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Media Activism and Public Engagement

MDST 5002

Depending on whom you ask, media-powered activism can sound like either a silver bullet or a lost cause. It's often both at the same time and more in between. Through hands-on examination of the strategies and tactics of movements, past and present, we'll discover how media can shape social change and how we can become more savvy media practitioners ourselves.

The central themes of this course are power, agency, and narrative in media for social change. Whom does a particular media choice empower, and whom does it render as a passive consumer? How do we choose our heroes, and what are the consequences of those choices? How can we tell stories of change that invite people to take part in changing the world? Our work will consist of close reading, familiarizing ourselves with relevant debates, and honing our own practice.

The course consists of two concurrent sections—one in the classroom and one entirely online. While distinct, the two sections will also interact and inform each other's learning.

Instructor

Nathan Schneider
nathan.schneider@colorado.edu
Armory 1B24, meetings by appointment via email
Website: nathanschneider.info

Objectives

  • Cultivate habits of media activism by doing it through passionate, strategic, pragmatic advocacy
  • Analyze theories and lessons from a wide range of social-change campaigns throughout history and around the world
  • Create a ready-to-deploy media intervention through collaboration with a social-change agent

Expectations

Weekly

Students are expected to complete the weekly reading assignments. Some are fairly easy, some are very difficult; if you have trouble, please at least put your best effort on display. This does not necessarily mean microscopic reading of every page, but it does mean engaging rigorously with portions of particular interest, as well as familiarizing oneself with the works as a whole and thinking critically about their interconnections.

For students working off-campus, many readings are from paywalled journals and will require the use of a campus VPN.

Interventions

Each week, students are expected to turn in what we'll call an Intervention. These Interventions are simple, informal media sketches that contain a) a challenge or problem related to the week's texts and b) an outline for an original strategy that addresses it. Interventions need not be realistic for students to carry out; students may imagine themselves as representing better-resourced organizations, real or imaginary. The purpose of this assignment is to explore our own sense of agency and to exercise adventuresome thinking. Over the course of the semester, a student's Interventions may address various topics, or they can connect in a way that builds toward the final project.

Projects may take the form of a drawing, infographic, game, video, skit, text, art installation, business plan, social media campaign, or other media, digital or otherwise. In any case, they must be submitted digitally as a new thread in the appropriate discussion topic for each week's unit.

Discussions

Classroom students should be active participants and make contributions to the oral discussion that reflect strenuous engagement with the assigned texts; inform the instructor ahead of time about any missed classes. Online students should make at least four substantial comments on fellow students' Interventions. Classroom students are welcome, but not required, to participate in the online discussions.

Final project

Each student will complete a final project that is ready to deploy upon completion, in partnership with a relevant organization, community, or company. Projects might consist of anything in the same range of media as the weekly Interventions—except, rather than mere sketches, this project must be fully implemented.

After discussing the topic with the instructor or teaching assistant, students will turn in a proposal that explains and justifies the project's objective and medium. The proposal, as well as the final project itself, should reflect a sophisticated grasp of the themes and texts of the course. In particular, projects should convey an analysis of power and agency through which they intervene, resulting in a plausible case for making effective social change.

Students will constructively review complete drafts of each other's projects before submitting the final draft. Some students may choose to form groups of connected projects, but each student is responsible for turning in their own contribution independently.

Evaluation

Coursework is evaluated according the following rubrics:

  • Weekly Interventions (30%)
    • Demonstrate a sophisticated grasp of one or more assigned texts
    • Communicate a problem and a creative proposal by which to address it
    • Practice adventuresome thinking in both concept and presentation, using compelling media techniques to communicate the proposal
  • Weekly discussions (30%)
    • Engage actively and strenuously with the bulk of each unit's assigned texts over the course of that unit's comments, with direct quotations, evidence of close reading, and thoughtful analysis
    • Interact respectfully and critically with fellow students, demonstrating careful attention to others and presenting reasoned articulations of one's views
    • Classroom students: weekly attendance, consistent participation in conversations; online students: at least four substantive comments each week
  • Final project: (40%)
    • Proposal: (15%)
      • Explain and justify the project idea in a 1,400-to-1,600-word text with scholarly citation standards and a high degree of stylistic quality
      • Describe the community collaboration underway; propose an intended medium, and scope of project deliverables, including rationale for each
      • Articulate a clear objective for impact, reflecting an understanding of the intended audience, a relevant theory of power, and a theory of agency; include strong evidence of background research, citing relevant scholarly and primary resources, while engaging with at least two assigned texts from the course
    • Project draft: (5%)
      • Complete a draft of the project that meets the expectations discussed in the proposal process
    • Peer review: (5%)
      • Provide feedback for at least three fellow students' drafts, of at least two paragraphs each
      • Offer constructive appreciation, critique, and recommendations on each draft
      • Align comments to the terms of the assignment as well as the students' own goals
    • Final draft: (15%)
      • Ensure this draft is polished, compelling, informed by peer review, and ready to deploy
      • Reflect rigorous engagement with course themes and assigned texts
      • Demonstrate a plausible strategy for circulation, audience, and social change

Final grades

Based on the stated point structure, grades will be awarded as follows: A (94-100), A- (90-93), B+ (87-89), B (83-86), B- (80-82), C+ (77-79), C (73-76), C- (70-72), D+ (67-69), D (63-66), D- (60-62), F (0-59). The minimum passing grade is 60 for undergraduates and 70 for graduate students.

Schedule

Each week:

  • Interventions are due in the appropriate online discussion unit at noon on Mondays, Mountain Time
  • Online students' discussion posts on a given unit are due at noon on Tuesdays

For the final project:

  • Consult with the instructor (or, for online students, the teaching assistant) on the final project concept, via email or meeting, by noon on Monday, February 26
  • Proposals are due in the online dropbox at noon on Monday, March 12
  • Drafts are due in the online discussion at noon on Friday, April 13
  • Peer review comments are due in the online discussion at noon on Monday, April 16
  • Final drafts are due in the online dropbox at noon on the last day of class—Monday, April 30

Agreements

  • We will work together to foster a respectful, accessible community based on creativity, accommodation, and attention.
  • When problems arise, we will seek to address them collaboratively—first through dialogue, then through revision of these agreements, then through recourse to the instructor, and then to administrators.
  • We respect one another's privacy. Content shared in class or online will not be shared with anyone outside of the class without permission.
  • We will refrain from the use of screen devices in the classroom, except upon agreement with the instructor or for reasons of accessibility.
  • We adhere to all university policies regarding accessibility and academic integrity; we take responsibility for understanding them and the relevant procedures.

Units

Throughout the course we will be reading selections from:

This is the only text that students should obtain in print form, although much of the content is also available on the project's website. All students should also take a chance to read this article, which is the basis of the exercise in the first day of class:

1. Power

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Pillars of Power”
  • “Power Mapping”
  • “Postcolonialism”

2. Story

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Public Narrative”
  • “Change Is the Only Constant”

3. Community

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Seek Safety in Support Networks”
  • “Al Faza'a”
  • “Spectrum of Allies”

4. Protagonism

Choose between one of the following pairs of films (and a critical essay) with an eye to how agency is expressed.

First, resistance to slavery:

Second, labor organizing:

Third, climate change:

  • An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim (2006)
  • This Changes Everything, directed by Avi Lewis (2015)
  • Elizabeth Kolbert, ”Can Climate Change Cure Capitalism?, The New York Review of Books (December 4, 2014)

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Schools of Struggle”
  • “The Onion Tool”

5. Confession

Choose one of the following classic memoirs:

Beautiful Rising:

  • “SMART Objectives”

Complete final project consultation

6. Fact

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Zapatista Caravan”

7. Art

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Music Video”
  • “Change a Name to Change the Game”

Final project proposals due

8. Play

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Replacing Cops with Mimes”
  • “Use Humor to Undermine Authority”

9. Mediums

Beautiful Rising:

  • “The Global South”
  • “Neoliberalism”

10. Bureaucracy

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Activate International Mechanisms”
  • “The NGO-ization of Resistance”

11. Danger

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Civil Disobedience”
  • “Subversive Travel”

Final project rough drafts due on March 13, peer reviews due March 16

12. Memory

Beautiful Rising:

  • “Change Is the Only Constant”
  • “Would You Like Some Structure with Your Momentum?”

13. Apocalypse

Final projects due


This syllabus is a living document. Any part of it may be brought up for discussion and modified by a consensus of those present during any official class period.

[ Notes ]