Digital Media & Democracy
OccupyBostonMedia - A Workshop with its Media Activists
As Occupy Boston has taken hold at Dewey Square over the last three weeks, an ad hoc group of digital and new media producers, public relations professionals, off-duty journalists, students, and volunteers planned and staffed an around-the-clock media facility. We will discuss the Media Working-Group timeline to date, challenges of working as a volunteer ad hoc group, experiential learning practices, and surprising wins in local media coverage. We will also cover ongoing Media Working-Group challenges, including documentation and representation of the large, evolving Occupy Boston movement.
Communication and Virtuality in Producing the New Commons
The old concept of the commons is being rediscovered and redefined in our period in the context of the new social and political struggles now sweeping the globe. In this workshop, we examine this concept, focusing on the role played by electronic media in contributing to the generation of the new commons. Topics include struggles over "intellectual property" and the electronic commons, the production of new forms of collaborative art in virtual worlds, and the use of electronic media in creating a political commons in India and other "third world" countries.
Fact-Checking Social Media: How To Avoid Being Hoaxed
While social media like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs can provide invaluable information about current events, these media can also contribute to the dissemination of rumors and inaccurate stories. As many news organizations pressure their reporters to get the story first, this may lead to relying on unverified reports taken from social media sites. But how do we know when something someone tweeted or posted to their blog is accurate?
Teaching Our Communities to Code
Software code is the basic building block of almost everything that happens in our digital world. Yet, too few in our communities have the skills needed to create, modify, and hack the tools and applications that shape our daily experiences. What are the coding challenges faced by our communities? How are you and others responding to challenge? What is working and what is not? How can we create new opportunities to teach, learn, and innovate new applications and tools?
Presenter: Felicia Sullivan