The Internet: Issues at the Frontier (course wiki) - User contributions [en]

User talk:Lbaker

2009-03-17T03:37:29Z

Mchua: /* Videoconferencing */

Sounds good to me -- I have an exam on the 18th, and am flying to California on the 21st, but I should be able to gchat or im on the 22nd or 23rd if we set a time in advance (and I'll be on west-coast time, so preferably not too early) [[User:Cooper|Cooper]] 04:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

== re: Gobby ==

Alas, I've looked into this before and gobby is really the best-of-breed out there (alternatives I've tried include things like Google Docs, but the latency on those is pretty bad, and it doesn't cope well with many simultaneous users - or having a [http://www.linux.com/feature/56443 simultaneous screen session], which is tricky to set up and use, and also only allows one typer at a time).

I agree that gobby for the mac is a somewhat painful setup - perhaps we can find a way to work around that. For starters, would [http://www.divvun.no/doc/tools/gobby.html this tutorial] help at all? (I'm not sure what instruction set you've been following.) If not, I'd be happy to meet with you before or after class, or online, and see if we can get it going together (I don't myself have a Mac, but I'll ask some of my friends who may have gotten Gobby to work on theirs before).

(Apologies for the latency - have been traveling without internet, and am currently writing this from Wellington, NZ.) [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 03:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)S

== Etherpad as gobby alternative? ==

After tonight's class, I wondered what you thought of http://etherpad.com/, which I hadn't known about before - it seems quite similar to gobby (it is slower, but far better than Google Docs at allowing simultaneous edits). [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 07:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

== Videoconferencing ==

What software do you want to use? If it's gtalk or skype, that's pretty simple to set up - just make sure there are working webcams on both ends and then hook your laptop to the projector/speaker (any law school classroom is equipped for that). You could probably use fancy teleconferincing stuff like a Polycom, but that's only if your guests have those units on their end, so I'd guess it's probably not worth the fuss to use something-that-isn't-Skype.

[[User:Mchua|Mchua]]

Hm. My first reaction is "see if someone in the class has a nice bluetooth headset to borrow and pass around," as those usually have a 30ft range - would need to test it though, to see if that setup would actually work. Could also do a corded computer mic and a long cord extension (a few dollars from best buy). Would either of these work? I can also ask Harvard's IT what else they have, but don't know of compatible easier solutions they might have available (as in "I'm not sure they'd be able to do better, but we could try.") Last resort, people can always walk to the mic. :) [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 03:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Mchua

2009-03-10T17:16:10Z

Mchua:

== About me ==

Electrical, computer, and software engineer; education and open-source geek. I spend most of my spare cycles on [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org Sugar Labs] and [http://wiki.laptop.org/User:Mchua OLPC]. I also live [http://melchua.com elsewhere on the internet].

== What I do ==

I'm part of the [[All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org]] team, the only law-student-less group in this law school class.

I'm on the IIF organizing team and (one of) the de-facto tech geek(s) of the class, which means I make sure teams have all the funky tech stuff that they need for their pedagogical experiments while discussing internet frontiers issues and send out weekly reminders to keep things kicking along.

I'm not a law student. I'm not even a Harvard student. Or a student, for that matter. These kinds of things turn out not to matter that much here, thankfully. ;) I am, however, good at being shameless about asking stupid questions. I ''want'' to learn more about the law, and am willing to look silly in order to make that happen. It's kind of fun that way.

== Interests ==

Why am I here? The internet was the first place I could have group conversations - I'm hearing impaired, and lipreading doesn't scale well - so while people talk about translating what they know about conversations IRL to the web, I'm listening and trying to figure out how to go in the opposite direction. Besides, the chance to toss around ideas on the internet about how the internet can be used to talk about the internet (and how it can be used to talk about the internet...) had too meta for me to pass it up.

== Notes ==

* [[/Internet and Social Inequity]]

User talk:Lbaker

2009-03-10T17:08:09Z

Mchua: /* Videoconferencing */ new section

File:Engagement strategies.pdf

2009-03-08T05:21:34Z

Mchua: uploaded a new version of "Image:Engagement strategies.pdf"

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-07T16:44:27Z

Mchua: /* Optional */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Pre-class assignments ==

To prepare before class, students were asked to do the following.

# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings (4 total, 2 short and 1 skimmable).

=== Workshop prep ===

''The following assignment was used to prepare students for the in-class rocket pitch workshop.''

During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team, the course professors, and our guests.

'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:

* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.

'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.

Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.

== Session ==

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====

'''Team 1:''' Recruited musicians to film music videos and give street concerts at which donations were solicited; after the first round of instruments were delivered, their young recipients were filmed playing on them, and that video used for promotional purposes as well.

'''Team 2:''' Usage of TOR/PGP for anonymous communication. Cultivated a network of bloggers by getting bloggers to identify with the problem.

'''Team 3:''' Commissioned their engineers to create a mashup that would display the needs of schools; sell extra engineer man-hours to other projects for extra income. Stage a battle of the bands with an entry fee (for bands) of either money or volunteer time. Get instruments from famous musicians donated for an instrument auction at the battle.

'''Team 4:''' Elected not to use their engineering team in favor of gathering demographic information. Use pervasive technologies to get feedback from the population, for instance putting touchscreens in churches.

'''Team 5:''' Group volunteers into bands and have them prepare to host and play at house parties to fundraise for the organization; get celebrities to attend as many of these house parties as possible. have ESL volunteers work with ESL children. Accept donations via the web.

'''Team 6:''' (Sorry, I missed taking notes on this one as I was shifting into doing judging - can someone else fill in?)

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===

The Tools group used the remaining class time to give their first segment, [[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]].

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]
* [[Image:Engagement strategies.pdf|Activation Nation: Lessons from the Obama voter engagement campaign for consumer engagement strategies]], by Eliette Krakora, Clarissa Shen, and Heather Watt

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

File:Engagement strategies.pdf

2009-03-07T16:43:27Z

Mchua:

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:48:08Z

Mchua: /* Team Presentations */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Pre-class assignments ==

To prepare before class, students were asked to do the following.

# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings (4 total, 2 short and 1 skimmable).

=== Workshop prep ===

''The following assignment was used to prepare students for the in-class rocket pitch workshop.''

During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team, the course professors, and our guests.

'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:

* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.

'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.

Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.

== Session ==

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====

'''Team 1:''' Recruited musicians to film music videos and give street concerts at which donations were solicited; after the first round of instruments were delivered, their young recipients were filmed playing on them, and that video used for promotional purposes as well.

'''Team 2:''' Usage of TOR/PGP for anonymous communication. Cultivated a network of bloggers by getting bloggers to identify with the problem.

'''Team 3:''' Commissioned their engineers to create a mashup that would display the needs of schools; sell extra engineer man-hours to other projects for extra income. Stage a battle of the bands with an entry fee (for bands) of either money or volunteer time. Get instruments from famous musicians donated for an instrument auction at the battle.

'''Team 4:''' Elected not to use their engineering team in favor of gathering demographic information. Use pervasive technologies to get feedback from the population, for instance putting touchscreens in churches.

'''Team 5:''' Group volunteers into bands and have them prepare to host and play at house parties to fundraise for the organization; get celebrities to attend as many of these house parties as possible. have ESL volunteers work with ESL children. Accept donations via the web.

'''Team 6:''' (Sorry, I missed taking notes on this one as I was shifting into doing judging - can someone else fill in?)

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===

The Tools group used the remaining class time to give their first segment, [[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]].

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:47:38Z

Mchua: /* Team Presentations */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Pre-class assignments ==

To prepare before class, students were asked to do the following.

# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings (4 total, 2 short and 1 skimmable).

=== Workshop prep ===

''The following assignment was used to prepare students for the in-class rocket pitch workshop.''

During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team, the course professors, and our guests.

'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:

* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.

'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.

Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.

== Session ==

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====
(Teams, please give us three lines that describe the project you came up with.)

'''Team 1:''' Recruited musicians to film music videos and give street concerts at which donations were solicited; after the first round of instruments were delivered, their young recipients were filmed playing on them, and that video used for promotional purposes as well.

'''Team 2:''' Usage of TOR/PGP for anonymous communication. Cultivated a network of bloggers by getting bloggers to identify with the problem.

'''Team 3:''' Commissioned their engineers to create a mashup that would display the needs of schools; sell extra engineer man-hours to other projects for extra income. Stage a battle of the bands with an entry fee (for bands) of either money or volunteer time. Get instruments from famous musicians donated for an instrument auction at the battle.

'''Team 4:''' Elected not to use their engineering team in favor of gathering demographic information. Use pervasive technologies to get feedback from the population, for instance putting touchscreens in churches.

'''Team 5:''' Group volunteers into bands and have them prepare to host and play at house parties to fundraise for the organization; get celebrities to attend as many of these house parties as possible. have ESL volunteers work with ESL children. Accept donations via the web.

'''Team 6:''' (Sorry, I missed taking notes on this one as I was shifting into doing judging - can someone else fill in?)

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===

The Tools group used the remaining class time to give their first segment, [[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]].

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:31:30Z

Mchua: /* Session */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Pre-class assignments ==

To prepare before class, students were asked to do the following.

# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings (4 total, 2 short and 1 skimmable).

=== Workshop prep ===

''The following assignment was used to prepare students for the in-class rocket pitch workshop.''

During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team, the course professors, and our guests.

'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:

* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.

'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.

Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.

== Session ==

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====
(Teams, please give us three lines that describe the project you came up with.)

'''Team 1:''' XXX

'''Team 2:''' XXX

'''Team 3:''' XXX

'''Team 4:''' XXX

'''Team 5:''' XXX

'''Team 6:''' XXX

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===

The Tools group used the remaining class time to give their first segment, [[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]].

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:29:13Z

Mchua: /* Before class */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Session ==

=== Before class ===

To prepare before class, students were asked to do the following.

# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings; there are 4 total; 2 are short, and 1 can be skimmed.

=== Workshop prep ===

''Homework completed by individual students before class.''

During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team, the course professors, and our guests.

'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:

* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.

'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.

Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====
(Teams, please give us three lines that describe the project you came up with.)

'''Team 1:''' XXX

'''Team 2:''' XXX

'''Team 3:''' XXX

'''Team 4:''' XXX

'''Team 5:''' XXX

'''Team 6:''' XXX

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===

The Tools group used the remaining class time to give their first segment, [[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]].

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:27:15Z

Mchua: /* Session */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Session ==

=== Before class ===

To prepare before class, students were asked to do the following.

# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings; there are 4 total; 2 are short, and 1 can be skimmed.

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====
(Teams, please give us three lines that describe the project you came up with.)

'''Team 1:''' XXX

'''Team 2:''' XXX

'''Team 3:''' XXX

'''Team 4:''' XXX

'''Team 5:''' XXX

'''Team 6:''' XXX

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===

The Tools group used the remaining class time to give their first segment, [[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]].

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:25:31Z

Mchua: /* Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes) */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Session ==

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====
(Teams, please give us three lines that describe the project you came up with.)

'''Team 1:''' XXX

'''Team 2:''' XXX

'''Team 3:''' XXX

'''Team 4:''' XXX

'''Team 5:''' XXX

'''Team 6:''' XXX

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===

The Tools group used the remaining class time to give their first segment, [[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]].

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:24:20Z

Mchua: /* Judging */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Session ==

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====
(Teams, please give us three lines that describe the project you came up with.)

'''Team 1:''' XXX

'''Team 2:''' XXX

'''Team 3:''' XXX

'''Team 4:''' XXX

'''Team 5:''' XXX

'''Team 6:''' XXX

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. They were working under the assumption that the judges were playing the roles of well-informed supporters of the cause who would potentially fund their project.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===
Pros and Cons of Twitter.

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-06T01:22:59Z

Mchua: /* Workshop (30 minutes) */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer (!)

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Session ==

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

Introduced the guests and explained the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop.

=== Guest Presentations (50 minutes) ===

Next, our guests gave short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used.

'''Using tools for good causes in a development context''', by [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

'''How to run an online campaign?''', by [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

[Do we have presentatons, notes, links, minutes?]

=== Workshop (30 minutes) ===

Class was divided into 6 teams. Teams roleplayed the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. They competed to create the best 2-minute rocket pitch of their project idea.

* Each group got 5 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. They did not have to use the paper. However, projector setup counted against their time...
* Groups could use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* The presentation could be and use any things or people the teams wanted.
* They got 30 seconds to set up and 2 minutes to present.

* 20 minutes: Scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

==== Scenarios ====

'''Scenario 1:''' It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

'''Scenario 2:''' An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

'''Scenario 3:''' Rock on Kids! is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

==== Twists ====

Aside from the tight time restrictions and low-tech presentation tools, each team had an additional constraint to deal with, announced in class right after teams had formed.

'''Teams 1-2:''' Regardless of whatever else their scenario description may have stated, these teams were operating on a $0 budget.

'''Teams 3-4:''' These teams were aiming for a launch date 4 months in the future, and had a full-time team of engineers at their disposal for those 4 months.

'''Teams 5-6:''' These teams had gotten offers from 10,000 volunteers to help out on the project in their spare time. However, half those volunteers were ESL learners and the other half did not own a computer and were not very familiar with the internet.

==== Team Presentations ====
(Teams, please give us three lines that describe the project you came up with.)

'''Team 1:''' XXX

'''Team 2:''' XXX

'''Team 3:''' XXX

'''Team 4:''' XXX

'''Team 5:''' XXX

'''Team 6:''' XXX

==== Judging ====
Presentations were be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that teams were ''not'' judged on how well they pitched the ''cause,'' only the project. The judges were assuming the roles of supporters of the cause who want to fund the project, so teams could safely assume that the judges (1) know all about the cause and (2) are already completely convinced that it is the best thing in the world.

==== Winners ====
[Mel, do you still have the tables from the judges?]

=== Discussion (15 minutes)===
Reconnected our initial four questions to the workshop cases.
Discussed some additional questions by students.

=== Presentation on Twitter by the Tools Group (15 minutes)===
Pros and Cons of Twitter.

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-03-02T22:05:44Z

Mchua: /* Workshop */

'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - it's worth noting that we have a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer in our group, and no lawyers or law students, so expect this session to come from a slightly different perspective.

back to [[syllabus]]

{{TOCright}}

== Before class ==

To prepare before class, please do the following.

# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings; there are 4 total; 2 are short, and 1 can be skimmed.

== Precis ==

Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.

While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world.

Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":

{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
|-valign="top"
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools
|-
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS
|-
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids
|-
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings
|}

While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.

== Core questions ==

Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class:

1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why?

2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline?

3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?)

4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?

== Contributors ==

* [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world.
* [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003

== Session design ==

=== Workshop prep ===

''To be done before class.''

During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team (Mel, Rainer, and Elana), the course professors, and our guests.

'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:

* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.

'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.

Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.

=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===

We will first explain the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop which will be held later in the session and introduce the 3 scenarios involved.

=== Guests present case studies (30 minutes) ===

Next, our guests will give short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used. During this part of the session, students are encouraged to write down (on pieces of paper) questions they'd like to bring up, and to save those papers for the discussion after the workshop.

=== Workshop ===

''(50 minutes)''

You will be divided into 6 teams. Teams will roleplay the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. Teams will compete to create the best 1-minute rocket pitch of their project idea. The 1-minute timing will be strict; we'll cut you off at 60 seconds.

* You get 30 seconds to set up and 1 minute to present.
* Each group gets 3 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. You do not have to use the paper. However, projector setup will count against your time...
* Groups can use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.
* Your presentation can be and use any things or people you want.

* 20 minutes: First scenario prep
* 10 minutes: First scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]
* 10 minutes: Second scenario prep
* 10 minutes: Second scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]

=== Scenarios ===

==== Scenario 1 ====

It is July 2008. You are approached by the John McCain for President campaign. They are looking for a new internet strategy. If your plan is approved, the budget for internet operations of all kinds will be substantial. What strategy will you pitch the campaign?

==== Scenario 2 ====

An Iranian blogger is currently being jailed and prosecuted for sedition thanks to the political content of his blog, including a post that referred to President Ahmadinejad as a “dictator.” You are living in Iran, and a group of students from Harvard contact you asking for help structuring an internet campaign with the goal to get the blogger released.

==== Scenario 3 ====

[http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1500/proj1464a.html Rock on Kids!] is an initiative that provides public school teachers with specialized training and free musical instruments. Their aim is to offer music education to low-income students in US schools with no instrumental music program. They ask you to develop an internet strategy to mobilize musicians to support teachers in a school close-by and raise $50.000 within six months (a guitar costs $50, training for a teacher is $400).

=== Judging ===

''Judging is interspersed with the [[#Workshop]].''

Presentations will be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.

''Criteria are still subject to change, and final judging criteria will be announced at the beginning of the session, but this is the current draft.''

* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?

Note that we are ''not'' judging you on how well you pitch the ''cause,'' only the project. The judges are assuming the roles of supporters of the cause who want to fund your project, so you can safely assume that the judges (1) know all about your cause and (2) are already completely convinced that it is the best thing in the world.

=== Discussion (30 minutes)===

Students are now encouraged to bring out the questions they had earlier; we'll use these as the basis for a followup discussion.

== Readings ==

=== Mandatory ===

* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky

=== Optional ===

* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]

== Tools and Examples ==

* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyrightÂ law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.
* [http://tipjoy.com/ Tipjoy] - An online payment system specifically designed for micropayments or "tips." Tipjoy makes it easier and cheaper for individuals to make micropayments or donations (1-click payments; payment aggregation), and works with other platforms (e.g. Twitter).
* Generic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list mailing lists] - Easy way to quickly reach many people who often signed up because of a common interest.
* StickK [http://www.stickk.com] What is the biggest problem with save-the-world projects? Follow through, of course. Bind yourself to the mast.
* Tor [http://torproject.org] is a tool that works to anonymize one's Internet activities by encrypting transmissions and routing them through a series of volunteer nodes before completing a transmission. It is one way to hide one's identity while posting material for reasons such as leaks, or to avoid scrutiny from government authorities. It also circumvents many forms of content filtering.
* Form letter generators - Makes government lobbying easier. By allowing people to supply addresses, a form letter can be generated and sent in their names from the lobbying organization. M2Z used this tactic when advocating for free broadband Internet (see [http://capwiz.com/freebroadbandnow/issues/alert/?alertid=10038926 here])
* [http://psiphon.ca/ Psiphon] -- A human rights software project that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family members who live behind firewalls of states that censor.
* [http://www.wikispaces.com/ Wiki-based tools] - in order to create collaborative information depositories.
* [http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube] - Video is one of the most powerful resources for inspiring people. Integrating it with blogging and other tools can be very powerful (see Obama campaign)
* [http://www.pbwiki.com/ PB Wiki] - Collaboration and coordination mechanism.
* [http://givewell.net Givewell] researches charities and helps philanthropic persons find organizations that do good well.

Talk:Tools: Twitter in the Classroom

2009-03-02T02:39:42Z

Mchua: New page: == the flip side: presenters == [http://pistachioconsulting.com/twitter-presentations/ How to present while people are twittering] (which was brought up in #iif) seems relevant to this di...

== the flip side: presenters ==

[http://pistachioconsulting.com/twitter-presentations/ How to present while people are twittering] (which was brought up in #iif) seems relevant to this discussion. [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 02:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-02-27T15:42:33Z

Mchua: /* Mandatory */

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-02-27T15:42:02Z

Mchua: /* Workshop prep */

Crib notes

2009-02-27T03:33:35Z

Mchua: New page: == Introduction == This is a brief list of notes from "The Starfish And The Spider" for reference at the IIF class on Monday, March 2, 2009. The book presents a model to understand the di...

== Introduction ==

This is a brief list of notes from "The Starfish And The Spider" for reference at the IIF class on Monday, March 2, 2009. The book presents a model to understand the differences between starfish (decentralized organizations) and spiders (centralized organizations).

== Differentiating factors ==

{|
! Arena !! Starfish !! Spiders
|-
| How does information and resources move through the organization, and what does the relationship chart between participants look like? || There is no organization chart; participants move in and out of circles, giving ideas/feedback/resources to each other and finding needed resources locally. || The org chart looks like a pyramid; top-down hierarchies dominate. All resources are sent "up" to the "boss," who allocates the resources back down to groups who need it.
|-
| Who leads and makes decisions? || Everyone. The key figures are catalysts, influential members who set an example - but nobody is obligated to follow them. || There are formal titles, managers/bosses, and CEOs. You agree to obey the chain of command when you join.
|-
| Who or what are participants loyal to? || An ideology; your service is not to an organization or a person, but around a shared mission or ideal. || You are loyal to your superior officers and to the organization that they lead.
|}

== Catalysts ==

Catalysts, as described above, are the key figures in a decentralized organization. They tend to have (or develop) these qualities.

* Genuine interest in others.
* Numerous loose connections, rather than a small number of close connections.
* Skill at social mapping.
* Desire to help everyone they meet.
* The ability to help people help themselves by listening and understanding, rather than giving advice ("Meet people where they are").
* Emotional Intelligence.
* Trust in others and in the decentralized network.
* Inspiration (to others).
* Tolerance for ambiguity.
* A hands-off approach. Catalysts do not interfere with, or try to control the behavior of the contributing members of the decentralized organization.
* Ability to let go. After building up a decentralized organization, catalysts move on, rather than trying to take control.

== How to fight a starfish ==

When under attack, decentralized organizations get more decentralized, and centralized organizations get more centralized. As a result, tactics that work against a centralized organization don't necessarily work against decentralized ones. If you are attempting to combat a decentralized organization, there are three main strategies that you can use.

* Since members of a decentralized movement are driven by a mission or ideal rather than by orders, you can '''change the environment''' so that the mission is no longer relevant or seen as good. For instance, one organization reduced gang violence in a slum neighborhood by creating programs and projects that increased the economic mobility of its residence, since much of the violence and crime was driven by economic need as well as anger and frustration against an environment that put them in that position.
* '''Turn the decentralized organization into a centralized one.''' The easiest way to do this is to turn the circles of participation into hierarchical pyramids by giving the respected members of the community - the catalysts - a scarce resource to control and allocate. For instance, the U.S. government gave herds of prized cattle as a gift to select members of the Apache tribe; the tribe formed into a cattle-management-based hierarchy instead of the decentralized group they had been before, and then the U.S. government was able to manage just the cattle-owning leaders to control the entire tribe.
* '''Become a decentralized organizaion yourself.'''

All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org

2009-02-27T03:14:43Z

Mchua: /* Mandatory */

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2009-02-27T02:57:10Z

Mchua: /* Tools and Examples */

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2009-02-27T02:56:52Z

Mchua: /* Readings */

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2009-02-23T21:59:38Z

Mchua: /* Judging */

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2009-02-23T21:44:28Z

Mchua: /* Core questions */

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2009-02-23T21:40:56Z

Mchua: /* Workshop prep */

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2009-02-23T21:40:37Z

Mchua: /* Workshop prep */

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2009-02-23T21:39:37Z

Mchua: /* Judging */

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2009-02-23T21:38:54Z

Mchua: /* Workshop */

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2009-02-23T21:37:53Z

Mchua: /* Workshop prep */

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2009-02-23T21:26:42Z

Mchua: /* Optional */

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2009-02-23T21:25:52Z

Mchua: /* Workshop (50 minutes) */

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2009-02-23T21:17:13Z

Mchua: /* Core questions */

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2009-02-23T21:10:35Z

Mchua: /* Core questions */

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2009-02-23T21:09:48Z

Mchua: /* Session design */

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2009-02-23T21:09:13Z

Mchua: /* Before class = */

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2009-02-23T21:09:03Z

Mchua: /* Precis */

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2009-02-23T21:05:50Z

Mchua: /* Mandatory */

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2009-02-23T21:03:41Z

Mchua: /* Mandatory */

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2009-02-23T21:03:29Z

Mchua: /* Readings */

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2009-02-23T20:59:10Z

Mchua: /* Mandatory */

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2009-02-23T20:53:02Z

Mchua: /* Optional */

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2009-02-23T20:50:43Z

Mchua: /* Optional */

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2009-02-23T20:50:28Z

Mchua: /* Optional */

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2009-02-23T20:48:27Z

Mchua: /* Readings */

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2009-02-23T20:48:18Z

Mchua: /* Optional */

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2009-02-23T20:47:12Z

Mchua: /* Readings */

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2009-02-23T20:46:15Z

Mchua: /* Workshop (50 minutes) */

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2009-02-23T20:46:01Z

Mchua: /* Workshop (50 minutes) */

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2009-02-23T20:45:47Z

Mchua: /* Activity intro (10 minutes) */

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2009-02-23T20:43:47Z

Mchua: /* Precis */