... Patricia G. Kirk-patrick vividly recalls an early encounter with one Christian group&... more ... Patricia G. Kirk-patrick vividly recalls an early encounter with one Christian group's view of women: I attended a meeting organized by a group of Anglicans calling themselves the "Council for the Defence of the Faith." Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to ...
There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of... more There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of extractivism, or the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. Some of this research has examined the resistance among front-line Indigenous and rural communities, and allied environmental groups, who are challenging the development of mega-scale mining, oil, gas, mono-agricultural, and related infrastructural projects. Researchers have noted many similar tactical repertoires that can take multiple forms (through direct action, media representation, and in legal, political, and educational forums) and extend across geographic scales (local, national, regional, and transnational). Communications is key to much of their work; however there has been far less research examining the communications practices in any detail. This article focuses on the communications practices in use in three Indigenousled campaigns against extractivist projects in North America, the decade-old Unist'ot'en Camp in northwestern Canada, Idle No More, and the #NoDAPL of the Standing Rock Sioux. My findings indicate that a resurgent Indigenous movement, in concert with environmental and other settler allies, has adopted an array of communications practices that combine protective action on behalf of their lands and waters with the creation of new communities in place-based assemblies and social media and digital networks.
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”)... more Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
Syllabus v. 2.2 DESCRIPTION The goal of this course is to explore the ways that grassroots organi... more Syllabus v. 2.2 DESCRIPTION The goal of this course is to explore the ways that grassroots organizations and social and political justice movements use communications media to make social, political, economic and cultural change. Most recently, we have witnessed how #BlackLivesMatter, Extinction Rebellion, #MeToo and many other contemporary movements are integrating media-making with their social justice efforts. We will examine the media-making practices of some of these contemporary movements and their roots in citizens' and social movements of the past. Importantly, we will consider how the contemporary media ecology and especially the dominant media technologies and digital platforms not only create new opportunities for today's movements, but also present considerable risks and challenges.
This article reviews the legacy of the global Indymedia Center (IMC), a news and information netw... more This article reviews the legacy of the global Indymedia Center (IMC), a news and information network of 175 autonomous media centres that operated in every world region autonomously of the dominant corporate and public service communications and information systems. Emerging first during protests against the neo-liberal practices of the World Trade Organization, the IMC represented a media-historic moment, one of the first times that social movement media activists were able to bypass the dominant media to produce their own reports and circulate them directly to activists and supporters around the world. My review examines the composition of the IMC's infrastructure and volunteer force, and their technological and communications repertoires in relation to the dominant communications systems, and consider their legacy in succeeding cycles of social movement contention. I then compare the legacy of the IMC with the more recent media-historic moment of the Standing Rock Sioux water protectors who in 2016 tactically employed a land-based mobilization with a movement-directed online and offline communications assemblage to mobilize against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on their traditional territory. Capturing more US and international dominant media attention than any previous Indigenous movement, and reaching even more people with their self-generated media, they countered the neo-liberal extractivist paradigm of resource exploitation and also affirmed their
There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of... more There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of extractivism, or the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. Some of this research has examined the resistance among front-line Indigenous and rural communities, and allied environmental groups, who are challenging the development of mega-scale mining, oil, gas, monoagricultural, and related infrastructural projects. Researchers have noted many similar tactical repertoires that can take multiple forms (through direct action, media representation, and in legal, political, and educational forums) and extend across geographic scales (local, national, regional, and transnational). Communications is key to much of their work; however there has been far less research examining the communications practices in any detail. This article focuses on the communications practices in use in three Indigenous led campaigns against extractivist projects in North America, the decade-old Unist’ot’en ...
International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication, 2013
This paper compares the communications dimension of contentious politics among labour and youth i... more This paper compares the communications dimension of contentious politics among labour and youth in China and South Korea. Both countries are centres of information capitalism, with heavy investment from national governments and multinational corporations, and at the same time, creative adaptation of these technologies by workers organizing against transnational corporations and governments (
Recently, there has been an outburst of academic and journalistic writing about the strategic use... more Recently, there has been an outburst of academic and journalistic writing about the strategic use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by social justice movements. However, as Rodríguez et al ( ) have cogently argued 1 , these reports have failed to examine the historical development and complexity of communication processes within larger global political economies; and have tended to neglect existing knowledges and literatures, especially from the global south. Using a research rubric drawn from autonomist Marxism, this article takes the Occupy movement as a case study, and examines its historical antecedents, composition of social actors, communications repertoires and strategies of social change. My findings suggest that the Occupy movement was significant, not for its contribution to political change, but for its contribution to democratic communications. Occupy represented a new watershed in social justice communications, in which the movement itself directed its own media, reducing, for a time, the dependency of social justice groups on the dominant commercial media. Using a transmedia approach, beginning with the creation of communications commons in reclaimed public space, the Occupy movement converged many different social justice groups who employed a panoply of old and new communications repertoires. Although the movement itself has faded, its repertoire has been remediated in social justice movement communications practices throughout the world.
A great many people have hel&d in.the production of this. . thesis. Thanks to the staff of all th... more A great many people have hel&d in.the production of this. . thesis. Thanks to the staff of all the media organizations with whom I have wqrked and visited. Special thanks to the , 'Okalakatiget Society and wa&atay Native Communications, for. the learning we exchanged; and to the Development Education. . Communications Unit and-the Development Communications Units. Thanks also to the staff sf Parkicipatory Research in , Asia, and to the many people in India who made my trip i Many others helped me during the writing stage. ~~.th.a~k;s. to ., all those who read and commented on earlierDdrafts: ~a G a h
The general threat to the public sphere associated with increasing privatization, commercializati... more The general threat to the public sphere associated with increasing privatization, commercialization, and conglomeration of media systems has been well articulated. Less attention has been paid, though, to the ramifications of dominant media restructuring for counter public spheres. How, for example, have media conglomeration and restructuring efforts affected local democratic communication? Are groups able to counteract local closures by taking advantage of new web technologies of communication? Is independent, alternative, or community media filling the void of local commercial news for these groups? In this essay we discuss some of the changes in the Bay Area mediascape and investigate how these changes are affecting local democratic communications. Drawing on an analysis of changes in Bay Area media ownership and format structures, and on interviews with 26 local social change groups, we ask how local groups are negotiating the shrinking public sphere. Closings and Openings: The Shifting Dynamics of the Counter Public Sphere in the Wake of Media Restructuring What I would really love is to cut out the middleman. I would love for us to have access to a platform to communicate with the public and not be moderated by a television station that is doing their story so they can make a profit… to have even ten minutes just to say this is what we think is important… Andrea Buffa, Code Pink, San Francisco, 2004 The general threat to the public sphere associated with increasing privatization, commercialization, and conglomeration of media systems has been well articulated (e.g.
There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of... more There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of extractivism, or the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. Some of this research has examined the resistance among front-line Indigenous and rural communities, and allied environmental groups, who are challenging the development of mega-scale mining, oil, gas, mono-agricultural, and related infrastructural projects. Researchers have noted many similar tactical repertoires that can take multiple forms (through direct action, media representation, and in legal, political, and educational forums) and extend across geographic scales (local, national, regional, and transnational). Communications is key to much of their work; however there has been far less research examining the communications practices in any detail. This article focuses on the communications practices in use in three Indigenous-led campaigns against extractivist projects in North America, the decade-old Unist’ot’en Camp in northwestern Canada, Idle No More, and the #NoDAPL of the Standing Rock Sioux. My findings indicate that a resurgent Indigenous movement, in concert with environmental and other settler allies, has adopted an array of communications practices that combine protective action on behalf of their lands and waters with the creation of new communities in place-based assemblies and social media and digital networks.
... Patricia G. Kirk-patrick vividly recalls an early encounter with one Christian group&... more ... Patricia G. Kirk-patrick vividly recalls an early encounter with one Christian group's view of women: I attended a meeting organized by a group of Anglicans calling themselves the "Council for the Defence of the Faith." Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to ...
There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of... more There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of extractivism, or the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. Some of this research has examined the resistance among front-line Indigenous and rural communities, and allied environmental groups, who are challenging the development of mega-scale mining, oil, gas, mono-agricultural, and related infrastructural projects. Researchers have noted many similar tactical repertoires that can take multiple forms (through direct action, media representation, and in legal, political, and educational forums) and extend across geographic scales (local, national, regional, and transnational). Communications is key to much of their work; however there has been far less research examining the communications practices in any detail. This article focuses on the communications practices in use in three Indigenousled campaigns against extractivist projects in North America, the decade-old Unist'ot'en Camp in northwestern Canada, Idle No More, and the #NoDAPL of the Standing Rock Sioux. My findings indicate that a resurgent Indigenous movement, in concert with environmental and other settler allies, has adopted an array of communications practices that combine protective action on behalf of their lands and waters with the creation of new communities in place-based assemblies and social media and digital networks.
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”)... more Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
Syllabus v. 2.2 DESCRIPTION The goal of this course is to explore the ways that grassroots organi... more Syllabus v. 2.2 DESCRIPTION The goal of this course is to explore the ways that grassroots organizations and social and political justice movements use communications media to make social, political, economic and cultural change. Most recently, we have witnessed how #BlackLivesMatter, Extinction Rebellion, #MeToo and many other contemporary movements are integrating media-making with their social justice efforts. We will examine the media-making practices of some of these contemporary movements and their roots in citizens' and social movements of the past. Importantly, we will consider how the contemporary media ecology and especially the dominant media technologies and digital platforms not only create new opportunities for today's movements, but also present considerable risks and challenges.
This article reviews the legacy of the global Indymedia Center (IMC), a news and information netw... more This article reviews the legacy of the global Indymedia Center (IMC), a news and information network of 175 autonomous media centres that operated in every world region autonomously of the dominant corporate and public service communications and information systems. Emerging first during protests against the neo-liberal practices of the World Trade Organization, the IMC represented a media-historic moment, one of the first times that social movement media activists were able to bypass the dominant media to produce their own reports and circulate them directly to activists and supporters around the world. My review examines the composition of the IMC's infrastructure and volunteer force, and their technological and communications repertoires in relation to the dominant communications systems, and consider their legacy in succeeding cycles of social movement contention. I then compare the legacy of the IMC with the more recent media-historic moment of the Standing Rock Sioux water protectors who in 2016 tactically employed a land-based mobilization with a movement-directed online and offline communications assemblage to mobilize against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on their traditional territory. Capturing more US and international dominant media attention than any previous Indigenous movement, and reaching even more people with their self-generated media, they countered the neo-liberal extractivist paradigm of resource exploitation and also affirmed their
There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of... more There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of extractivism, or the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. Some of this research has examined the resistance among front-line Indigenous and rural communities, and allied environmental groups, who are challenging the development of mega-scale mining, oil, gas, monoagricultural, and related infrastructural projects. Researchers have noted many similar tactical repertoires that can take multiple forms (through direct action, media representation, and in legal, political, and educational forums) and extend across geographic scales (local, national, regional, and transnational). Communications is key to much of their work; however there has been far less research examining the communications practices in any detail. This article focuses on the communications practices in use in three Indigenous led campaigns against extractivist projects in North America, the decade-old Unist’ot’en ...
International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication, 2013
This paper compares the communications dimension of contentious politics among labour and youth i... more This paper compares the communications dimension of contentious politics among labour and youth in China and South Korea. Both countries are centres of information capitalism, with heavy investment from national governments and multinational corporations, and at the same time, creative adaptation of these technologies by workers organizing against transnational corporations and governments (
Recently, there has been an outburst of academic and journalistic writing about the strategic use... more Recently, there has been an outburst of academic and journalistic writing about the strategic use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by social justice movements. However, as Rodríguez et al ( ) have cogently argued 1 , these reports have failed to examine the historical development and complexity of communication processes within larger global political economies; and have tended to neglect existing knowledges and literatures, especially from the global south. Using a research rubric drawn from autonomist Marxism, this article takes the Occupy movement as a case study, and examines its historical antecedents, composition of social actors, communications repertoires and strategies of social change. My findings suggest that the Occupy movement was significant, not for its contribution to political change, but for its contribution to democratic communications. Occupy represented a new watershed in social justice communications, in which the movement itself directed its own media, reducing, for a time, the dependency of social justice groups on the dominant commercial media. Using a transmedia approach, beginning with the creation of communications commons in reclaimed public space, the Occupy movement converged many different social justice groups who employed a panoply of old and new communications repertoires. Although the movement itself has faded, its repertoire has been remediated in social justice movement communications practices throughout the world.
A great many people have hel&d in.the production of this. . thesis. Thanks to the staff of all th... more A great many people have hel&d in.the production of this. . thesis. Thanks to the staff of all the media organizations with whom I have wqrked and visited. Special thanks to the , 'Okalakatiget Society and wa&atay Native Communications, for. the learning we exchanged; and to the Development Education. . Communications Unit and-the Development Communications Units. Thanks also to the staff sf Parkicipatory Research in , Asia, and to the many people in India who made my trip i Many others helped me during the writing stage. ~~.th.a~k;s. to ., all those who read and commented on earlierDdrafts: ~a G a h
The general threat to the public sphere associated with increasing privatization, commercializati... more The general threat to the public sphere associated with increasing privatization, commercialization, and conglomeration of media systems has been well articulated. Less attention has been paid, though, to the ramifications of dominant media restructuring for counter public spheres. How, for example, have media conglomeration and restructuring efforts affected local democratic communication? Are groups able to counteract local closures by taking advantage of new web technologies of communication? Is independent, alternative, or community media filling the void of local commercial news for these groups? In this essay we discuss some of the changes in the Bay Area mediascape and investigate how these changes are affecting local democratic communications. Drawing on an analysis of changes in Bay Area media ownership and format structures, and on interviews with 26 local social change groups, we ask how local groups are negotiating the shrinking public sphere. Closings and Openings: The Shifting Dynamics of the Counter Public Sphere in the Wake of Media Restructuring What I would really love is to cut out the middleman. I would love for us to have access to a platform to communicate with the public and not be moderated by a television station that is doing their story so they can make a profit… to have even ten minutes just to say this is what we think is important… Andrea Buffa, Code Pink, San Francisco, 2004 The general threat to the public sphere associated with increasing privatization, commercialization, and conglomeration of media systems has been well articulated (e.g.
There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of... more There has been a wealth of research in Latin America on the most recent global intensification of extractivism, or the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. Some of this research has examined the resistance among front-line Indigenous and rural communities, and allied environmental groups, who are challenging the development of mega-scale mining, oil, gas, mono-agricultural, and related infrastructural projects. Researchers have noted many similar tactical repertoires that can take multiple forms (through direct action, media representation, and in legal, political, and educational forums) and extend across geographic scales (local, national, regional, and transnational). Communications is key to much of their work; however there has been far less research examining the communications practices in any detail. This article focuses on the communications practices in use in three Indigenous-led campaigns against extractivist projects in North America, the decade-old Unist’ot’en Camp in northwestern Canada, Idle No More, and the #NoDAPL of the Standing Rock Sioux. My findings indicate that a resurgent Indigenous movement, in concert with environmental and other settler allies, has adopted an array of communications practices that combine protective action on behalf of their lands and waters with the creation of new communities in place-based assemblies and social media and digital networks.
This was a presentation for OURMedia 12, a conference hosted by the Free University of Brussels, ... more This was a presentation for OURMedia 12, a conference hosted by the Free University of Brussels, the University of Antwerp and the Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles, from November 27-30, 2019.
This paper elaborates on contemporary struggles against capitalist globalization in the field of ... more This paper elaborates on contemporary struggles against capitalist globalization in the field of mining and natural resources extraction as contest over the commons, and especially focuses on social and cultural reproduction. Simply put, social reproduction includes processes involved in (re) producing people and their labour power on a daily and intergenerational basis through the provisioning of material goods (food, shelter, clothing, health care); cultural forms and practices, including knowledge and learning, social justice and its apparatus, and the media (Ruckert 819); and various ideational elements, such as the production and dissemination of norms, values, and different types of knowledge, all important factors in the construction of individual and collective identities (Elson, 1998). Rather than being a subsidiary field of capitalist accumulation, social reproduction is key to capitalist development and especially the neoliberal capitalist turn, and integrally related to culture and communications (Huws, 2014).
Nation states, corporations, and global multilateral institutions are seeking to bring social life under regulation by market imperative, clawing back the hard-fought gains for the “social wage” (including pensions, unemployment insurance, health and safety, child support, education) made by previous generations through various programs of structural adjustment and austerity; and shifting social reproduction from a matter of public and collective concern to one of private and individual responsibility (Lebaron, 2010: 891). In addition, the collective expression of people through cultural forms and practices, and our very “sociality” has been increasingly privatized and commodified (Huws, 2014). Nevertheless, movements are resisting these capitalist imperatives by setting up social barriers to the further commodification of life and nature and creating “communities of care,” and a larger politics of the “common” (Federici, 2010).
This paper draws from several different disciplines, including urban geography (Smith and Winders, 2008), autonomist Marxism (Federici, 2010, Jeffries, 2011) and Marxist feminism (Brenner and Laslett, 1991, Lebaron, 2010) and international political economy (Ruckert, 2010). It builds on previous work on the enclosure/communications commons (Murdock, 2013, Dyer-Witheford, 2007, Jeffries, Kidd, 1998, 2003).
The contemporary commons is often invoked in struggles over cognitive or information capitalism. This paper instead examines the field of extractivism, the shadow side of cognitive capitalism, as territories around the world are exploited for minerals that are then used to manufacture the infrastructure and the hardware for the digital economy, amass gold and silver to offset the always ongoing crisis of finance capitalism, and build older forms of industry. The presentation reviews the ways that mining-affected communities and their allies are utilizing commons-like repertoires.
If Occupy Wall Street focused attention on the transnational resistance to the imaginaries and pr... more If Occupy Wall Street focused attention on the transnational resistance to the imaginaries and practices of neo-liberalization, the networked protests, collectively identified as #Occupy each emerged out of particular places, contexts and histories of contestation. This paper examines the significance in one urban region, the San Francisco Bay, and especially the intersection between #Occupy and longer-term residual urban social movements. Understanding neo-liberalization as a dynamic process, I begin by mapping the vectors of contention in the regional imposition of the neo-liberal project, and especially the sectors of housing, employment, education and media representation. I then analyse the intersection of the #Occupy moment, between two different politics --the direct action and militant commons, and the longer-term subaltern counter-spheres of the residual organizations. I then identify the impact on the dynamics of mobilization and intervention, and especially the imaginaries and practices of urban space, inclusion, and knowledge production.
Description Communications is key to contemporary dynamics around the world, and especially to th... more Description Communications is key to contemporary dynamics around the world, and especially to the efforts for social, political, economic, environmental and cultural change. This course aims to provide students with a basic understanding of how the global media system works, an examination of some of the best practices by social justice-oriented groups, and some practical communications skills. Students will be encouraged to apply their course learning to their own topical and regional interests.
Course description: This is a moment of major transformations in the ways that cultural work is ... more Course description: This is a moment of major transformations in the ways that cultural work is produced, distributed and circulated around the globe. All of us are involved in these processes, as producers of video and film, music, podcasts or zines, as audience members who interact with cultural work, or as critics. The aim of this course is to look behind the screens and explore how cultural products (music, cinema, video games, digital news, television dramas, etc.) are produced, distributed and circulated. The course reviews the interrelated politics, economics, cultural contexts and aesthetic domains of five different sectors, including the legacy commercial media such as film, television, radio and the recording industry; the digitally based conglomerates (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc.); and the ancillary industries such as fashion, sports, and video games. Given our special concern about social equity and justice, we also address the roles of public service, independent, and community-based media groups. The course takes two distinct, if complementary approaches. The first is a study of the role that contemporary media and cultural industries play in the US and internationally. What tensions exist between media and cultural organizations as sites for public expression, information sharing and dialogue, versus their role as commercial enterprises, and sites of political and economic power? When and how do these roles conflict, and how are these conflicts resolved? How representative, accountable and participatory are media institutions to all of the publics they are obligated to serve? How does change come about, and how can students effectively participate in those changes? The second approach is to examine media and cultural industries from the point of view of media-makers. How do media organizations function as workplaces and sites for excellence in knowledge production and creativity? What factors influence full-time, freelance workers and citizen 'produsers'? What place does creativity take in large, medium and small operations, and in user or citizen-generated production? What prospects do students have for developing fulfilling, lifelong interests as creative producers? Students will be able to thoughtfully engage with these questions through a discussion of key texts, class lectures and discussions, guest speakers, course readings and short assignments. The course will provide an opportunity for
It is often said that popular music is the soundscape of our lives, providing much of the sonic e... more It is often said that popular music is the soundscape of our lives, providing much of the sonic environment for our relationships, activities, thoughts and emotions. This 4th year senior media studies seminar will focus on popular music and its relationship to all forms of mediated communications from film and television, to video games and social media. We will build on knowledge and perspectives that students have developed in earlier media studies courses and in their own life practices. Particular emphasis will be placed upon three related sets of questions: the chain of global capitalist production, distribution and circulation and its shaping of popular music production and consumption; the role of popular music in the construction of intersecting social and cultural identities and ideas; and music’s role in the practices of social, cultural and political change. Guided by student interest and expertise, we will examine several different research approaches and presentation formats. Each student will produce a capstone final project based on their own original research and application of their media skills.
COURSE DESCRIPTION The global media system is undergoing profound change, with ramifications for ... more COURSE DESCRIPTION The global media system is undergoing profound change, with ramifications for almost all areas of human life. Nevertheless, although many people spend countless hours consuming media, know a lot of facts about media personalities and texts, and are often savvy users of media applications and technologies, very few know much about how the media are organized, and operate as institutions of cultural production within a larger global media system. This course aims to remedy that by providing students with background knowledge, an analytical framework, and hands-on research practice about the role and functioning of media and cultural industries, institutions and organizations, and media professionals. The course takes two different, and complementary, approaches. The first is a study of the global industrialization of culture, and especially of the key trends affecting information and media industries, institutions, and organizations. We look in some detail at the global capitalist information companies and corporate media networks, as well as at public service media, community & citizens' media, and DIY and social media. We also examine the ancillary organizations such as government regulatory institutions, producer bodies, trade unions, and media activist organizations. What tensions exist between media and cultural organizations as sites for public expression, information sharing and dialogue, versus their role as commercial enterprises, and sites of political and economic power? When and how do these roles conflict, and how are these conflicts resolved? How representative, accountable and participatory are media institutions to all of the publics they are obligated to serve? How does change come about, and how can students effectively participate in those changes? The second approach is an examination of media and cultural production from the point of view of the producers of media texts and cultural content. How do media organizations function as workplaces and sites for excellence in knowledge production and creativity? What factors influence full-time, freelance workers and citizen 'produsers'? What place does creativity take in large, medium and small
There's been a lot of "news" about the news recently. "Fake news," "alternative facts" "personali... more There's been a lot of "news" about the news recently. "Fake news," "alternative facts" "personalized news" and "information silos" have all received considerable coverage in almost every available source of news and information. We live amidst an unprecedented flow of information and disinformation that presents challenges and opportunities for each and every one of us. This course is designed to build critical thinking and information mobilization skills that are needed to operate as effective audience members, media-makers, and above all, citizens who take responsibility for their community and the larger world. Learning how to seek out useful information, assess and evaluate information, and repurpose it to make informed decisions is key to becoming perceptive, responsible and change-making citizens.
This course introduces students to critical media literacy from a communication rights perspectiv... more This course introduces students to critical media literacy from a communication rights perspective. Communication rights refers to both the global campaign to institutionalize the human rights for universal interactive communications, and the social and cultural movements around the world that foster people-centered information, knowledge and meaning sharing and deliberative communications. Students will develop both analytical and media skills to better understand the global media system and its limitations and benefits for citizens, and especially the " democratic deficit of the media. " Our starting point will be the current practices of social justice movements, citizens' organizations and educators.
Description The San Francisco Bay area is home to a wide variety of effective social change commu... more Description The San Francisco Bay area is home to a wide variety of effective social change communications projects directed by grassroots citizen's groups, social justice movements, human rights organizations, artists and reform-minded groups of journalists and producers. It is also one of the world's epicenters of alternative and community-based media. This course will take advantage of the local resources, examining this third media sector in the Bay area, as well as looking at some exemplary international projects and efforts. The course will begin by reviewing the historical reasons for the growth of social change media. We will discuss the democratic deficit of the dominant commercial and public service media and the importance of communications among social justice movements and citizens' organizations.
Communications is key to almost all contemporary changes around the world, and especially to the ... more Communications is key to almost all contemporary changes around the world, and especially to the efforts for social, political, economic, environmental and cultural change. This course aims to provide students with a basic understanding of how the global media system works, an examination of some of the best practices by social justice oriented groups, and some practical communications skills. Students will then be encouraged to apply their course learning to their own topical and regional interests. We begin by using the lens of power to examine mediated communications. Who are the key players, what are their rules of engagement and relationships, and what are the dynamics for change? We survey critical facets of contemporary communications capitalism, discussing the role of the new global corporate players, legacy and emerging news and entertainment media, multinational organizations and civic and social justice movements in shaping shared meaning systems, public knowledge, discourse and policy debate, and change. We then review the perspectives and practices of social change groups. How are groups around the world using information and communications technologies to critique the dominant analyses, tell their own stories, articulate their visions and mobilizing to make social, cultural, environmental, economic and political change? Combining study and application, students will develop their own analyses of media content, and practice some of the more educational media techniques used by social change organizations. Throughout the course, students will have an opportunity to develop practical skills in blogging, radio production, media relations, and campaign design.
Class: TR 12:45-2:30pm, EDU 310 kiddd@usfca.edu, 415-422-5061 Office Hours: TR 2:30-3:30pm or by ... more Class: TR 12:45-2:30pm, EDU 310 kiddd@usfca.edu, 415-422-5061 Office Hours: TR 2:30-3:30pm or by appointment DESCRIPTION The San Francisco Bay area is home to a wide variety of social change communications projects directed by grassroots citizen's groups, social justice movements, human rights organizations, artists and reform-minded groups of journalists and producers. It is also one of the world's epicenters of alternative and community-based media. This course will take advantage of these resources, examining this third media sector in the Bay area, as well as some exemplary international projects and efforts. This Senior Seminar examines one of the fastest growing sectors of media practice, and of media research. The course reviews the historical reasons for the growth of social change media. We discuss the democratic deficit of the dominant commercial and public service media, the recognition of the importance of communications among social justice movements, and the growing accessibility of new and old information and communications technologies and networking. Our study examines the range of contemporary alternative media and social change communications. The focus is on four dimensions: 1. composition of producers of communications and media (who?) 2. programming content or stories (what?) 3. participatory practices, forms of expression and meaning-making (how). 4. sustainability and effectiveness of media mobilization as social change (how well does it work?) Throughout the course, we compare the different approaches to social change within this sector, and in relationship to commercial, public service and the growing DIY sector. What social change issues are being addressed? What is the role of communications? How effective is it, for whom and in what respect? What are the future prospects?
MAIS 690-01 Spring 2014 Syllabus 3.1 Dorothy Kidd Professor, Department of Media Studies KA 157, ... more MAIS 690-01 Spring 2014 Syllabus 3.1 Dorothy Kidd Professor, Department of Media Studies KA 157, kiddd@usfca.edu, 415-422-5061 Class: W 7:55 -11:35 AM LM 141A Office Hours: Wednesday, 1:15-2:15pm, Friday, 3:35-4:35pm, or by appointment. Description Fifty years ago, Marshall McLuhan wrote about a "global village" in which instantaneous mass communication would bring us together in "a global embrace," compelling "commitment and participation." Although McCluhan's words are uncritically embedded in popular and academic discourse, his scholarship argued for an appreciation of the ambiguities, contradictions and inequalities within the globalization of communications. Transnational capitalist corporations and national governments routinely use information and communications technologies (ICTs) for purposes of command, control, surveillance and appropriation, as well as circulation of knowledge and sociocultural development. Although social justice movements around the world have themselves taken up ICTs to speak out against harmful state and corporate policies, and organize for social change, other social movements use the same ICTs to circulate hateful messages and mobilize reaction.
A short presentation for the Plenary Panel "Communications, Development and Social Change" at IAM... more A short presentation for the Plenary Panel "Communications, Development and Social Change" at IAMCR Cartagena, July 17. 2017
Uploads
Papers by Dorothy Kidd
Nation states, corporations, and global multilateral institutions are seeking to bring social life under regulation by market imperative, clawing back the hard-fought gains for the “social wage” (including pensions, unemployment insurance, health and safety, child support, education) made by previous generations through various programs of structural adjustment and austerity; and shifting social reproduction from a matter of public and collective concern to one of private and individual responsibility (Lebaron, 2010: 891). In addition, the collective expression of people through cultural forms and practices, and our very “sociality” has been increasingly privatized and commodified (Huws, 2014). Nevertheless, movements are resisting these capitalist imperatives by setting up social barriers to the further commodification of life and nature and creating “communities of care,” and a larger politics of the “common” (Federici, 2010).
This paper draws from several different disciplines, including urban geography (Smith and Winders, 2008), autonomist Marxism (Federici, 2010, Jeffries, 2011) and Marxist feminism (Brenner and Laslett, 1991, Lebaron, 2010) and international political economy (Ruckert, 2010). It builds on previous work on the enclosure/communications commons (Murdock, 2013, Dyer-Witheford, 2007, Jeffries, Kidd, 1998, 2003).
The contemporary commons is often invoked in struggles over cognitive or information capitalism. This paper instead examines the field of extractivism, the shadow side of cognitive capitalism, as territories around the world are exploited for minerals that are then used to manufacture the infrastructure and the hardware for the digital economy, amass gold and silver to offset the always ongoing crisis of finance capitalism, and build older forms of industry. The presentation reviews the ways that mining-affected communities and their allies are utilizing commons-like repertoires.
Guided by student interest and expertise, we will examine several different research approaches and presentation formats. Each student will produce a capstone final project based on their own original research and application of their media skills.