Syllabus

Introduction to Civic Media

CMS.360/860
Wednesdays, 7–10pm
E15-335

Instructors

Erhardt Graeff, E15-345, erhardt at media dot mit dot edu
Ethan Zuckerman, E15-351, ethanz at media dot mit dot edu

Office hours by appointment

Short Description

Examines civic media in comparative, transnational and historical perspectives. Introduces various theoretical tools, research approaches, and project design methods. Students engage with multimedia texts on concepts such as citizen journalism, transmedia activism, media justice, and civic, public, radical, and tactical media. Case studies explore civic media across platforms (print, radio, broadcast, internet), contexts (from local to global, present-day to historical), and use (dialogic, contentious, hacktivist). As a final project, students develop a case study or project proposal. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 20.

Weekly Assignments

Each week students will reflect on a question related to that week’s readings in a short post shared online for others to read via the class blog by Tuesday at Midnight the day before class. Short means between 500 and 1000 words. Feel free to play with the format of the post and include imagery, graphs, or other multimedia. Timely submission is important as students will be asked to read their peers’ work, share it and discuss it in class.

On Pseudonymity

Students will be required to post their assignments on a public blog. However, if they are uncomfortable associating those posts with their real name, they may adopt a consistent pseudonym for their work, which will be used in the byline.

Final Project

Students will write either a case study or a proposal for a new civic media project. The case study or proposal will reflect on ideas and designs explored in the class readings and discussions in order to analyze a contemporary civic media phenomena OR put forward a new design for a civic media intervention addressing a contemporary issue. Expected length will be 2500–5000 words.

Collaboration Policy

Students are encouraged to collaborate with one other student on their final project. Note: teams will be held to a higher standard of output.

Final Project Proposal

Students must submit a proposal for their final project describing their intended object of study, either a civic media phenomena to be examined or an issue that you want to design a civic media intervention around. You need to summarize the civic media use or issue. Expected length should be about the same as one of your weekly assignments: 500–1000 words.

Final Project Presentations

The last week of class will be a showcase of final projects. Students will deliver a 5–10 minute presentation summarizing their work.

Examples

Graduate Students

If you are taking this class as a graduate student, we expect more. Specifically we expect two things from graduate students:

  • You will help lead a discussion of one of the weekly sets of readings. These will be assigned on a rolling basis. Volunteer early to get your preferred week.
  • Your final project should involve substantial research beyond the readings in the class in order to develop an original contribution in Civic Media. We expect you to make reasonable progress toward a “publication quality” piece.

Grading

50% Weekly Reading/Assignments*
30% Final Project
10% Final Project Proposal
10% Class Participation

* You may skip one weekly writing assignment and still get full credit here

Late Policy

If you have a valid excuse for turning in something late, please advise the instructors in an email ahead of time.

Attendance Policy

Please advise instructors in an email ahead of time for any planned absences. But things come up, we understand. We will not take formal attendance, but we will share and discuss the weekly assignments and have collaborative exercises during class. Not coming to class is not participating and will affect your Class Participation grade if we see a pattern.

Help With Writing

Check out the MIT Writing and Communication Center: http://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/

Statement on Plagiarism

Plagiarism—use of another’s intellectual work without acknowledgement—is a serious offense. It is the policy of the CMS/W Faculty that students who plagiarize will receive an F in the subject, and that the instructor will forward the case to the Committee on Discipline. Full acknowledgement for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. All ideas, arguments, and direct phrasings taken from someone else’s work must be identified and properly footnoted. Quotations from other sources must be clearly marked as distinct from the student’s own work. For further guidance on the proper forms of attribution, consult the style guides available in the Writing and Communication Center (E39-115) and the MIT Website on Plagiarism located at: http://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/avoiding-plagiarism/.

Classes, Readings, and Deadlines

Week 1: February 4

Syllabus Review + Working Toward a Definition of Civic Media

 

Week 2: February 11

The Crisis in Journalism

The journalism industry’s claim to being the public’s key source of news has been under threat by media-making citizens and new media startups; these diffuse the public’s attention and advertisers’ spending leading to desperation and consolidation.

Required Readings

Supplementary Readings

Examples

 

Week 3: February 18

The Crisis in Civics

Every generation incurs the concern of the previous that they will ruin society. But voter turnout is really down, as is trust in institutions, and participation in traditional forms of associational life thought to undergird American democracy. Millennials volunteer more than ever but it’s unclear if new forms of participation will be enough.

DUE: Blogged response to “What is one example of citizen journalism you find compelling and why? Be sure to construct a definition for ‘citizen journalism’ and describe how your example fits this definition.” (Post by Midnight Tuesday, February 17)

Required Readings

Supplemental Readings

Examples

 

Week 4: February 25

The Public Sphere and Deliberative Democracy

Liberal democracy like in the US preserves the rights of the individual and hopes public discourse will inform the practice of government. The public sphere represents the place and manner of this discourse, but its form and function is contested and in flux.

DUE: Blogged response to “Offer an example—concrete or potential—of media/technology used for civic renewal. Pick a purported civic crisis discussed in class or a closely related one and define it. Then describe how your example attempts to address this ‘crisis’ and offer an evaluation of its success or potential success in doing so.” (Post by Midnight Tuesday, February 24)

Required Readings

Examples

Lecture Slides

Week 5: March 4

The NETWORKED Public Sphere

The public sphere is now bigger, more participatory, and networked. This state of affairs continues to promise enhanced democracy and more efficient governance, but the internet still trips over hubris and incivility.

DUE: Blogged response to “Choose a digital public sphere of some kind—forum, comment section, social media space, platform, service, etc.—and critique how well it succeeds in terms of open, rational discussion, equality and representativeness, civility, and impact, OR in intentionally ignoring or inverting such metrics to achieve a particular goal (perhaps as a counterpublic).” (Post by Midnight Tuesday, March 3)

Required Readings

Supplemental Readings

Examples

Lecture Slides

 

Week 6: March 11

(Digital) Inequalities

Participation online and offline is affected by individuals’ and groups’ access to civic spaces as well as their relative power within them. Access and power are determined by factors such as demographics, socioeconomics, technology ownership and literacy, and individual roles, and of course luck.

DUE: Blogged response to “Find and describe an example of a “collaborative technology” designed to improve a flaw in government. Talk about it critically in terms of what Benkler’s “Networked Public Sphere” is good for and values (such as generativity, openness, the importance of data, and individual liberty) that seem to govern or be imbued in the technology’s design and processes.” (Post by Midnight Tuesday, March 10)

Required Readings

Examples

Lecture Slides

 

Week 7: March 18

Project Proposal Pitches and Feedback

DUE: Final Project Proposals

 

Week 8: NO CLASS

Spring Break

 

Week 9: April 1

Models of Citizenship

The design of civic media is dependent on our expectations of what citizens can and should do to support civil society. But the definition of what constitutes a “good” citizen continues to change. Moreover, tensions arise when different definitions encounter each other in the streets, the media, and the classroom.

DUE: Blogged response to “What represents an ideal inclusive civic technology to you? Feel free to point to specific real-world examples, create one from the components of several projects, or propose your own from scratch. Be sure to defend it in terms of your own definition of inclusivity and any and all dimensions of inequality your example may address.” (Post by Midnight, March 31)

Required Readings

Supplementary Readings

Examples (Monitorial Citizenship)

Lecture Slides

 

Week 10: April 8

The Networked Social Movement #1: Organizing Online

Community organizing and movement building are still the standard for large-scale change campaigns, however digital tools and tactics have transformed their practices in controversial ways. Sophistication, reach, and novelty are up, but perhaps at the cost of individual agency and biographical impact.

DUE: Blogged response to “Pick one of the monitorial citizenship examples and describe how one or two of the other citizen models from the readings (informed, actualized, dutiful, justice-oriented, participatory, and personally-responsible) might use it.”

Required Readings

Supplementary Readings

Examples

Lecture Slides

 

Week 11: NO CLASS

Media Lab Member’s Week

 

Week 12: April 22

The Networked Social Movement #2: Activism or Slacktivism?

Community organizing and movement building are still the standard for large-scale change campaigns, however digital tools and tactics have transformed their practices in controversial ways. Sophistication, reach, and novelty are up, but perhaps at the cost of individual agency and biographical impact.

DUE: Blogged response to “Pick a recent online social movement and describe the ways digital media or new technologies were used to organize activists. Where do the uses of these technologies map onto classic principles of political organizing and where do they transform them into something new?”

Required Readings

Supplemental Readings

Examples

Lecture Slides

 

Week 13: April 29

Surveillance, Censorship, and Privacy

Civic participation via digital media requires the creation of a massive amounts of data (no small amount of it being personally identifiable) carried over wires that cross international boundaries and hosted on servers in multiple legal jurisdictions. In 1984, Orwell offered a vision of the government literally in your home and in your head, and activists and journalists around the world are threatened by equally terrifying possibilities when they use certain tools and platforms.

DUE: Blogged response to “What parts of Gladwell’s argument do you agree with and what do you disagree with? Use examples (he doesn’t mention) that bolster and/or refute him.”

Required Readings

Supplemental Readings

Examples

Lecture Slides

 

Week 14: May 6

Online Protest and Hacktivism

Activists have often played with legality in their civic work, hoping the combination of civil rights and public support will vindicate their efforts. Now activists are taking their protests to digital spaces and confronting high stakes computer crime laws as well as a public uncertain of the merit of their actions.

DUE: Continue working on your final projects!

Required Readings

Supplemental Readings

Examples

 

Week 15: May 13

Final Project Presentations

DUE: Final Project Papers
DUE: Final Project Presentations