GSLL 1506 - Social Media for Social Change

While created as a way to network and keep people connected to their friends and family, social media, whether Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or blogs, increasingly are being used for activism, helping organize and mobilize protests, social movements and even revolutions around the globe. Social network sites (SNS) have successfully been employed to bring out voters in the United States, stage marches and demonstrations in Latin America, and create a protest movement turned revolution in Tunisia and Egypt. SNS have been less successful, however, in Iran, Bahrain and Libya.

Based on case studies and social movement theory literature, this course will use videos, readings, and group discussions to explore the different way SNS are being used for activisim. How influential are social media, and can we really refer to a "Facebook revolution" or a Twitter revolution?" Why might a social media-driven movement result in a revolution in one country, but not another?

Additionally, this course will take into account the digital divide, examining how successful a movement organized online can be when so much of the world’s population lacks access to new technologies. Course participants also will work toward identifying ways that social media best can be incorporated into activism.

Upon completion of this course participants will be able to:

• Understand the dominant paradigms in social movement research, and how they do or do not apply to social media social movements.
• Identify social media strategies that could help activists and social movements.
• Be familiar with and have a basic understanding of various forms of social media

This course can be applied towards:

• Community-Based Development Certificate

Noncredit courses do not produce academic credit nor appear on a Colorado State University academic transcript.

Instructors

Summer Harlow
summerharlow@gmail.com

A journalist with 10-plus years of reporting experience, Summer Harlow is a Journalism doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). She received her master's degree in Latin American Studies from UT, and she has bachelors degrees in Journalism and Spanish from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her academic work has focused on the intersections of activism/social movements and the media, with particular attention on the role of digital technologies and alternative media. Currently she is the blog editor for the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.