9: Wikis, Networks, nnd Knowledge
Monday March 22,
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Ch. 5,
Web 2.0 tools to promote social networking for the Forest Connect Alliance
Recommended:
Johnathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Chapter 6, ―The Lessons of WikiPedia‖. http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/16
CSIS, ―Wikis, Webs, and Networks. Creating Connections for Conflict Prone Settings‖ (theoretical section) http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,3542/type,1/, pp. 1-15
Wednesday, March 24.
Shirky deconstruction Wiki Exercise
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, ch. 10, 11, epilogue
Week 10: Genocide Prevention
Networks and Activism (Monday, March 29) Tag: GenPrev
John Prendergast and John Bagwel, WHY ACTIVISM (STILL) MATTERS FOR SUDAN... AND WHAT YOU CAN DO Enough Project, March 2009
An Anti-Genocide Community: Building the Political Will to End Genocide http://www.netsquared.org/projects/proposals/anti-genocide-community-building-political-will-end-genocide
Humanity United Project - Mapping of Mass Atrocity Prevention Network http://www.scalingimpact.net/
Mapping and Policy (Wednesday, April 1)
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Mapping
Matthew Levinger, "Geographic Information Systems Technology as a Tool for Genocide Prevention: The Case of
Darfur".
Patrick Meier, "GIS Technology for Genocide" Prevention, http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/gis-technology-for-genocide-prevention/
Ushahidi and its implementation in the Congo.
Policy
Preventing Genocide: A BluePrint for U.S. Policy Makers, Chapter 2: Early Warning: Assessing Risks and Triggering Action, pp. 17-33 http://www.usip.org/genocide_taskforce/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide Washington D.C., 14 September 2006 http://law.case.edu/lectures/files/2007-2008/WashingtonPresentation14September2006_rev.pdf
Background
Policy
REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND REPORTS OF THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER AND THE SECRETARY-GENERAL PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/10session/A.HRC.10.25.pdf
Mapping Projects
AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Chad and Sudan: Conflict Monitoring Case Study Report http://shr.aaas.org/geotech/darfur/darfur.shtml
Darfur Mapping: http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/darfur/
Week 11: Media, Censorship, and Humanitarian Crisis
China, the Internet and Censorship (Monday, April 5)
Rebecca McKinnon, OSI Forum: The Future of Freedom and Control in the Internet Age (video presentation, first 30 minutes)... http://www.soros.org/initiatives/fellowship/events/freedom_20090210/
Drezner, Daniel WEIGHING THE SCALES--THE INTERNET‘S EFFECT ON STATE-SOCIETY RELATIONS june 2005 latest .pdf Global Nework Initiative, Documents on Principles, Implementation and Governance,
Can the Global Network Initiative Advance Freedom of Expression and Privacy Rights in Countries that Censor the Internet? Why It Is a Promising Start, But Still Leaves a Large Hole to Be Filled http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html
Mobile Technology, Local Media and Humanitarian Crisis (Wednesday, April 7)
WHEN INFORMATION SAVES LIVES: Engaging Local Media in Humanitarian Crises
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http://www.internews.org/global/er/InternewsHumanitarianMedia2009.pdf
Sheila Kinkade and Katrin Verclas. "Wireless Technology for Social Change." Washington, DC and Berkshire, UK: UN Foundation–Vodafone Group Foundation Partnership, 2008. http://mobileactive.org/files/MobilizingSocialChange_full.pdf
Week 12: Media and Public Policy
New Models for Journalism (Monday, April 12)
Rachel Sterne, Ground Report http://www.groundreport.com/
Minnesota Public Radio / public insight network http://minnesota.publicradio.org/publicinsightjournalism/
Citizen Media: Fad or the Future of News?‖ The Rise and Prospects of Hyperlocal Journalism‖ Jan Schaffer www.jlab.org
Jay Rosen, ―What I learned from assignment.zero‖, http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/10/09/what_i_learned.html
Contesting Media Policy (Wednesday, April 14)
Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute, October 2009. (sections on citizen empowerment) http://www.knightfoundation.org/downloads/kcfinalenglishbookweb.pdf
Strengths, Challenges and Collaboration: Advocacy groups organizing together on media ownership and beyond http://www.mediaactioncenter.org/files/Strengths-Challenge-final.pdf
Russel, N. & Scott, B., "The Fight for the Future of the Media" p.11-40 in The Future of the Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century. (ed.Robert McChesney, et al).
Week 13: Copenhagen
New Media in Copenhagen (Monday, April 19)
Standing On The Edge Of The Future: The New Media In Copenhagen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katherine-goldstein/standing-on-the-edge-of-t_b_399676.html?&just_reloaded=1
Activism 2.0: Creating Casablanca in Copenhagen, The Fresh Air Center
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chrissie-brodigan/activism-20-creating-casa_b_404860.html
Google Wave (Wednesday, April 21)
Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/went-walkabout-brought-back-google-wave.html
Using Google Wave to debate climate change http://www.debatewise.info/index.php/blog/debatable/lessons-learnt-from-using-google-wave-in-phase-1-of-the-cop15-project Global Youth Panel on Climate Change Day 3 http://workserver.idebate.org/advocacyinstitute/2009/12/10/global-youth-panel-on-climate-change-day-3
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DN! Danish Police Preemptively Arrest Over 1,000 Protesters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISougKKt3Uk
Week 14: Twitter Revolutions and Projects
Monday, April 26: Twitter Revolutions? Communications Tech in Moldova & Iran
Moldova
From the New York Times: Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08moldova.html?_r=1&ref=europe Evgeny Morozoz, Moldova's Twitter revolution is NOT a myth
http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/10/moldovas_twitter_revolution_is_not_a_myth
Ethan Zuckerman, "My Heart's in Accra" blog, April 9, 2009 Unpacking ―The Twitter Revolution‖ in Moldova
Kate Brodock, "Moldovan Protests: Was it really a 'Twitter Revolution'?", Digiactive, http://www.digiactive.org/2009/04/10/moldovan-protests-was-it-really-a-twitter-revolution
Iran
Andrew Sullivan "The Revolution Will Be Twittered" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-revolution-will-be-twittered-1.html
Guarav Mishra, Iran's "Twitter Revolution" - myth or reality, WorldFocus, http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/06/18/irans-twitter-revolution-myth-or-reality/5869 Douglass Rushkoff, "How Iran's Hackers Killed Big Brother" The Daily Beast,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-16/how-irans-hackers-killed-big-brother/full
Recent Debate:
Clay Shirty, The Twitter Revolution: more than just a slogan (January 2010) http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/01/the-twitter-revolution-more-than-just-a-slogan
Eugeny Morozov, Why the internet is failing Iran’s activists (Dec 2009) http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/01/why-the-internet-is-failing-irans-activists
Background:
"The Role of Digital Networked Technologies in the Ukrainian Orange Revolution" Berkman Center, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Goldstein_Ukraine_2007.pdf Briefing :: Twitter against Tyrants: New Media in Authoritarian Regimes, Helsinki Committee
Testimony, [Kyle Parker, Policy Advisor for Eurasis, CSCE moderating, Oct. 22, 2009 http://bit.ly/5d1AtB
Wednesday, April 28: Project and Shirky/Wiki Discussion
Week 15: May 3, Project and Shirky/Wiki Discussion
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