Week 6, Week of Oct. 15

First, my apologies for the delay in posting this week's activities. I have fallen behind myself! I haven't posted additional materials for a number of reasons:

1. I've posted a lot of materials the last two weeks and I know many of you are still in the process of catching up (I can see from the online usage). So I hope you have taken advantage of the little breathing space to get caught up on both the learning materials as well as the various activities.

2. I was also hoping that you would be spending some time researching and locating a proper case study for your group project. Some of you are finding that it is not that easy, and you do have to be resourceful, looking beyond the obvious places. An obvious place to look is the good old library's web site, there are many databases and scholarly articles that would provide you with some useful sources. A simple Google search is not going to do it. Some of you posted some helpful tips on the group project page, and I will continue to post additional suggestions there as well. But you must get moving on this if you haven't done so already, and be sure to start collaborating with your group mates and document the activities on your group wiki page.  Again, glad to see some groups are well on their way already. Thanks for taking the lead!

3. The group assignment was something we added after the course started and given it's potential scope, I didn't mind spending more time providing the necessary background and resources and adjusting the original course schedule to suite this demand. So the topic of citizen online activism was one I was going to deal with later in the term, but decided to move it up earlier in order to help you prepare for the project. I am adjusting the remainder of the course schedule and topics accordingly.

However, after my interview with Hani Morsi, I quickly realized that I was completely ill equipped to deal with all the complex questions of citizen activism and rights claiming and the competing explanations that are circulating on the web and in the scholarly literature. As online activism is such a relatively new phenomenon, there is a dearth of theory and methods that adequately deal with this complex interplay between technology, social organizations, sectarianism, culture, politics, religion, and political power. So I have been immersing myself in the recent literature trying to play catch up myself.

In particular, I have been reading the book titled The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online by Guobin Yang. Looking through the past history of social and political contention in China, Yang's thesis is that online activism is part of a "long revolution" that is making Chinese society more open, participatory, and equal. In his book, he provides many case studies of how Chinese netizens used various tactics, including humor, music, videos, games, and subtle wordplay of Chinese characters on micro-blogging platforms and social media to create new forms of expression and association that are open, collaborative, and participatory. And these tactics often result in real changes. Are there parallels to be seen in Egypt and other parts of the world? This is an open question, and hopefully one that you will be able to find, at least in terms of small pieces of the puzzle. 

Guobin Yang's web site contains links to some of his publications, some with full text available. I would recommend:

2012. "Lightness, Wildness, and Ambivalence: China and New Media Studies." New Media & Society 14(1):170-179.

2011. "Technology and Its Contents: Issues in the Study of the Chinese Internet." The Journal of Asian Studies 70(4): 1043-1050.

2009. "The Internet as Cultural Form: Technology and the Human Condition in China." Knowledge, Technology & Policy 22(2): 109-115. Special issue on “Political Culture of Web 2.0 in Asia."

While the focus of Yang's work is on China, his analytical framework, and many theoretical concepts he utilized are applicable to case studies elsewhere, especially those dealing with labour movement, environmental and health concerns. He is also attempting to build new theories about online activism and it would be interesting to try to test these ideas in different contexts. So I strongly recommend his work, even if you are not working on a Chinese case study.

I have also been reading and viewing the work of Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked:The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, and a co-founder of the well known organization Global Voices. MacKinnon is a strong proponent that while the Internet has the potential for expanding democracy, Internet freedom cannot be taken for granted, given the increasingly immense power of private corporations in controlling access and participation on the Internet and how easily they are co-opted by government to serve the state's agenda. Her writings and lectures examine the many overlapping concerns of privacy, censorship, human rights, transparency, citizenship, and democracy. Again, if you are looking for good case studies, you will likely find some interesting and important ones from her studies. Here is a terrific TED talk by MacKinnon about the need to be vigilant about Internet rights and freedom:

So the above is just a preview of what I hope to synthesize for you for next week. I don't expect you to read all the recommended materials. I will be more specific with the required readings next week. Feel free to get a head start!

On line activity this week

Fill out the second survey on Blackboard. This mid-term course evaluation  is designed to solicit feedback from students regarding the progress of the course thus far, and to invite suggestions on how best to improve the learning experience for the remainder of the course.